Discriminatory Impacts of Facially Neutral Copyright Laws

Robert Brauneis, Copyright, Music, and Race: The Case of Mirror Cover Recordings, available at SSRN.

David Fagundes

Several scholars have shown that while copyright law may appear facially race-neutral, in its application many of its provisions perpetuate systemic discrimination, particularly against African American creators. K.J. Greene, Funmi Arewa, and Candace Hines have each argued that seemingly harmless features of copyright law can interact with industry practices to operate to the disadvantage of African American authors. The pre-1978 copyright statutes, for example, […]