Primary Sources
Legislation
PRINT: Statutes At Large (4th floor stacks) are printed and bound by Congress and Year
ONLINE: HeinOnline has the Statutes at Large in PDF format. The volumes can be browsed by Popular Name and Volume.
Lexis: (requires password)Yes
Westlaw: (requires password) Yes, back to the first session of Congress
Statutes
Federal Copyright Law is codified in Title 17 of the U.S. Code
PRINT:
The official U. S. code, published by the General Printing Office (4th floor stacks)
U.S. Code Service —published and annotated by Lexis (4th floor stacks)
U.S. Code Annotated — published and annotated by West (4th floor stacks)
ONLINE:
The Copyright Office website has the pertinent U.S. Code in both pdf and txt formats.
GPO Access has the US Code in ASCII text format only.
The House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel contains a searchable US Code
Cornell's Legal Information Institute also contains the U.S Code and annotations
Lexis has the U.S.Code Service (USCS) online.
Westlaw has the U.S.Code Annotated (USCA)online.
Federal Regulations
PRINT:
Copyright is in Chapter 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (4th floor stacks).
The Federal Register is the official daily publication for federal agencies (4th floor stacks).
ONLINE:
GPO Access is currently Beta-testing the e-CFR
The Federal Register is also available online on GPO Access (1994-present).
HeinOnline contains both the CFR and the Federal Register searchable and in pdf format back to the first volumes.
Lexis: Current CFR, Federal Register back to 1980
Westlaw: Has the current CFR, Federal Register full content back to 1980, partial back to 1936
Cases
PRINT: In the West Digests and Reporters (4th floor stacks), cases are now listed under the topic Copyrights and Intellectual Property; key numbers 1-100 are Copyright and 101-109 are Intellectual Property.
ONLINE: Cornell's LII has Supreme Court caselaw and Federal court law.
Stanford's law library has an alphabetical listing of important copyright cases .
Willamette Law Online, based at Willamette law school, will send weekly updates of Intellectual Property cases.
Lexis and Westlaw contain up-to-date cases, court opinions, etc.
Secondary Sources
PITTCat
PITTCat is the system-wide University of Pittsburgh Libraries catalog. Use PITTCat to locate books and other materials. It is linked from the Barco Law Library homepage.
Select the Keyword Search option to go to the advanced search screen for PITTCat. Use keywords such as "copyright law" to locate books for your research. Once you have located an applicable record, select the Library of Congress subject headings to find other books on your topic. You can also search directly by subject by entering one of the following subject headings into the search box and selecting Subject under the Search by Option.
Recommended LC subject headings include:
Copyright--Music
Copyright-United States
Copyright licenses--United States
Fair use (Copyright)--United States
Intellectual property- United States
Please note you may need to narrow your search by using a combination of subject heading terms and keyword searching in the advanced search box.
Periodicals
Patent,Trademark & Copyright Journal (PTCJ)
PRINT: KF2979.2 .B8 (3rd floor stacks)
ONLINE:
BNA subscription by IP at Law School computers only
LEXIS AND WESTLAW? YES
Published by BNA on a weekly basis, this journal discusses recent cases, legislative and administrative developments in the intellectual property field. Students can receive email alerts for new issues. The BNA electronic publication contains all issues published since February 15, 1996. More extensive coverage of the PTCJ is included in Lexis and Westlaw. In Westlaw, select the "retrieve the most recent" link to read stories from the most recent issue of the PTCJ.
World Intellectual Property Report (WIPR)
PRINT: K1403 .W67 (3rd floor stacks)
ONLINE: BNA subscription by IP at Law School computers only.
Another BNA publication, this monthly report provides news and analysis of developments in the regulation and enforcement of intellectual property rights worldwide. WIPR contains all issues published since January 1997.
Law Reviews
Both general and the more specialized intellectual property law reviews include articles and notes on copyright issues.
PRINT: All of Barco's periodicals are cataloged in PITTCat. To search for articles use the online legal databases. Barco's print periodicals are in the 5th floor stacks - though the most current volumes are kept behind the reference desk.
ONLINE: HeinOnline has an Intellectual Property Library and all its journal holdings date back to the first volume.
Lexis and Westlaw (JLR) both contain journal databases for full-text searching of articles — they are usually more current than HeinOnline which often lags behind for a year or so.
LegalTrac, an online database, can retrieve citations to relevant articles by searching the author, title and abstract fields. Legaltrac covers articles published from the 1980's to present.
Note: LegalTrac indexes many periodicals, but it won't necessarily provide the full text of the article and has no full-text before 1990.
The Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective by WilsonWeb is useful for historical research; this database indexes legal periodicals published between 1908 and 1981. The ILPR links to the full-text of articles if contained in other databases subscribed to by theBarco Law Library.
Links to HeinOnline, LegalTrac , WilsonWeb, Lexis and Westlaw are all located under electronic resources on the Barco Law Library Page.
Treatises
Nimmer, Melville B. and David Nimmer. Nimmer on Copyright. 11 vols. LexisNexis Mathew Bender, 2001-
PRINT: KF2991.5 .N5 1978 (3rd floor stacks)
ONLINE: Nimmer is on Matthew Bender on lawschool computers only
Lexis: Yes, as part of the Copyright Library; searchable.
Westlaw: No
This leading treatise on U.S. copyright law is the most frequently cited secondary source in court decisions. Early editions were authored by Melville Nimmer, a prominent legal scholar from UCLA. Updated on an annual basis.
Patry, William F. Patry on Copyright, 7 vols. Thomson West, 2007.
PRINT: KF2991.5 P382 (3RD Floor stacks)
ONLINE: Yes, Patry is available on Westlaw (login required).
LEXIS: no
BLOG: http://williampatry.blogspot.com
The first new U.S. multi-volume copyright treatise to be published in seventeen years, this seven volume set provides an exhaustive analysis of copyright law. One of the treatise's strengths is its thorough treatment of copyright statutes and legislative history documents pertaining to the legislation. A unique feature of Patry on Copyright is its comparison of case law by circuit.
Patry on Copyright includes a detailed analysis of remedial, jurisdictional, choice of law, and international issues pertaining to copyright law. Vol. 4 includes an exhaustive analysis of the fair use defense. Vol. 7 includes a table of cases, a table of statutes, and an index. William Patry has created a blog which will include more recent updates to his treatise.
Lindey, Alexander. Lindey on Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts, 3d ed. 8 vols. Thomson West, 1998
PRINT: KF2992.I5 (3rd floor stacks)
ONLINE: Westlaw
This multi volume set deals with transactional law and copyright issues for members of the entertainment industry. The treatise includes an analysis of the copyright law pertaining to various print publications, plays, motion pictures, music, art, photographs and multimedia works. The majority of the treatise consists of entertainment forms. However, Lindey on Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts includes a comprehensive analysis of copyright issues pertaining to motion pictures and music.
Schechter, Roger E. & John R. Thomas. Intellectual property: the law of copyrights, patents, and trademarks, Thomson West, 2003. (On reserve- KF2980 .S34 2003).
This hornbook focuses on intellectual property law. The book provides a brief overview of copyright law in Chapters 1-11 and includes table of cases and index.