The class will meet Mondays, Wednesdays & Thursdays from 12:50 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. in room 270.

My office is Room 743. My telephone number is 312-906-5326 and my e-mail address is rstaudt@kentlaw.edu. My computer is always on while I am in the law school and I encourage you to send messages to me by electronic mail.

The casebook for Copyright Law will be Gorman and Ginsburg, Copyright, Cases and Materials, (7th ed., 2006) published by Foundation Press with its 2006 Statutory Appendix.

Assignments are posted in the Assignments section of the website. The assignments are tentative and will be adjusted as we proceed through the material. Review the website regularly.

For the first class please read pages 1-18 in the Gorman and Ginsburg casebook.

I plan to take advantage of the technological support that the law school has available to help us investigate Copyright Law. Everyone should have 24 hour access to LEXIS and to the Internet so that we can read the newest material available. If you need more training in the use of the computer databases, let me know. In addition, I consider e-mail to be an extension of class. I have established a web site for our class and posted this document and other pertinent information. The class web site URL is http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/rstaudt/classes/copyright_spring2007/index.htm. To expose you to perspectives on teaching and learning other than my own, I will assign CALI lessons as distance learning exercises to substitute for an occasional cancelled class.

The bulk of the grade in this course will be based on your performance on the final examination. I have not yet decided on the form of the final, but I expect that it will be rather traditional. I may change my mind before May. I will probably allow you to bring your casebook, other materials and any of your own notes. I will not allow copies of scarce resources like the major treatises.

To encourage your active involvement during the semester, one-half of a grade differential may be based on class preparation and participation. In other words, I will grade the exams and assign a grade. If you are a conscientious, insightful and effective member of the class, your grade may be raised from your exam grade to one-half letter grade higher. If you are frequently unprepared and fail to participate, I will consider that performance in lowering marginal examination grades by one-half of a grade. If you are somewhere in between, I may exercise my discretion to raise your grade by one-half grade depending on the level of your class performance and the proximity of your exam grade to the nearest margin.

I consider electronic mail to be an opportunity to extend the class beyond its usual form and time limits. E-mail to me (which I will forward to all class members, unless you specifically ask me to keep a message private) is counted as part of your class participation in the course.

All students must attend at least 75% of the classes in this course. There are 42 classes. You must be present for at least 31 of these classes.

Any student who does not attend the minimum number of classes has not met a requirement for getting credit for the course and may not take the Final Examination. Keep your own count. Sometime after the last class, but before the hour of the Examination, a list of students who meet the minimum attendance requirement and are qualified to take the Final Exam will be posted outside Room 743. This is not an "excuse" system; a student's reason for nonattendance is not of interest.

A class roster will be passed around each class; your own signature after your printed name will be the only evidence of your presence that day, for the entire class. If you leave shortly after the class begins, your signature should not remain on the class roster indicating you attended that class.

Distance Learning Project

I will be unable to meet our regular class on January 31. Instead of a traditional class on that day, do the CALI lesson titled, Fixation Requirement. The Assignments page will also point to some companion reading in the casebook.