How to Find Secondary Sources on Copyright Law
Selected Treatises
Copyright Law and Practice by Call Number: Classified Stacks (KF2994 .P35 1994)Publication Date: 19943 volumes.
Copyright Law in Business and Practice, rev. ed. by Call Number: Reference Area (KF2994 .H35 1998)Publication Date: 1998Designed to answer questions about computer software, software licensing, software protection, Internet copyright liability questions, new legislation for new products, infringement, home taping, copyright registration, public domain issues, and NAFTA copyright provisions.
Available on Westlaw.
Goldstein on Copyright, 3d ed. by Call Number: Reference Area (KF2994 .G65 2005)Publication Date: 2005 (supplemented through 2018)4 volumes.
Also available online.
Nimmer on Copyright: A Treatise on the Law of Literary, musical and Artistic Property, and the Protection of IdeasPublication Date: 1978 to presentAvailable on Lexis Advance.
Patry on Copyright by Call Number: Reference Area (KF2991.5 .P38)Publication Date: 2007 to present7 volumes.
Provides extensive discussion of remedial, jurisdictional, choice-of-law, and international issues relating to copyright law; has been cited by state and federal courts.
Available on Westlaw.
- Law of Copyright by Howard B. Abrams and Tyler T. Ochoa [Westlaw]Updated annually.
Two-volume treatise analyzing the history and debates of copyright law.
CALI Lessons
CALI (Computer Assisted Legal Instruction) includes lessons and tutorials related to many key aspects of copyright law. These lessons are available to the UW Law community (students should visit the law student restricted databases page if you need the CALI authorization code). Examples of relevant lessons include:
- A Copyright Primer (CALI Lesson)Copyright Law may seem shrouded in mystery: how can you create, transfer, and protect property interests in something intangible? This lesson provides an overview of how it is done, focusing on copyright protection for music. This focus takes advantage of the multimedia capacity of the program; for example, you can listen to two musical works to determine whether one infringes the other, and you can listen to the parody version of "Pretty Woman" that figured in a decision of the United States Supreme Court. Students familiar with copyright law will find many resources beyond those they studied in class. Hypertext links take you to cases and statutes, and addresses are provided for web sites where you can obtain additional information.
- Joint Works (CALI Lesson)This lesson explores the concept of a "joint work" in copyright law, including the legal standards which determine whether a work has been jointly authored as well as the legal consequences that attach to this characterization.
- The Distribution Right (CALI Lesson)This lesson provides an introduction to one of the Copyright Act's section 106 exclusive rights, the distribution right. As you will glean from the lesson, the distribution right covers the copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords of copyrighted works by means of sale, transfer of ownership, or by rental. In addition, the distribution right creates a statutory right called the right of first publication.
- Fair Use and Parody (CALI Lesson)This lesson explores the application of the fair use doctrine, a defense to copyright infringement, in the special context of parody, based on the guidance provided by the Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994). The lesson builds on the foundation established in CALI Lesson CPY08, Fundamentals of Fair Use, using a series of hypotheticals and a final essay.
You can see all of the available CALI lessons related to copyright law here:
- CALI Copyright Law Subject OutlineLists all of the available lessons related to copyright law.