WALA Symposium

Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts is presenting its Second Annual Arts and Entertainment Law Symposium, Pleading the First: Threats to Free Expression Posed by Arts Funding and Copyright Law. The Symposium will be held on Friday, November 10, at the Georgetown University Law Center Moot Courtroom, 600 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. A bonus panel on the subject of Venture Philanthropy will be held on Thursday, November 9. The Friday program has been approved for 6.0 credits CLE, the Thursday program for 2.5.

The panel likely to be of the most interest to members of this list is Author v. Author: Does Copyright Stifle the Progress of the Arts? (Panel descriptions for all panels follow below.) Speakers for this panel include:
* Julie E. Cohen, Georgetown University Law Center

• Maureen Cohen Harrington, WALA
• Mark Hosler, Negativland
• Justin Hughes, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Matt Jackson, Penn State University
• Michael Landau, Georgia State University
• Rebecca L. Tushnet, Debevoise & Plimpton

As a springboard for discussion, this panel will begin with the presentation of a five-minute Negativland video that creatively uses material from many different sources, arguably infringing upon an interesting variety of IP rights. And Negativland's lawsuit documentary book, FAIR USE: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2, will be distributed along with the Symposium materials.

The Symposium fee is $200 for WALA members; $225 for non-members, and $25 for full-time students. Scholarship applications will be considered. For more information, please contact Maureen Cohen Harrington, WALA Director of Education, at 202-393-2826 ext. 23 or at mharrington[_at_]thewala.org. Information is also available at WALA's web site, www.thewala.org.

I hope to see some of you there. It should be a lively debate!

Maureen

Author v. Author:
Does Copyright Stifle the Progress of the Arts?

Copyright law is intended to promote the creation and distribution of expressive works. Ironically, it is now the principle weapon wielded against a broad category of works: those that incorporate or build upon other works. Transformative appropriation may be found in music sampling, Appropriation Art, collage, and fan-generated fiction. Borrowings that have resulted in litigation include Lo’s Diary, a novel that re-tells Lolita from the girl’s point of view; The Cat Not in the Hat, a spoof of the O.J. Simpson trial told in the style of Dr. Seuss; and String of Puppies, a Jeff Koons sculpture reinterpreting a notecard photograph. The First Amendment – indeed, the very progress of the arts – may suffer when such works are enjoined.

This panel will examine why, in the wake of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, courts continue to struggle with the definition and treatment of transformative works. Commentators have blamed flawed notions of authorship, originality, and the boundary between idea and expression. Some have proposed reforms that would in various ways expand fair use, limit derivative rights, or restrict the use of preliminary injunctions. The panel will analyze these critiques, and will discuss whether suggested modifications could be structured to maintain the incentive of authors to create. This discussion will be informed by developments in Napster, a controversy involving a First Amendment defense, threats of congressional action, and widespread antipathy for copyright law. Panelists include Mark Hosler of Negativland, a band whose notorious copyright activism was inspired by their legal battles with Irish supergroup U2.

Culture and Content Control:
The Impact of Government Funding on Expression in the Arts and Humanities

Ten years after the Mapplethorpe and Serrano controversies, our country continues to debate the appropriate role of public funding for the arts and humanities. At its height, that debate resulted in high profile and arguably punitive restrictions on publicly funded art. At the NEH, meanwhile, public funding of national history curriculum guides prompted the United States Senate to take the extraordinary step of condemning the project. NEA and NEH budgets were dramatically cut. Many artists and cultural organizations now self-censor to avoid re-animating the scrutiny and anger of Congress and the public.

In discussing government funding of arts and culture, this panel will consider the Finley case upholding the constitutionality of decency clauses, and the recent Brooklyn Museum litigation. The panel will examine whether First Amendment rights are implicated more by the imposition of content restrictions on publicly funded art, or by the subsidization of art by disapproving taxpayers. The panel will also discuss whether government funding promotes, or – as critics have suggested – stifles artistic expression.

Bonus Panel (to be held on Thursday, November 9): Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Capitalism: The Future of Philanthropy?

Traditional sources of funding for nonprofits – individual donors, public funding, and project grants from foundations – leave many nonprofits financially insecure and unable to achieve their larger social goals. Many nonprofits and philanthropists are now considering new business models to eliminate that historic dependence on external sources of funding. These models range from an unrelated revenue-generating program operated within the nonprofit to the creation of a separate for-profit affiliate that provides income to the nonprofit.

This panel will discuss these new models, venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, and their ability to address the endemic problems of nonprofits without jeopardizing the social good that nonprofit corporate missions provide. The panel will also cover tax law considerations for alternative nonprofit business structures, including the taxation of unrelated business activity income and appropriate structures for the operation of for-profit affiliates. Received on Thu Oct 26 2000 - 23:42:13 GMT