Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2005
Abstract
Copyright doctrine . . . is characterized by the absence of the user. As copyright moves into the digital age, this absence has begun to matter profoundly. As I will show, the absence of the user has consequences that reach far beyond debates about the legality of private copying, or about the proper scope of user-oriented exemptions such as the fair use and first sale doctrines. The user's absence produces a domino effect that ripples through the structure of copyright law, shaping both its unquestioned rules and its thorniest dilemmas. The resulting imbalance - empty space where one cornerstone of a well-balanced copyright edifice should be - makes for bad theory, bad policy, and bad law.
Publication Citation
74 Fordham L. Rev. 347-374 (2005)
Scholarly Commons Citation
Cohen, Julie E., "The Place of the User in Copyright Law" (2005). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 61.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/61