News

Fellow Caite McGrail Joins Kernochan Center

The Kernochan Center is pleased to welcome new Fellow Caite McGrail!  Prior to joining the Kernochan Center, Ms. McGrail was in practice at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She will be contributing to Center research, planning, and programming.

Donald C. Brace Memorial Lecture

On December 4, 2023, Prof. Shyam Balganesh of the Kernochan Center delivered the Donald C. Brace Memorial Lecture for the Copyright Society.  The lecture, entitled "The Judicial Method in Copyright," was held at Fordham University. 

Annual Symposium 2023

The Kernochan Center's annual symposium, in a full day with three panels of distinguished guests, on October 20, 2023, addressed the many questions about the derivative works right which remain in the wake of Warhol v. Goldsmith.  Videos of each of the three panels are now available on the dedicated page: Rearrange, Transform, or Adapt: The Derivative Works Right After Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith.

The First Annual U.S.-Asia Comparative Copyright Law Roundtable: Artificial Intelligence and Copyright Law

On June 10th and 11th, 2023, the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts co-sponsored a two-day symposium on artificial intelligence and copyright law, held in Tokyo at Waseda University.  The symposium brought scholars, government officials, and industry executives together to discuss the legal challenges raised by content-producing machine learning algorithms.

Three panels were featured on the first day of the symposium.  The first panel, on the copyright protection of AI-generated work, was moderated by Professor Jane Ginsburg, and included Register of Copyrights and Director of the US Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, as well as representatives of the governments of Hong Kong, India, and Japan.  Professor Shyam Balganesh and Prof. Ginsburg both spoke on the second panel, which discussed copyright infringement by AI and was moderated by Waseda University professor Tatsuhiro Ueno.  The third panel, moderated by Prof. Balganesh, covered stakeholder views and experience, and included the perspectives of executives from Google, Microsoft, and Tencent, as well as artist Ken Akamatsu, creator of the mangas Love Hina and A.I. Love You.

The second day of the conference was an academic roundtable, with short topic talks from speakers from Google, Singapore Management University, Kobe University, the University of Aberdeen Law School, and Yonsei Law School.  Other academics were invited to the discussion, including Kernochan Center Executive Director Pippa Loengard, as well as Profs. Balganesh and Ginsburg.

Justice Breyer’s Copyright Legacy

On March 20, 2023, Kernochan Center Faculty Director Jane Ginsburg took part in a panel discussion of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer's legacy in copyright policy, hosted by the Copyright Society of America.  Other panelists included Dale Cendali (Supreme Court practitioner and partner at Kirkland & Ellis), David Nimmer (professor of law, practitioner, and author of the updated treatise Nimmer on Copyright), and Pamela Samuelson (professor of law and director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at the University of California, Berkeley), moderated by Regan Smith (lecturer of law at The George Washington University and Head of Public Policy, Government Affairs at Spotify).

"The Art of Looking: Ethics in Photography"

In an increasingly complex world where photographic images can be distributed worldwide with the click of a button, concerns about ethics in the industry are on the rise.  Whether photographing on assignment, in the street, or for purely artistic purposes, photographers are on the front lines.  Where do they draw the line between documenting reality and intruding?

On February 10th, 2023, the Kernochan Center hosted the “The Art of Looking: Ethics in Photography” at Columbia Law School.  Panelists included photographers Nina Berman, Donna Ferrato, Gail Halaban, and Kay Hickman, National Press Photographers Association General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher, Professor Amy Adler, and creative director of Aperture, Lesley A. Martin.  

The Kernochan Center announces the retirement of long-time Executive Director June Besek. 

Ms. Besek began in 1999 as the Center’s Research Director, assuming the duties of Executive Director on the retirement of the Center’s first Executive Director, Adria Kaplan. 

As Research Director, Besek helped prepare the 2001 International Congress of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI).

As Executive Director, Professor Besek was instrumental in expanding the Center’s course offerings and programming.  She taught two seminars, one on the rights of authors, artists and performers, and the other on advanced topics in copyright with Center Faculty Director Professor Jane Ginsburg.  She was an advisor to countless students.  Whether it was shepherding them through the Note process, hiring them as Research Assistants or advising them on career moves, numerous leaders in the IP field who got their start at Columbia Law School note that they were inspired by Besek’s passion for and aptitude in the field of copyright. 

