U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 8: " The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; . . .." http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/

U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, http://www.copyright.gov/ with, among other things, its links to the Copyright Law, http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org and "Choosing a License" http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/

Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, "Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law," http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/

Example of actual, stock book contract offered an author (Gregory Johnson) by a publisher (Gibbs Smith Publisher), book-contract.doc, and as revised and returned by the author to the publisher, book-contract-rev2.doc, at the outset of negotiations.

Description of LA creative community's challenges and attempted solutions in protecting "ideas." Sandy Cohen, "'Stolen' Ideas Big Business in Hollywood," Herald-Sun, November 9, 2006, plus the claims of "The Real Borat?" scap1109.html.

Here's yet another approach to copyright and publication (of hardback and paperback books) in the 21st Century of the Internet, Facebook, Web pages and blogs: http://www.lulu.com. It's interesting intellectually (just learning about new stuff), in terms of this course, as an example of the "billion-dollar bonanza," and also because it might actually be something you'd want to use for your own writing.

And see, Erin Carlson, "'Borat' Victims Upset at Being Duped," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 14, 2006, for a range of issues we've been talking about in addition to copyright as such, e.g., if participants in a film have signed waivers/releases based on false or misleading representations regarding how they will be portrayed, do they, should they, have any legal recourse?

Even long prior to the Internet copyright had a major role to play in global trade. (See, e.g., the Berne Convention of 1886, pp. 800-801 in the text.) But the digitization of intellectual property -- "knock-off" physical things (clothing, watches) as well as DVDs of movies, music and computer software CDs -- has only intensified the problems. Here is a story from this week (November 15, 2006) regarding  U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez' current mission and talks in Beijing that is directly on point with what we're talking about in class -- carried to the world stage. Edward Cody, "U.S. Warns China on Piracy, Market Access," Washington Post, November 15, 2006. I have highlighted in red the four or five paragraphs of greatest IP/copyright relevance.

There are other matters of interest to, and impact on, you in the story. China, roughly one-fourth of the world's people and perhaps the fastest growing economy, will continue to play an ever-increasing role over the next 50 years in your lives -- both professionally and personally. The story touches on just a few of the reasons why, e.g., our $200-billion-plus negative balance of trade, and the impact of the value of the yuan to the dollar.