LAW 664 - Attr & Authen Intel Prop Law

This seminar is designed to explore two issues-attribution and authenticity-that lurk in at least two separate regimes of intellectual property law–copyright and trademark. By preserving a system of indicators of the sources of goods and services, trademark law both reduces consumers’ search costs in the marketplace and, relatedly, encourages producers to maintain consistent quality in the goods or services associated with a particular trademark.These interests are no less important in areas that are traditionally the province of copyright law: books, music, painting, and film, to take just a few examples. For these creative pursuits, source identification serves not only a reader’s, viewer’s, or listener’s interest in selection but also the author’s or artist’s interest in attribution. But neither trademark law nor copyright law addresses particularly well these needs and desires for attribution and authenticity. This course will consider the related problems of attribution and authenticity from the perspective of both trademark law and copyright law as well as consider whether extralegal norms and traditions do a better job of addressing the needs of authors and audiences. Students will be required to participate in class discussions and submit a 10-20 page paper related to the topic of the course.