Prior to the enactment of the Statute of Anne in 1710, the idea of copyright law, remained in the private law context, was in hands of profit-making stationers' company who only served to uphold their own interests in printing the materials. The Statute of Anne deeply affected the American law of copyright (Patterson, 1965) marking the beginning of copyright in a public context. Although the Statute itself had handful of loopholes like it only governed the printing of books and did not stipulate any means to identify the author, it was still often referred as the most authoritative legislation document because of its groundbreaking, historical impact on its protection to the natural and property rights of authors. In my essay, the Copyright Ordinance in Hong Kong will be illustrated to show that it succeeded the spirit of Statute of Anne, favoring the vigorous and prospering development creative work in our city. I would also suggest some ways to amend the Law in the modern circumstances where Web 2.0 Communication Tools reinvented the creative industry significantly. To begin with, the Copyright Ordinance inherited the spirit of the Statute of Anne that it recognized the copyright of owners and respect their originality to a very large extent. At the very beginning of the Text in the Statute, it mentioned that this law served to prevent the liberty of printing, without the consent of the author, to the detriment of him and his family (Patterson and Joyce, 2003). The provisions in subsequent chapters all overturned the tradition of monopoly of publishers (Deazley, 2004) by licensing to the author instead. This fundamental goal of the Statute can be still found in the Copyright Ordinance. Section 4 of the Ordinance is a highly in... ... middle of paper ... ...t Publishing. Deazley, R. (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. Karjala, Dennis S. (2008). "Creativity and Copyright.". Patterson, L.& Joyce, C. (2003). Copyright in 1791: An Essay Concerning the Founers' View of the Copyright Power Granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution. Emory LJ, 52, 909. Patterson, Lyman Ray. "Statute of Anne: Copyright Misconstrued, The."Harv. J. on Legis. 3 (1965): 223. South China Morning Post (2014). Many routes to allowing parodies within Hong Kong's copyright law | South China Morning Post. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1400778/many-routes-allowing-parodies-within-hong-kongs-copyright The Economist (2010). Protecting creativity: Copyright and wrong | The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/15868004
Story, J. (1987). Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
The question raised in the title of this paper is: Are the Bill of Rights, written well over 200 years ago, still relevant today? Of course, they are and probably even more so. To illustrate this fact, we will examine each of the ten amendments, rewrite each one using common everyday language of today, and if possible discuss why this was important in 1791 and why we may or may not need this document in writing today. In restating each amendment, I will try to write it as if it is a brand new document, which is a stretch to say the least. Without the struggle of the colonies through war and abuse by the English Monarchy, would one have the foresight to see how a government may take for granted the rights of its citizenry?
5. Murphy, G. (1996, October 16). Historical Documents: The Bill of Rights. Cleveland Free-Net. Retrieved April 23, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.lcweb2.loc.gov/const/bor.html
Gunther, G. (1991). Constitutional Law. Twelfth Edition. New York: The Foundation Press, Inc. pp. 1154-1161.
Spaeth, Harold J. and Edward Conrad Smith. The Constitution of the United States, 13th ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991 (paper). ISBN 0064671054.
October 5, 2013 in Cornell Law. CRS/LII Annotated Constitution of the United States. Cornell University Law School, Inc. 2013. The. Web. The Web.
"Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789." The Avalon Project. Yale Law School, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
Caruso, David B.. "Harry Potter case illustrates blurry line in copyright law - USATODAY.com." USATODAY.com. USA TODAY, 20 Apr. 2008. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
A V Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (10th ed 1964) 40.
[4] Hickok, Eugene Jr., ed. The Bill of Rights: Original Meaning and Current Understanding. Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1991
“Copyright is a fundamental right of ownership and protection common to all of the arts” (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 8). “It is a form of intellectual Property (IP)” and it gives the owner exclusive rights to the copyright (O’Hara & Beard, 2006, p. 11).
Black, Hugo. 1960. “The Bill of Rights,” Reprinted from New York University Law Review, Vol. 35, April 1960 Online: http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/faculty/gertz/hugoblack.htm. Downloaded 6/12/01
the National Digital Library. “The Bill of Rights.” The Library of Congress. 16 Oct. 1996. 2 Nov. 2003. http://www.memory.loc.gov/const/bor.html.
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
13. Fan Zhang and Dennis Xie, Chinese Copyright Protection Has Storied History, Strong Future, http://www.sourcetrix.com/docs/Whitepaper-China_Intellectual_Property.pdf