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Fetishizing Copies, Jessica Litman Jan 2017

Fetishizing Copies, Jessica Litman

Book Chapters

Our copyright laws encourage authors to create new works and communicate them to the public, because we hope that people will read the books, listen to the music, see the art, watch the films, run the software, and build and inhabit the buildings. That is the way that copyright promotes the Progress of Science. Recently, that not-very-controversial principle has collided with copyright owners’ conviction that they should be able to control, or at least collect royalties from, all uses of their works. A particularly ill-considered manifestation of this conviction is what I have decided to call copy-fetish. This is the …


Financial Reform: Making The System Safer And Fairer, Michael S. Barr Jan 2017

Financial Reform: Making The System Safer And Fairer, Michael S. Barr

Articles

In the fall of 2008, the financial crisis crushed the U.S. economy and plunged the country into the Great Recession. The crisis shuttered American businesses, cost millions of Americans their jobs, and wiped out home values and household savings. The macro effects hit hardest and were the longest lasting for those least able to bear the brunt of the crisis. It was devastating to middle-income families and perhaps even more so to low- and moderate-income households, who had little financial buffer (Barr 2012a). Financial stability, never robust for these families, dropped precipitously (Barr and Schaffa 2016). Both in the United …


Resolving The Divided Patent Infringement Dilemma, Nathanial Grow Nov 2016

Resolving The Divided Patent Infringement Dilemma, Nathanial Grow

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers cases of divided patent infringement: those in which two or more parties collectively perform all the steps of a patented claim, but where no single party acting alone has completed the entire patented invention. Despite the increasing frequency with which such cases appear to be arising, courts have struggled to equitably resolve these lawsuits under the constraints of the existing statutory framework because of the competing policy concerns they present. On the one hand, any standard that holds two or more parties strictly liable whenever their combined actions infringe a patent risks imposing liability on countless seemingly …


Pushing An End To Sanctuary Cities: Will It Happen?, Raina Bhatt Oct 2016

Pushing An End To Sanctuary Cities: Will It Happen?, Raina Bhatt

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Sanctuary jurisdictions refer to city, town, and state governments (collectively, localities or local governments) that have passed provisions to limit their enforcement of federal immigration laws. Such local governments execute limiting provisions in order to bolster community cooperation, prevent racial discrimination, focus on local priorities for enforcement, or even to a show a local policy that differs from federal policy. The provisions are in the forms of executive orders, municipal ordinances, and state resolutions. Additionally, the scope of the provisions vary by locality: some prohibit law enforcement from asking about immigration status, while others prohibit the use of state resources …


Can Prostitution Law Reform Curb Sex Trafficking? Theory And Evidence On Scale Substitution, And Replacement Effects, Simon Hedlin Sep 2016

Can Prostitution Law Reform Curb Sex Trafficking? Theory And Evidence On Scale Substitution, And Replacement Effects, Simon Hedlin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Sex trafficking, a pervasive problem in many parts of the world, has become increasingly salient to policymakers and the general public. Activists, politicians, and scholars continue to engage in debates about how best to curb it. This Article discusses one especially contentious dimension of these debates: does banning prostitution reduce sex trafficking? Or is legalizing prostitution the optimal approach? Or is there a third, better way? Proceeding both theoretically and empirically, this Article seeks to cast light on the relationship between different types of prostitution laws and the prevalence of sex trafficking and human trafficking. It attempts to make three …


Shedding Light On The "Going Dark" Problem And The Encryption Debate, John Mylan Traylor Sep 2016

Shedding Light On The "Going Dark" Problem And The Encryption Debate, John Mylan Traylor

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In an effort to protect the enormous volume of sensitive and valuable data that travels across the Internet and is stored on personal devices, private companies have created encryption software to secure data from criminals, hackers, and terrorists who wish to steal it. The greatest benefit of encryption also creates the biggest problem: Encryption software has become so secure that often not even the government can bypass it. The “Going Dark” problem—a scenario in which the government has obtained the legal authority to search a suspected criminal’s encrypted device but lacks the technical ability to do so—is becoming increasingly common. …


Protecting Personal Information: Achieving A Balance Between User Privacy And Behavioral Targeting, Patrick Myers Jan 2016

Protecting Personal Information: Achieving A Balance Between User Privacy And Behavioral Targeting, Patrick Myers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Websites and mobile applications provide immeasurable benefits to both users and companies. These services often collect vast amounts of personal information from the individuals that use them, including sensitive details such as Social Security numbers, credit card information, and physical location. Personal data collection and dissemination leave users vulnerable to various threats that arise from the invasion of their privacy, particularly because users are often ignorant of the existence or extent of these practices. Current privacy law does not provide users with adequate protection from the risks attendant to the collection and dissemination of their personal information. This Note advocates …


