The law blogosphere is abuzz about a paper recently posted to SSRN by Davida H. Isaacs (Northern Kentucky), The Highest Form of Flattery? Application of the Fair Use Defense against Copyright Claims for Unauthorized Appropriation of Litigation Documents, 71 Mo. L. Rev. 391 (2006). The article talks about an issue that should be of great interest to tax lawyers:
Breaking from centuries-old tradition, attorneys have recently begun threatening one another with claims of copyright infringement based on the unauthorized appropriation and adaptation of their legal documents, particularly litigation documents…. The article concludes that many memoranda of law, as well as a small number of complaints, likely contain expression entitled to copyright protection. Nevertheless, courts should permit attorneys’ unauthorized adaptation of copyrighted litigation documents as “fair use” . . . and shield attorneys accused of copyright infringement.
For blogosphere commentary, see:
4 responses to “Can Tax Lawyers Copy from Others’ Memoranda and Complaints?”
They don’t even both to hide it. They copy it verbatim. It annoys me to no end. What makes it worse in my case is that they are clients. One cannot go after clients for copyright infringement.
They don’t even both to hide it. They copy it verbatim. It annoys me to no end. What makes it worse in my case is that they are clients. One cannot go after clients for copyright infringement.
This just shows how avaricious to the point of being brain-dead we’ve become in the sphere of intellectual property.
When I started there was a local bow-tie lawyer who had written a brief on fraud that was so good it was happily plagiarized all day long by everyone who had a case on the subject. It was just expected. No one thought anything about it, except that it helped cement the guy’s reputation as the leading legal light in the community. RIP John Frank.
This just shows how avaricious to the point of being brain-dead we’ve become in the sphere of intellectual property.
When I started there was a local bow-tie lawyer who had written a brief on fraud that was so good it was happily plagiarized all day long by everyone who had a case on the subject. It was just expected. No one thought anything about it, except that it helped cement the guy’s reputation as the leading legal light in the community. RIP John Frank.