Preserving the Copyright Balance: Statutory and Constitutional Preemption of Contract-Based Claims

Abstract

Some copyright owners in the digital age have turned from copyright to contract law to protect their intellectual property, employing licensing agreements that override fair use and other public interest safeguards. State laws or common law claims that conflict with general copyright policy may be preempted through application of Section 301 of the Copyright Act or through general Supremacy Clause preemption. This article examines the role of preemption in protecting the public interest against attempts to circumvent the copyright law through such means. After examining the relationship between copyright and contract law, the article reviews the case law regarding statutory preemption and Supremacy Clause preemption of contract-based claims. It concludes that application of Section 301 preemption is not sufficient to protect longstanding principles in copyright law that are at risk from the increased use of contracts to displace default copyright rules. The article calls for the courts to return to Supremacy Clause preemption to prevent the degradation of important public interest safeguards in the copyright law.