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Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute

Michael Dunford

Michael

PhD Student

Email: m.d.dunford@qmul.ac.uk

Profile

Thesis Title

The Fanworks Problem After Twenty Years: A Critical Re-Assessment.

Supervisors

Dr Gaetano Dimita, Gavin Sutter

Summary of Research

Uncertainties surrounding the interaction of fan creativity and copyright law have been identified for more than two decades, but a resolution of these issues remains elusive. Mike’s research aims to re-examine these issues using a US/UK comparative law approach, to attempt to find out why a resolution of these issues has proven to be so difficult.

Biography

Mike completed his JD at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa’s William S Richardson School of Law in 2015, obtained an LLM degree in Comparative and International Dispute Resolution with Distinction from Queen Mary University of London in 2016 and a MA (Law by Research) degree in Intellectual Property with Distinction from Queen Mary University of London in 2017. His long-term research interests include further study of the role and impact of copyright law on fandoms and other interest-based communities.

Publications

Michael Dunford, Paramount Pictures v. Axanar Productions: Identifying the Infringed Work When an Unauthorized Production Is Set in an Existing Fictional Universe (2018) 1 Interactive Entertainment Law Review 73.

Research