The Copyright Moment

This Article focuses on the social nature of copyright law, specifically the moment that a copyright is formed. The process of coming to the idea that is eventually copyrighted is a collaborative process, simply because that how ideas are formed. The formation of ideas is collaborative since any one author of an idea will form that idea either by the innate ideas that the author possesses, which Zemer discounts as unusual, or by pairing those innate ideas that the author of the new idea already possesses with new ideas presented by the intellectual environment around the author. Authors of works are often seen to have produced those works from their internal boundless creativity, that is ex nihilo, but Zemer makes the point that that what is created is a culmination of other\u27s contributions, and the copyright process should reflect this

Inhuman Copyright Scene: The Forgotten Law of Art in the Holocaust

Artists, authors, musicians, and other creative individuals formed an integral part of the horrific life in the ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps during the Holocaust. Through their works, Jewish prisoners documented the atrocities of the Nazis and exposed the untold stories of six million Jews who walked or labored to death. The vast majority of the authors of these works were murdered in gas chambers, labor camps, and ghettos. While much has been written about looted works of art, which were stolen from Jewish families during the Nazi occupation, this material covers only one limited subset of questions relating to ownership of works owned or created by Jews during the Holocaust. Scholarship on art and authorship in the Holocaust has failed to legally and morally explore the works that were created in the most extreme circumstances under which copyrighted works have ever been created. This Article aims to remedy this lack of awareness. The Article opens a debate that has no comparable example in human history. The lack of social and legal discourse on property rights vested in works created within the ghettos and concentration camps has created legal anomalies that perpetuate historical injustice. These anomalies, disguised as copyright rules, prohibit legal owners of these works from claiming their rights and restrict public access to these works, while permitting public bodies (such as European and international museums and archives) to make repositories of these works, to declare ownership of the works, and to patronize their social fate and unprecedented historical value. This Article aims to reconcile the unexplored tension between the authorial rights in these works and the public interest in accessing and learning from them. Copyright laws protect and incentivize access to and use of creative voices vested in cultural commodities in a manner that is mutually beneficial to creators and communities of listeners. The creative voices of Jewish prisoners in the ghettos and concentration camps have been continuously silenced since the end of the Holocaust. From the moment they were stripped of their basic humanity in the ghettos until now, more than seventy years later, authors, artists, musicians, theatrical and opera playwrights, and stage actors have yet to receive legal protection in their works. This Article offers the first inquiry into the fundamental law of ghetto art. The Article focuses on works created by Jewish prisoners in the ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps, with the aim to expose the many flaws in the way contemporary copyright laws are used to hold these works captive in institutions where they do not belong, rather than freeing them to the public in order to raise awareness, provide moral respect to their authors, rescue them from illegitimate owners, and deliver historical justice. As the third-generation of Holocaust survivors, we find this Article a moral duty. It is a duty that travels through works of art, music, and authorship and tells the many stories that the creators of the works could not tell. The unsettling findings of our research call for a reassessment of the common standards applied to the use and ownership of copyrighted works created during the Holocaust within the ghettos and concentration and extermination camps—in the most inhuman copyright scene humanity has ever created

European Union Law as Foreign Law

The importance and significance of comparative sources to the development of Israeli jurisprudence is expressed in local legislation and rulings. The impact of foreign law on the development of Israeli law has been analyzed and vindicated in numerous studies in the local legal literature. These studies typically focus on the two most prominent legal systems—-common law (the Anglo-American system) and civil law (the Continental system). The historical reasons for this are clear, emanating from the fact that Israel’s legal system is based on these legal regimes and is amended in the spirit of changes made to them. Over the years, however, Israeli law has developed and has become a diverse mosaic which has appropriated doctrines and interpretations on legal issues drawn from various other legal traditions. One of the most prominent legal systems to emerge in recent years is that of the European Union (EU), currently the largest democratic bloc in the world. Despite its relative novelty, EU law has greatly influenced the development of legal interpretation in Israel. The Article seeks to complete the portrait painted in the study by the research briefly introduced in these authors’ previous Article, The Image of European Union Law in Bilateral Relations, which laid the theoretical and historical foundations of the role played by comparative law in Israeli jurisprudence and outlined the development of Israel-EU relations over the years under discussion. In the Article, the portrait is completed through an integrated empirical and descriptive analysis of Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) rulings, based on a database of all rulings referencing EU law sources in any manner during the years 1948–2016. The Article’s findings indicate a gradual yet continual diffusion of legal norms emanating from EU law into ISC rulings, as the status and resonance of EU law among Supreme Court justices in Israel demonstrate. The referencing of sources drawn from EU law, as evidenced in the findings, has been made, inter alia, in several principal and precedent-setting rulings which carry far-reaching implications. The EU sources cited in these rulings provide the foundations for interpretive, normative, and theoretical inspiration, and at times serve as a base against which local law is either reinforced or challenged. The Article’s findings highlight a perpetual positive trajectory in the number of ISC rulings citing EU legal sources. In addition, they also point to a steep qualitative rise in the size and scope of these citations during the period examined. These findings challenge the perceived absence of EU law from the discussion of comparative law and underscore the role played by EU law in the normative development of the legal systems of third countries which are not members of the EU. The Article’s results fortify the claim that a theoretical and interpretative approximation of Israeli jurisprudence to the theories and norms found in the EU legal system is underway and that this is part of a larger process of convergence between Israel and the EU in all spheres of life

