September 24, 1997

Contact:
Yvonne French (202) 707-9191

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David Carson Appointed Copyright General Counsel

Copyright Register Marybeth Peters has announced the appointment of David O. Carson as the Copyright Office's General Counsel.

"David brings with him a wealth of experience as a copyright lawyer and impeccable credentials," said Ms. Peters.

He is a 1981 graduate of the Harvard Law School and a member of the bars of California and New York. His undergraduate work was at Stanford University, where he received the bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in history. He also studied international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1977 and 1978.

Mr. Carson has practiced law for 16 years and is currently a partner with the firm of Schwab Goldberg Price & Dannay in New York City. From 1981 through 1990, he was with the Beverly Hills entertainment law firm of Cooper, Epstein & Hurwitz. He has represented a wide variety of clients including publishers, authors, composers, recording artists, actors, directors, screenwriters, motion picture and television production companies and software publishers. In both firms his work centered on copyright law, with an emphasis on the publishing, entertainment and computer software industries.

He wrote or co-wrote a number of articles on copyright, including "Copyright Protection for Factual Compilations after Feist: A Practitioner's View," published in the University of Dayton Law Review, and "Copyright Protection for Artificial Intelligence Systems," published in the proceedings of the World Intellectual Property Organization Worldwide Symposium on the Intellectual Property Aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He also co-edited a handbook on copyright law, published by the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

He is the principal author of numerous briefs in a number of appeals and in trial courts. These include the brief for the successful petitioner in the landmark Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell and the briefs of the prevailing parties in such cases as Girl Scouts of the United States of America v. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. and Arica Institute Inc. v. Helen Palmer and Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.

Mr. Carson served as chair of the Copyright Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and he is currently on the Board of Directors of that association. He is also active in The Copyright Society of the U.S.A.

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PR 97-156
9/24/97
ISSN 0731-3527