| Written by: | Dr. Heiko Spallek / Dr. Titus Schleyer |
| Questions about this assignment? | Dr. Heiko Spallek |
| Prerequisites: | knowledge of basic intellectual property rights issues, copyright legislation, fair use guidelines |
| Outcomes: | The example court case reviews major aspects of the current copyright legislation. |
Background: The purpose of this assignment to understand copyright law in general terms. Statutory law and court cases currently leave fair use of copyrighted material poorly defined and fail to provide effective guidance for the use of others' work. Copyright legislation is undergoing significant change, accelerated by the evolution of computing and communication technologies.
How to complete this assignment: You have been assigned to write a substantiation for Princeton Uni Press v. MD (see details). As source documents, you have available:
Your assignment is to write a 2-page substantiation for the case described in the handout. Please send this by 10/15/2002 as an MS-Word attachment to me. I will redistribute it for peer grading accompanied with the actual court ruling.
Grading criteria: Criteria for grading are based on your substantiation--not on your ruling in the case. This means, the application of the principles taught in class are more important than the decision you make to either reject the appeal or to agree with the defendants.