Author
Dennis S. Karjala
Description
This journal article considers the creativity requirement in the unanimous US Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. The author argues that the requirement for creativity in addition to originality to qualify for protection will eventually lead to both under- and over-protection of works, either through market failure or through the expansion of the scope of protection.
Date
2008
Abstract
The abstract provided by the author(s) of this work is as follows:
This article challenges the commonly articulated position that copyright is designed for the protection of “creativity” and argues that the Supreme Court in the well known case of Feist v. Rural Telephone Service was wrong in appending, as a constitutional matter, a creativity requirement for copyright protection. The central thrust is that “creativity” is useless in making the basis intellectual property determination of whether a given work should be (a) protected under copyright, (b) protected under patent, or (c) not protected at all under intellectual property law, because all three categories routinely include creative works, even highly creative works, within their respective spheres. Numerous case examples illustrate the confusion that the Feist creativity requirement has engendered.
Publisher
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Institution
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Journal Title
UCLA Entertainment Law Review
Volume
15
Issue Number
2
Pages (from-to)
169-201 pp.
Jurisdiction
United States
Language
ENG
Size
2.3 MB, 34 pp.
Copyright Information
In Copyright
Rights and Reuse
All Rights Reserved
Cortex Citation:
Dennis S. Karjala, “Copyright and Creativity,” Copyright Cortex, accessed October 18, 2026, https://copyright-cortex.org/research/copyright-creativity.
Dennis S. Karjala, “Copyright and Creativity,” Copyright Cortex, accessed October 18, 2026, https://copyright-cortex.org/research/copyright-creativity.