Dialogical Transactions

82 pagesThis Article argues that scholars and the courts were unaware of a fundamental element defining the social reality of contemporary copyright and aims to remedy this lack of awareness. It articulates an innovative approach to copyright by arguing that works of art and authorship are expressions of dialogical transactions both between and among artists and authors, and between them and the public. These transactions have become a defining virtue of cultures that create and distribute the properties of social life through networks of information

Public Trust and Political Legitimacy: Conflict of Interests and the Role of the Parliament\u27s Speaker in Israel and Europe

In its six sections, this Article examines the role of Speakers, the nexus between their many duties and powers, possible points of conflict among their different duties, as well as the connection between their official duties and personal interests. This Article takes the role of the Speaker of the Israeli Parliament as its organizing principle. Sections Two and Three discuss the constitutional underpinnings of conflicts of interest and the way in which these apply to Members of the Knesset. Section Four takes the Israeli Speaker as a test case and explores in greater details the many flaws and conflicts inherent in the present definition of the Speaker\u27s role. Finally, Chapter Five comparatively examines the interplay between the Speaker of the Parliament, the principle of conflict of interests, and other official duties of the Speaker in the context of European jurisdictions

Inhuman Copyright Scene: The Forgotten Law of Art in the Holocaust

Artists, authors, musicians, and other creative individuals formed an integral part of the horrific life in the ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps during the Holocaust. Through their works, Jewish prisoners documented the atrocities of the Nazis and exposed the untold stories of six million Jews who walked or labored to death. The vast majority of the authors of these works were murdered in gas chambers, labor camps, and ghettos. While much has been written about looted works of art, which were stolen from Jewish families during the Nazi occupation, this material covers only one limited subset of questions relating to ownership of works owned or created by Jews during the Holocaust. Scholarship on art and authorship in the Holocaust has failed to legally and morally explore the works that were created in the most extreme circumstances under which copyrighted works have ever been created. This Article aims to remedy this lack of awareness. The Article opens a debate that has no comparable example in human history. The lack of social and legal discourse on property rights vested in works created within the ghettos and concentration camps has created legal anomalies that perpetuate historical injustice. These anomalies, disguised as copyright rules, prohibit legal owners of these works from claiming their rights and restrict public access to these works, while permitting public bodies (such as European and international museums and archives) to make repositories of these works, to declare ownership of the works, and to patronize their social fate and unprecedented historical value. This Article aims to reconcile the unexplored tension between the authorial rights in these works and the public interest in accessing and learning from them. Copyright laws protect and incentivize access to and use of creative voices vested in cultural commodities in a manner that is mutually beneficial to creators and communities of listeners. The creative voices of Jewish prisoners in the ghettos and concentration camps have been continuously silenced since the end of the Holocaust. From the moment they were stripped of their basic humanity in the ghettos until now, more than seventy years later, authors, artists, musicians, theatrical and opera playwrights, and stage actors have yet to receive legal protection in their works. This Article offers the first inquiry into the fundamental law of ghetto art. The Article focuses on works created by Jewish prisoners in the ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps, with the aim to expose the many flaws in the way contemporary copyright laws are used to hold these works captive in institutions where they do not belong, rather than freeing them to the public in order to raise awareness, provide moral respect to their authors, rescue them from illegitimate owners, and deliver historical justice. As the third-generation of Holocaust survivors, we find this Article a moral duty. It is a duty that travels through works of art, music, and authorship and tells the many stories that the creators of the works could not tell. The unsettling findings of our research call for a reassessment of the common standards applied to the use and ownership of copyrighted works created during the Holocaust within the ghettos and concentration and extermination camps—in the most inhuman copyright scene humanity has ever created