“Making Available,” Linking and Free Expression

CoPRESENTED by the Chicago Bar Association intellectual property Committee

Even
though the U.S. has signed on to WIPO Copyright Treaty Article 8, providing
that authors will have the exclusive right to the “communication to the public”
and “making available” of their works, this right is not mentioned in the
Copyright Act.  The Copyright Office
recently argued that the “making available” right is subsumed by the bundle of
rights in Section 106, but in view of the First Amendment, there are serious
doubts as to whether the U.S. can fully embrace the concept of “making
available” adopted by other countries.

We are pleased to have Kevin Tottis of TottisLaw speak on the “making available” right and its tension with the
First Amendment.  Kevin currently sits on the Committee on Copyrights of
the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriètè Intellectuelle
(AIPPI) and chairs the U.S. working group on this topic, which will be debated
at the AIPPI World Congress in September. 

1 Hour of Illinois CLE Credit Pending

FREE, BUT PLEASE REGISTER

Kevin Tottis heads up TottisLaw, a commercial and IP litigation boutique in Chicago he opened in 1996 after several years as a partner in a national law firm. With 30 years of litigation experience, he’s first-chaired dozens of matters for clients across the country and successfully handled cases in all areas of intellectual property, representing consumer products companies, academics, content providers and manufacturers. His clients include Fortune 500 companies, not-for-profits, entrepreneurs and individuals.
Kevin is a Fellow of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and recently completed a term on the Association’s Board of Directors. He previously chaired AIPLA’s Copyright Law Committee and also appeared as AIPLA’s counsel of record before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Association’s amicus filing in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., addressing the extra-territorial effect of the Copyright Act’s first-sale provision. He’s served as secretary and board member of the U.S. group of the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriètè Intellectuelle and currently sits on AIPPI’s international umbrella organization’s Committee on Copyrights. He also chaired the AIPPI U.S. group’s team addressing linking and making available at the 2016 Annual Congress in Milan. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Copyright Society of the USA.

Kevin is an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association and on the faculty of the Practising Law Institute. He’s been recognized as a Martindale Hubbell AV Preeminent-rated attorney for the past 20 years and has been named an Illinois Super Lawyer since 2010. He sits on the Board of the Lawyers Club of Chicago and the Board for Student Publications at his alma mater, The University of Michigan, where he received both his undergraduate and law degrees.

Are you new to the Copyright Society of the USA? To learn about the benefits of your membership, please visit www.csusa.org.

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