Copyright (c) 2008 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/darrin_henning Recent documents in Darrin Keith Henning en-us Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:32:23 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/darrin_henning/2 http://works.bepress.com/darrin_henning/2 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 15:31:54 PDT The judicial application of copyright law to digital sampling has led to ever increasing prohibitions on use of music samples, leading to a near prohibition of unlicensed sampling. Current literature tends to analyze how sampling fits into the legal framework, but not how that legal framework affects society. There currently exists a market failure in the music industry in the form of prohibitively costly licensing fees for music samples. Following the development of jurisprudence of digital sampling, I conclude that an erosion of the de minimus use defense by the courts have had a disparate racial impact, thereby eroding rap's original purpose as a medium for critical social discourse. Darrin Keith Henning Intellectual Property Law Law and Society http://works.bepress.com/darrin_henning/1 http://works.bepress.com/darrin_henning/1 Sun, 07 Oct 2007 15:20:25 PDT Changes in copyright law over the last several decades have created a proliferation of orphan works, or works for which no copyright owner can be found. People wishing to use or adapt these works are unable to obtain permission, and so their status hampers business development and limits the free exchange of new ideas. This paper investigates the problem of orphan works and the various proposed solutions. It concludes by rejecting all proposed solutions and suggesting a new and novel solution that avoids the economic pitfalls of others, while maintaining the policy balance sought by modern copyright law. Darrin Keith Henning Intellectual Property Law