Outside of her Law School duties, Besek was a leader in copyright policy.  She was active in the American Bar Association’s IP section, serving as it’s Chair from 2020-2021.  In addition, she was the ABA’s representative to the ALI’s Restatement, Copyright project, collaborating with Professor Ginsburg to offer extensive comments on the drafts presented thus far.  She also served on the Copyright and Literary Affairs, the Entertainment Law and the Trademark Law Committees of the New York City Bar Association for many years.  She was Vice President and Secretary of ALAI-USA for over 15 years.

A full tribute will appear in our year-end letter, but we wanted to immediately acknowledge her contributions here.

• Prof. Jane Ginsburg received a letter of thanks from  Minister of Justice Lea Danilson-Järg of the Republic of Estonia in gratitude for her important role in shaping Estonia's first copyright law, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of that law.

• Upcoming: Executive Director Philippa Loengard will speak at the Fordham Intellectual Property Journal Symposium (October 6), the New York County Lawyers' Association Art Law Days (October 27-28) and Howard University's Mosaic Conference (October 28-29).

• May, 2020: Jane Ginsburg has begun work on a book of annotated primary sources about the Supreme Court's 1884 Burrow-Giles v. Sarony ("Oscar Wilde photo case") and copyright protection for photographs.

• May 2, 2020: Jane Ginsburg gave an online mini-course at Bocconi University (Milan, Italy) on Platform and Search Engine Liability for Copyright Infringement in the US and EU.

• February 25, 2020: Spring IP Speaker Series: Google v. Oracle, with Joseph Gratz (Drurie Tangri) and Steve Tepp (Sentinel Worldwide).

• February 4, 2020: Spring IP Speaker Series: Copyright and Legal Annotation, with Shyam Balganesh (University of Pennsylvania Law School) and Joshua Johnson (Vinson & Elkins LLP).

• January 28, 2020: Spring IP Speaker Series: Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act with Nancy Wolff (Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams and Sheppard LLC) and Jonathan Band (Jonathan Band PLLC).

• November 12, 2019: Jane Ginsburg delivered the Distinguished Visitor in Intellectual Property Lecture at the National University of Singapore, titled "Fair Use in the United States: Transformed, Deformed, Reformed?" 

• November 4, 2019: Fall IP Lunch Talk: Meet the Artist, with Jonathan Wolff.

• October 25, 2019: Pippa Loengard spoke at the Art Law Litigation and Dispute Resolution conference on Negotiating Artists' Contracts for Installation Art Pieces.

• October 24, 2019: Pippa Loengard addressed the New York City Bar Association panel on Hot Topics in Art Law.

• October 21, 2019: Jane Ginsburg published, along with Luke Budiardjo, '18, the paper Authors and Machines, 34 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL 343 (2019).

• October 19, 2019: Fall IP Lunch Talk: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the Art Market, with Angela Redai and Anne Bracegirdle.

• October 15, 2019: Jack Browning, '13, Jocelyn Hanamirian, '12, and Natalie Russell, '12, spoke on the Kernochan Center's Young Alumni in IP panel.

• October 4, 2019: The Kernochan Center hosted its Annual Symposium: Exploring Copyrightability and Scope of Protection.

• July 1, 2019: June Besek selected as incoming Chair of the IPL Section of the ABA.

• June 24-25, 2019: Jane Ginsburg took part in a conference on public international law and IP, sponsored by Humboldt University.

• June 21-22, 2019: Jane Ginsburg participated in a conference in Berlin organized by the International Law Association to produce guidelines on intellectual property and private international law in transnational litigation.

• May 23, 2019: Building a Responsible Art Market: The Kernochan Center co-hosted a conference on the latest regulatory developments affecting the art market and the practicalities of art transaction risk management.

• May, 2019: Jane Ginsburg took part in the Columbia-Tokyo University exchange program, teaching four classes on US copyright law.

• April 26, 2019: Jane Ginsburg participated on a panel with Judge Pierre Leval on fair use.

• April 16, 2019: Spring IP Lunch Talk: Internet Service Provider Liability, with Michael Elkin, Winston & Strawn, who has litigated many cases involving ISP liability, and Andrew Bart, Jenner & Block.

• April 15, 2019: Jane Ginsburg delivered "The History of Copyright," a guest lecture with Laura Moscati, Sapienza Università di Roma.

• April 9, 2019: Spring IP Lunch Talk: Developments in Fair Use, with Robert Clarida (CLS 1993), Reitler, Kailas and Rosenblatt,  author of  The Copyright Deskbook and co-author of the regular copyright law column in the New York Law Journal, and Dale Cendali, Kirkland and Ellis, who has litigated many high-profile copyright cases.

• March 22, 2019:  June Besek spoke on a Federalist Society Teleforum on the ALI’s Initiative to create a Copyright Restatement.

