How Copyright Got a Bad Name for Itself

This Essay does not attempt a comprehensive review of recent U.S. copyright legislation and caselaw. Instead, it offers an analytical framework that will allow me to be both informative and opinionated. I propose first to expose some examples of the kind of copyright owner overreaching that has correctly given copyright a bad name. I then will argue that not all the bad publicity is deserved. Rather, much of the last years\u27 legislation and caselaw, instead of overreaching, appropriately reaches out to address new problems prompted by new technologies, so as to strike a happier balance between copyright owner, intermediary, and end-user interests (or greeds). This in turn will permit our legal system to continue to afford a hospitable environment for the creation and dissemination of works of authorship, to the ultimate enrichment of the public