Question

Hannah wrote and published an Economics textbook. She wanted her book to stand out and thus used an enticing title – “Lucid Reasoning”. Her book is not selling well, and she tries to find out why. She discovers a number of things that concern her:

(1) Anne, an economics teacher, copied one of the 40 chapters in the book and handed them out to her class.

(2) Blake, another teacher, discloses that his only knowledge of economics comes from reading Hannah’s textbook in the library. When he lectures the class on economics, he relies on the knowledge he learned from Hannah’s textbook.

(3) David, the writer of another economics textbook, has used a very similar looking cover for his textbook, and has named it “Lucid Thinking”. He also arranged the chapters in the same order as Hannah’s textbook.

Discuss, in the IRAC format, whether Hannah can successfully sue any of the people mentioned above.

Answer 1

Answer,

We will apply the IRAC format for the given case as below

IRAC stands for I = Issue, R= Rule, A= Application and C= conclusion

Issue: there are three people who have tried to violate the copy right act for Hannah’s textbook Lucid Reasoning. She is struggling in getting good sale for her textbook. The issue is that Anne (economic teacher), has copied one of the 40 chapter of Hannah’s textbook in another book and handed to students. The other teacher Black learned from Hannah’s book and lectured in the classroom. Another teacher David, wrote a similar books with Lucid Thinking and arranged all chapters in similar order.

Rule – The Literary copyright act is applicable here and as per this act, no one is allowed to copy the similar content of any of the author’s literary work and make use for their own literary work. So as per this rule, Anne and David are found to be violating the literary copy right act.

Application: As per the literary copy right act, no other can make the similar literary work of another author, unless seeking written permission as per copy right literary act. Since Anne and David are violated the literary copy right act because they have produced their literary work similar to Hannah’s literary work, hence they will be found legally liable in the literary copy right act.   

Conclusion: As per the application of the literary copy right act, Anne and David are found violating the literary copy right act. Hence Hannah can sue for these people and she can get a successful win for these legal copy right issues.