Dear Colleague:
 

You will very shortly receive a complimentary copy of COPYRIGHT LAW: FIFTH EDITION (LEXIS Publishing 2000). We encourage you to examine it closely as you consider your casebook selection for the 2000-2001 academic year.
 

The book's Table of Contents is enclosed. Please take a moment, in particular, to note the asterisked items, i.e., those entries that have been significantly revised from the Fourth Edition published in 1998. The appearance of the Fifth Edition only two years after its predecessor reflects both the rapidity of change in copyright law and practice and our commitment as authors to providing you the most useful and timely resource available in the field.
 

Speaking of timeliness, you will see that COPYRIGHT LAW: FIFTH EDITION contains careful treatment of all of the recent and pending treaties, enactments and legislation that you need for your classes. These include the 1996 WIPO Copyright and Performances & Phonograms Treaties, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, the Fairness in Music Licensing Act, the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act, the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act, and the various database protection bills now before Congress.
 

We also have the most recent important decisions, including the Florida Prepaid cases (U.S. Supreme Court 1999; sovereign immunity); Martin v. City of Indianapolis (7^th Cir. 1999; moral rights); Matthew Bender & Co., Inc. and HyperLAW, Inc. v. West Publishing Co. (2d Cir. 1999; scope of protection for judicial reports); Alcatel USA, Inc. v. DGI Technologies, Inc. (5^th Cir. 1999; copyright misuse); Katz, Dochtermann & Epstein, Inc. v. Home Box Office (S.D.N.Y. 1999; preemption of state laws); Micro Star v. Formgen Inc. (9^th Cir. 1998; adaptation right); Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc. (2d Cir. 1998; conflict of laws); and more.
 

Besides state-of-the-art materials, our casebook continues its leading-edge role in presenting comprehensive, integrated treatment of major themes and trends in this ancient but ever-changing body of law. For example, other Copyright casebooks recently have begun removing software (and digital) issues from their familiar position in a separate chapter near the end of the book. By contrast, our casebook has marbled those issues throughout the work since 1985. We were also the first to provide full, up-front treatment of international and comparative law issues, which receive continuing, extensive exploration from cover to cover - and indeed ours is still the only book to do so.
 

Finally, in making your decision for the coming year, please consider the following particularly helpful features of COPYRIGHT LAW: FIFTH EDITION:
 

• •The most extensive Cumulative Supplement available, providing fully up-to-date statutory and legislative materials, new cases, useful documents and summaries concerning the digitalization and globalization of copyright law, and the fullest bibliographic resource of any book in the field.
• •The only Copyright casebook to offer a supporting homepage (www.law.uh.edu/faculty/CJoyce/cjoyce.html) for adoptor and student reference.
• •The only Copyright casebook with its own Teacher's Manual (5^th Ed. available in Summer 2000).

 

Sincerely,
 
 

Craig Joyce	Bill Patry	Marshall Leaffer	Peter Jaszi
University of Houston Law Center	Cardozo School of Law Yeshiva University	Indiana University School of Law	Washington College of Law American University