• March 19, 2019:  June Besek spoke on a panel addressing “Fair Use in the Digital Environment” at USC Gould School of Law’s 2019 Intellectual Property Institute.

• March 12, 2019: Spring IP Lunch Talk: Hyperlinking and Right of Public Display, with Nancy Wolff, Cowan DeBaets, Abrahams and Sheppard, who frequently represents photographers, and Joseph Gratz, Durie Tangri, who has represented Google in several cases, including Authors Guild v. Google.

• February 7, 2019:  June Besek spoke on a panel at the Federal Bar Council’s 2019 Art Law and Litigation Conference on “What Is Art?  How Copyright Law and the Arts Community Each Answer an Age-Old Question.”

• January 17, 2019: Pippa Loengard presented on the fiduciary duties of joint authors at the New York City Bar Association's Entertainment Law Committee meeting.

• January 5, 2019: June Besek spoke on creative works that are not protected by copyright at the AALS Annual Meeting on a panel entitled "Art and Cultural Industries: What Role for Intellectual Property and Copyright Law?".

• November 17, 2018:  Jane Ginsburg speaks at La Sapienza University in Rome on Author's Remuneration in the US and EU.

• November 16, 2018:  Kernochan Center hosts NY Art for Justice Forum in conjunction with Volunteer Lawyers for the Art and Rehabilitation Through the Arts.

• October 30, 2018:  June Besek speaks at CSUSA on anti-bootlegging provisions under the Copyright Act.

• Ocotber 28, 2018:  Jane Ginsburg speaks to Finnish Copyright Society on the right to communicate to the public in light of recent decisions in the US and Europe.

• October 12, 2018:  Kernochan Center welcomes back Michelle Choe '10, Fiona Finlay-Hunt '14, and Jerry Tower '15 at annual Alumni in IP and Entertainment Panel.

• September 12, 2018:  Pippa Loengard speaks on remedies for moral rights infringements at ALAI Congress in Montreal.

• September 6-7, 2018:  Jane Ginsburg speaks at Berkeley Law's Center for Law & Technology Artificial Intelligence conference.

• August 3, 2018: June Besek was elected Vice Chair of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law.

• July 11, 2018: Jane Ginsburg gave a lecture at Loyola University of Chicago, Rome summer program, on Vatican printing privileges and pre-copyright law.

• July 5, 2018: Jane Ginsburg was at Universita del Salento, with a presentation entitled "E se l'autore fosse un computer ...."

• July 3, 2018: Jane Ginsburg participated in a conference on A History of IP in 50 Objects at Universitat di Roma 3, giving a presentation on the 1593 Antonio Tempesta map of Rome.

• June 27, 2018: Jane Ginsburg participated in a conference on IP and Artificial Intelligence at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, giving a talk on copyright law.

• June 6, 2018: June Besek lectured on Legal Measures for Combatting Online Piracy in the U.S. at the International Conference on Intellectual Property and International Trade in Bangkok, Thailand.

• May 30, 2018: Philippa Loengard spoke on "Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Digital Image Licensing" at Fordham University for the Copyright Society of the USA. 

• April 19, 2018: Jane Ginsburg participated in a panel on internation law at the annual  ABA Section of International Law conference in New York City.

• April 5-6, 2018: Jane Ginsburg spoke on U.S. (non)compliance with obligations under the Berne Convention at the Fordham Intellectual Property Conference.

• March/April, 2018: June Besek was interviewed in Landslide on the subject of women in copyright law.  The interview can be found here.

• March, 2018: Jane Ginsburg lectured on U.S. copyright law in the Anglo-American Business Law program at the Sorbonne.

• January 25, 2018: Jane Ginsburg delivered lecture on artificial intelligence and copyright at the Science Gallery of Trinity College, Dublin.

• November 13, 2017:  Jane Ginsburg delivered CSUSA's Meyer Lecture, "Intellectual Property as Seen by Barbie and Mickey:  The Reciprocal Relationship of Copyright and Trademarks."  Register here.

• October 20, 2017:  Kernochan Center Hosted Invitation-Only Round Table on New York's Proposed Right of Publicity. 

