US copyright law is based on the Constitution and English law. Court cases have set precedents for what is protected, including new media. Cases have also defined finer points, such as the protection of similar characters. New technologies have also been subject to copyright infringement cases. Other countries have their own laws and procedures.
Major copyright infringement cases in the United States set the precedent for what is and isn’t protected by copyright. Some cases have extended protection to new media that didn’t exist when the laws were originally written. Others have determined the finer points and specifics of copyright protection. In the United States, case law is cited as precedent for subsequent cases, effectively becoming part of the law itself. Other countries have their own laws and procedures that will apply to their own copyright infringement cases.
United States copyright law was established by Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and was based on a 1710 English law. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1831 outlined the details of protecting creative works. These were further defined by later laws, as well as copyright infringement cases decided by the courts. One of the first such cases, Baker v. Selden of 1880, established that ideas alone could not be copyrighted, only their expression as a work of art. An equally significant case in 1884, Burrow-Giles v. Sarony, established copyright protection for the new art form of photography.
A 1930 case, Nichols v. Universal Pictures, determined that the creation of similar characters did not always constitute copyright infringement; in other words, Shakespeare, if he were still alive, couldn’t sue the producers of West Side Story. This has limitations, however; the 1952 case National Comics v. Fawcett Publications decided that Fawcett’s Captain Marvel character was too similar in powers and appearance to National’s Superman. Ironically, when National, aka DC Comics, later acquired the rights to Captain Marvel, they couldn’t print the character’s name on the comic book covers, as the name had been copyrighted by rival Marvel Comics in the meantime.
Another comic book case, Irving Berlin v. EC Publications in 1964 – the publisher of Mad Magazine – ruled that song parodies do not infringe copyright, even if they use similar music to the original. This is why Weird Al Yankovic faces no lawsuits for his numerous apt song parodies. Even that has its limits, as was demonstrated when music publishers filed copyright infringement cases against sampled music in the 1980s. The defining case was Grand Upright Music v. Warner Bros. 1991. After this case was decided, rappers and other musicians had to obtain permission for all sampled music, usually by paying usage fees as well.
New technologies are often subject to copyright infringement cases. Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, the so-called Betamax case of 1984, allowed the sale of VCRs and the creation of the billion-dollar home video market. Apple v. Franklin Computer, in 1983, extended copyright protection to computer software. A&M Records v. Napster and similar cases from 2001 ruled that online file sharing was copyright infringement and that file sharing software vendors were liable. A 1995 case, Religious Technology Center v. Netcom, had already decided that Internet service providers were not liable in such cases until they knew about the breach.
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