فهرست مطالب شیرین شریف زاده

The copyright law establishes exclusive material rights for all creators of cinematic works as a common practice. This right includes all plans, scenes, and sequences within the work.  However, all literary and artistic works, especially cinema, often contain subjects and situations that naturally derive from dominant themes and basic ideas. Accordingly, copyright protection would lead to an unjust unlimitedly authorization for the creator of these works. The doctrine of similar scenes acts as a restrictive principle supporting literary and artistic works. It states that elements of a work which are commonplace and customary, or contain conditions and characteristics that are integral and typical within a specific style of literary and artistic work do not fall under copyright protection. This doctrine guarantees that creators of cinematic works cannot monopolize themes, ordinary scenes, cliché characters, and common storylines. Therefore, this research aims to clarify the elements and characteristics of this doctrine in copyright law. Through using judicial approach, I seek to address how and to what extent this doctrine is employed in cinematic works. The findings reveals that the doctrine of similar scenes in cinematic works permits the removal of copyright support for similar and common scenes and plans in a specific style and genre that do not originate from the creator's active imagination and lack originality. Moreover, it encourages creators of cinematic works to produce higher-quality works.

Legal systems have taken different approaches to Copyright infringement but the ultimate purpose of them is to prevent the intentional and unjust appropriation of the rights of the creators. The proof of copyright infringement is easy when some rights such as reproduction is infringed or literal appropriation has taken place. However, it would be difficult to prove infringement when the plaintiff claims that defendant appropriated a material amount of his original work with some differences. The main question is how much similarities are too much? there is no definitive standard in the law, but courts believe that infringement occurs when the defendant’s work bears a substantial similarity to plaintiff's work and to achieve that they have introduced various tests. This article seeks to explain the concept of substantial similarity in Copyright infringement and the way to achieve it. The result of the research is the choice of one or more tests from the four available tests depending on the type and nature of the work. However, in all choices, it is necessary to separate protected from unprotected elements and dichotomy between idea and expression in the work. This article also show that qualitative similarities are more important than quantitative similarities.

Freedom of expression includes the freedom to express, access and dissemination of information, whereas copyright, by protecting the original works of authorship, restricts use, access and dissemination of the protected works. When an expression is protected by copyright, freedom of expression or press can be restricted. Some are of the opinion that these two rights are, in fact, not in conflict with each other but rather derived from the same social values seeking to protect each right. Common goals such as flow of cultural ideas or promoting creativity in the society causes interaction and synergy between the two. Idea-expression dichotomy by determining the scope of the copyright and distinguishing what belongs to the public domain, which is not a protected, will ensure a constructive interaction between the two and protects the public interest and dose not restrict freedom of expression. This article will discuss how to strike a balance between the public interest in freedom of expression and the private interests of the copyright owners without undermining the other. Idea-expression dichotomy as a counterbalance between these two rights is the cornerstone of this article.

A “compilation” is a work formed by the collection and assembling of pre-existing materials or of data that are selected, coordinated or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship, such as periodical issue, anthology, encyclopedia, telephone directory, etc. Since the prerequisite for protection of copyright works is originality, this question arises whether these works are original and may also be copyrightable. The meaning of originality is not defined in the majority of national copyright legislations. Instead, the interpretation of what is to be original has been left mainly to the courts. Courts have different opinions regarding the definition of originality and its conditions. However, the Supreme Court of United States in the Feist case put an end to this division.
This article attempts to study the notion of originality of compilations works by analyzing the Feist case in order to answer whether compilation works have any originality and if the answer is yes, what is its scope.

International conventions and provisions in the context of literary and artistic works law can legislate direct and indirect criteria for protection.These criteria that have been founded in the traditional definitions and categorizations of art,can not contemplate a vast area of the contemporary arts.What we know as contemporary art today has a set of unique features that do not follow the traditional artistic framework and rules.The contradicting features of this form of art lead it to a form of pluralism.some artwork like events are self-demolishing or contain a deteriorating element.The necessity of originality,idea/expression dichotomy and fixation of literal and artistic work in materialistic mediums are challenged in many forms of contemporary art,and in some cases,the art piece never finds a materialistic form.Due to the extent of the concept of art in the modern world.This article tries to investigate how international laws could protect artwork and find out how much current literal and artistic laws can support them.

Contemporary artistic works are a part of art that because of their particular nature cannot be fitted into the definition and requirements of traditional art. Such works fit uneasily into the concepts of originality, idea-expression dichotomy and fixation as conventional copyrights works do. This results in lack or inadequacy in protection of these works within national and international laws. Since some claim that the originality as a condition for protection in its traditional sense is absent in contemporary artistic works, a significant number of cases have been filed as such works in many cases infringe the rights of previous right holders. Citing the fair use doctrine under section 107 of United States’ copyright act 1976, United States’ case law tend to protect contemporary artistic works. This Article tries to clarify the differences between the characteristics of such works with the requirements defined at international level for protection and examine the United Stateschr('39') case law to find how and under what conditions contemporary artistic works can be protected with the fair use doctrine.