• September 26, 2017:  Pippa Loengard spoke at "ADR for Art and Cultural Heritage Disputes," a conference sponsored by Columbia University's Copyright Office and WIPO

• June 29, 2017:  Jane Ginsburg spoke at "MANAGING RISK IN THE DIGITAL SOCIETY. Internet, Law & Politics" organized by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona

• June 5-9, 2017:  Jane Ginsburg taught US Copyright Law at the European University Institute in Florence

• June 4-6, 2017:  Pippa Loengard and June Besek attended Copyright Society of the USA Annual Meeting

• June 1, 2017:  June Besek spoke on Fair Use at Book Expo

• May 18-20, 2017:  June Besek attended and Jane Ginsburg spoke at ALAI Annual Congress

• May 1-5, 2017:  June Besek attended WIPO's 34th Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights

• April 20-21, 2017:  Jane Ginsburg and June Besek spoke at Fordham IP Conference

• March 27, 2017: June Besek participated in "Fairness in Copyright," a panel discussion at the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Copyright Alliance and News Media Alliance

• February 13, 2017:  June Besek spoke on copyright issues at the Actors Fund in New York in connection with the Performing Arts Legacy Project

• February 9, 2017: June Besek participated in a panel discussion on "Copyright Basics for the Digital Age" in connection with the AWP Conference in Washington D.C.

• December 14, 2016:  Jane Ginsburg spoke on copyright and the visual arts at the Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, Vietnam

• November 18, 2016:  Pippa Loengard speaks on Graffiti and Street Art at NYCLA's 9th Annual Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Practice Institute

• November 3-5, 2016:  June Besek participates in Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property Round Table on Protecting Authors' Copyrights on the Web of the Future

• October 27, 2016:  June Besek speaks on Copyright Office Reform at AIPLA Annual Meeting

• July 11, 2016: Kernochan Center files US response to questionnaire for the ALAI 2016 conference on “Applied Arts Under IP Law:  The Uncertain Border Between Beauty and Usefulness.”

• June 22, 2016:  Jane Ginsburg spoke at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya on "Courts Have Twisted Themselves into Knots:  US Copyright Protection for Applied Art."

• June 17, 2016:  Jane Ginsburg spoke at University of Salento on the philosophical and practical bases of copyright.

• June 14, 2016:  June Besek spoke about ALI Restatement of Copyrights at Copyright Society Annual Meeting. 

• June 14, 2016:  Jane Ginsburg delivered a talk entitled, "Copyright and Freedom of Expression an Access to Information" at the European University Institute.

• May 19 and 20, 2016:  June Besek testfied at the Copyright Office Roundtable Hearings on Section 1201.

• May 17, 2016:  Pippa Loengard moderated a Copyright Society panel on graffiti and tattoos.

• May 12, 2016:  June Besek participated in a VLA panel on Hot Topics in Copyright.

• May 2 and 3, 2016:   June Besek participated in Copyright Office roundtable on Section 512 reform.

• April 18, 2016:  June Besek and Jane Ginsburg spoke at Copyright Office symposium on Moral Rights.

• April 5, 2016:  Jane Ginsburg spoke on Recent Developments in Copyright Law at Columbia Law School Alumni event in Seattle, WA.

• March 24, 2016: Best-Selling Author Brad Meltzer Delivered the 29th Annual Manges Lecture. View the video!

• December 16, 2015:  Jane Ginsburg spoke at University catholique de Louvain on policing on-line platforms.

• December 8-9, 2015:  Jane Ginsburg participated in conference at Tel Aviv University on Oxford University Press's upcoming IP Handbook.

• December 3, 2015:  June Besek spoke on Copyright Society panel on termination.  

• December 1, 2015:  Jane Ginsburg submitted comments on Draft of Proposed ALI Restatement of Copyright.

• November 17, 2015:  Pippa Loengard participated in the New York State Bar Association CLE on street art

• November 2015:  Jane Ginsburg is a CIPIL Fellow and Visitor to the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, lecturing on International Copyright

• October 19, 2015:  Jane Ginsburg on the Second Circuit's Google Books decision       

• October 15, 2015:  June Besek and Philippa Loengard met with international visitors from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to discuss IP protection in the US, as part of the US State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program

• October 9, 2015:  Kernochan Center commented on Copyright Office Mass Digitization Pilot NOI

• October 2, 2015:  Kernochan Center hosted annual symposium:  Copyright Outside the Box

• October 1, 2015:  Kernochan Center commented on Copyright Office NOI on Copyright Protection for Certain Visual Works

• On September 14, 2015; June Besek spoke to government representatives with copyright responsibilities from developing countries on “Publishing in the Digital Age” (including topics such as mass digitization, orphan works, open access and piracy) at a seminar on Copyright, Culture, Art and Science in the Digital Age sponsored by the USPTO’s Office of Policy and International Affairs

• On June 17-19, 2015: Jane Ginsburg, June Besek and Philippa Loengard attended ALAI International Congress in Bonn, Germany.  

