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INTRODUCTION. .......................................................................................................... 1607
I. COPY-RELIANT TECHNOLOGIES AND THE INTERNET............................................ 1610
A. New Technologies, Copyright Markets, and Copyright Law..................... 1611
B. Four Case Studies of Copy-Reliant Technology........................................ 1616
II. THE DOCTRINAL IMPLICATIONS OF NONEXPRESSIVE USE.................................... 1624
A. The Principle of Nonexpressive Use ......................................................... 1624
B. Doctrinal Incorporation of Nonexpressive Use......................................... 1639
C. Fair Use and Nonexpressive Use.............................................................. 1645
III. THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSACTION COSTS ................................... 1657
A. Transaction Costs and Copy-Reliant Technologies .................................. 1657
B. Transaction Costs and Property Rights .................................................... 1668
C. The Significance ofOpt-Outs in Fair Use Analysis. .................................. 1675
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. 1681
INTRODUCTION
Although we have been living in the Internet age for more than a decade now, its implications for copyright law and the fair use doctrine have only just begun to manifest.1 By expanding the breadth, diversity and sheer number of copyrighted works in existence, the Internet has fundamentally changed the nature of copyright markets. This transformation is most significant in the context of what I term "copy-reliant technologies" - technologies that copy expressive works for nonexpressive ends. Copyreliant technologies, such as Internet search engines and plagiarism detection software, do not read, understand, or enjoy copyrighted works, nor do they deliver these works directly to the public. They do, however, necessarily copy them in order to process them as grist for the mill, raw materials that feed various algorithms and indices.
Other scholars have considered separately the copyright implications of Internet search engines, plagiarism detection software, reverse engineering of software, and the recently settled Google Book Project controversy.2 This Article attempts to provide a unifying theoretical framework for these issues, recognizing them as subparts of a broader phenomenon: the emergence of copy-reliant technology.
Copy-reliant technologies tend to interact with copyrighted works by copying them routinely, automatically, and indiscriminately. These technologies are vital to the operation of the Internet, but they are vulnerable to claims of copyright infringement at key stages of their operation. Copyreliant technologies typically display three significant traits: (1) the copying of expressive works for nonexpressive uses, (2) a high volume of transactions, and (3) the use of technologically enabled opt-out mechanisms to reduce transaction costs. The business models that employ these technologies often inherently require these traits.
The rise of copy-reliant technologies exposes seemingly novel questions. First,...