A Review of Copyright Decisions in the United States 2018: From Air Jordan to Blurred Lines

Date: Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Time: 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, University of Hong Kong

Speaker: Professor David Tan (Vice Dean (Academic Affairs), Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore)

Abstract: The year 2018 saw a significant number of decisions on copyright law handed down by the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal (with no decisions rendered by the Supreme Court on copyright law). This seminar is a review of the key Circuit Court decisions which cover different aspects of copyright law that include the idea-expression dichotomy, compilation works and fair use in the digital age. Cases include copyrightable elements of the original Michael Jordan photograph (which subsequently became the Nike “Air Jordan” logo), the controversial infringement decision regarding the worldwide hit “Blurred Lines”, and fair use in relation to time-shifting in the TVEyes dispute and in the use of Java API packages by Google.

About the speaker: Professor David Tan is Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law where he oversees the undergraduate and postgraduate coursework curriculum, and is the first to be appointed to the Dean’s Chair there.  He is also the Director of Intellectual Property at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at NUS Law. David holds Ph.D., LL.B. (First Class Honours) and B.Com. degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LL.M. from Harvard. He has been a visitor at Melbourne Law School and the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law teaching courses in intellectual property and popular culture, as well as at the University of Tokyo (Todai) where he taught tort law.

At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment Law, Freedom of Speech and Privacy & Data Protection Law. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression, constitutional law and tort law, and his articles have been regularly cited by the Supreme Court of Singapore. His law publications have appeared in a wide range of journals that include Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Law Quarterly Review, Sydney Law Review, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, Media & Arts Law Review and International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. His monograph, The Commercial Appropriation of Fame: A Cultural Analysis of the Right of Publicity and Passing Off, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. David is also a well-known fine art and fashion photographer in Singapore, having contributed to magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire.

All are welcome! This event has been accredited with 1 CPD point by The Law Society of Hong Kong.  Please sign in at the reception if you need to claim CPD point after the event. 

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