• On June 8, 2015: Philippa Loengard spoke on graffiti at Copyright Society of the USA Annual Meeting in Newport, RI.

• On June 4, 2015: Philippa Loengard spoke on fraud at NYU Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Symposium.

• On April 23-24, 2015, Brad Greenberg presented his work at the Vanderbilt Junior IP Scholars Roundtable.

• On April 22, 2015: Jane Ginsburg was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• On April 21, 2015: Jane Ginsburg participated at a conference at the University of Pescara and presented on "Copyright and Authors" (in Italian, "Diritto d'autore e autori"). She is also a Resident at the American Academy in Rome, where she is continuing to research 16th-century Papal printing privileges, including for publication on the Primary Sources in Copyright website hosted at the University of Cambridge Law Faculty.

• On April 17, 2015: June Besek spoke about fair use and the “transformative use” doctrine at a symposium at the University of Washington Law School in Seattle entitled “Fair Use in the Digital Age: Campbell at 21.”

• On April 17, 2015: Brad Greenberg moderated a panel on the future of music in the digital age for the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Society (EASLS) symposium at Columbia Law School.

• On April 9, 2015: Jane Ginsburg participated on panels on copyright reform and on fair use at the annual Fordham International IP conference, held this year in Cambridge, UK.

• On April 7, 2015: Jane Ginsburg attended a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the University of Cambridge Law Faculty's Center for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) and commented on a paper on the history of legislation on painters' copyright. She also posted the second of two columns on reforms for authors, this one concerning authors' contracts and describing new laws in France and the Netherlands that require fair remuneration to authors. The first column (posted in February) concerned attribution rights.

• On April 6, 2015: Brad Greenberg published "Copyright Trolls and the Common Law" with the Iowa Law Review Bulletin, his response to a new empirical study of copyright trolling.

• On April 1, 2015: June Besek led a roundtable discussion on Copyright Office Modernization and Autonomy with Mary Rasenberger, Executive Director of the Authors Guild, sponsored by the Copyright Society of the USA.

• On March 27, 2015: June Besek moderated a panel on "Congressional Copyright Review: What's Up for Change and What's Not?" at the ABA IPL Section's Spring Intellectual Property Law Conference. The panel discussed Congress's progress to date in reviewing the current state of the Copyright Act and anticipated next steps.  Panelists included Joe Keeley, Chief Counsel of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet of the House Judiciary Committee; Karyn Temple Claggett ’97, Associate Register of Copyrights; and Steve Tepp of Sentinel Worldwide.

• On March 12, 2015: June Besek spoke on a panel on University Copyright Fair Use After 11th Circuit Reversal in Cambridge University Press v. Patton (Georgia State E-reserves Case) at the ABA IP section spring CLE meeting. 

• On March 1, 2015: Jane Ginsburg spoke at the University of Ottawa on 16th-century Papal printing privileges.

• On February 27, 2015: Jane Ginsburg spoke at the University of Montréal on electronic course reserves and the Georgia State decision.

• On February 17, 2015: Jane Ginsburg published an article with the Media Institute on Authors’ Rights Under “The Next Great Copyright Act,” and Brad Greenberg, along with Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge, spoke on "News Aggregators and News Exceptionalism" at a Kernochan Center Spring IP Series panel.

• On February 6, 2015: Brad Greenberg presented his draft article Black Box Copyright at the Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property conference at the USPTO and George Washington School of Law. In January, he also presented the paper at the Tri-State IP Workshop at NYU School of Law, Mark Twain Fellows workshop at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at George Mason Law School, and the Yale Information Society Project. He also discussed another article, Copyright Trolls and Presumptively Fair Uses, on January 30 at Chapman Law School.

• On January 16, 2015: Jane Ginsburg and Rochelle Dreyfuss '81 of NYU School of Law presented the American Law Institute’s project on Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes at a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seminar in Geneva. The project, for which Profs. Ginsburg and Dreyfuss served as reporters along with François Dessemontet of Lausanne University, provides a comprehensive framework for considering issues of private international law in intellectual property disputes. The group collaborated with the International Law Association to consolidate the recommendations of the ALI project with similar work developed by the Max Planck Institute for the European Union and a consortium of Japanese and Korean intellectual property lawyers interested in streamlining Asian litigation.

• On December 11, 2014: June Besek spoke at the Copyright Society of the USA New York chapter on a panel addressing “Fair Compensation or a Pandora’s Box?  Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and Streaming Radio.”