Finality And Judicial Review Under The Immigration And Nationality Act: A Jurisprudential Review And Proposal For Reform, Jesi J. Carlson, Patrick J. Glen, Kohsei Ugumori Jan 2016

Finality And Judicial Review Under The Immigration And Nationality Act: A Jurisprudential Review And Proposal For Reform, Jesi J. Carlson, Patrick J. Glen, Kohsei Ugumori

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), aliens may petition for judicial review of an adverse decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board) as long as that decision constitutes a “final order of removal.” Usually it is not difficult to ascertain when an alien should file her petition: the thirty-day statutory filing deadline begins to run when the Board issues a decision that affirms the immigration judge’s removal order in its entirety. In some cases, however, an alien seeks multiple forms of relief from removal in a single proceeding. When that occurs, some forms of relief might be granted, …


No More Quid Pro Quo: Abandoning The Personal Benefit Requirement In Insider Trading Law, Shannon Seiferth Jan 2016

No More Quid Pro Quo: Abandoning The Personal Benefit Requirement In Insider Trading Law, Shannon Seiferth

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A circuit split between the Second Circuit’s 2014 decision, United States v. Newman, and the Ninth Circuit’s 2015 decision, United States v. Salman, illustrates problems in insider trading law dating back over thirty years to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dirks v. SEC. Dirks held that when a corporate insider provides information to an outside party who then trades on the information, it must be shown that the insider received some form of a personal benefit for providing the information in order to impute liability. The courts in Newman and Salman disagreed on the sort of evidence …


Left Behind: The Dying Principle Of Family Reunification Under Immigration Law, Anita Ortiz Maddali Jan 2016

Left Behind: The Dying Principle Of Family Reunification Under Immigration Law, Anita Ortiz Maddali

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A key underpinning of modern U.S. immigration law is family reunification, but in practice it can privilege certain families and certain members within families. Drawing on legislative history, this Article examines the origins and objectives of the principle of family reunification in immigration law and relies on legal scholarship and sociological and anthropological research to reveal how contemporary immigration law and policy has diluted the principle for many families—particularly those who do not fit the dominant nuclear family model, those classified as unskilled, and families from oversubscribed countries—and members within families. It explores the ways in which women and children, …


Congress And The Reconstruction Of Foreign Affairs Federalism, Ryan Baasch, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash Jan 2016

Congress And The Reconstruction Of Foreign Affairs Federalism, Ryan Baasch, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash

Michigan Law Review

Though the Constitution conspicuously bars some state involvement in foreign affairs, the states clearly retain some authority in foreign affairs. Correctly supposing that state participation may unnecessarily complicate or embarrass our nation’s foreign relations, the Supreme Court has embraced aggressive preemption doctrines that sporadically oust the states from discrete areas in foreign affairs. These doctrines are unprincipled, supply little guidance, and generate capricious results. Fortunately, there is a better way. While the Constitution permits the states a limited and continuing role, it never goes so far as guaranteeing them any foreign affairs authority. Furthermore, the Constitution authorizes Congress to enact …


An Administrative Meter Maid: Using Inter Partes Review And Post-Grant Review To Curb Exclusivity Parking Via The "Failure To Market" Provision Of The Hatch-Waxman Act, Brian T. Apel Oct 2015

An Administrative Meter Maid: Using Inter Partes Review And Post-Grant Review To Curb Exclusivity Parking Via The "Failure To Market" Provision Of The Hatch-Waxman Act, Brian T. Apel

Michigan Law Review

Congress created the unique Hatch-Waxman framework in 1984 to increase the availability of low-cost generic drugs while preserving patent incentives for new drug development. The Hatch-Waxman Act rewards generic drug companies that successfully challenge a pharmaceutical patent: 180 days of market exclusivity before any other generic firm can enter the market. When a generic firm obtains this reward, sometimes drug developers agree to pay generic firms to delay entering the market. These pay-for-delay agreements give rise to exclusivity parking and run counter to congressional intent by delaying full generic drug competition. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act created …


Three Words And The Future Of The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley Oct 2015

Three Words And The Future Of The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

As an essential part of its effort to achieve near universal coverage, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) extends sizable tax credits to most people who buy insurance on the newly established health care exchanges. Yet several lawsuits have been filed challenging the availability of those tax credits in the thirty-four states that refused to set up their own exchanges. The lawsuits are premised on a strained interpretation of the ACA that, if accepted, would make a hash of other provisions of the statute and undermine its effort to extend coverage to the uninsured. The courts should reject this latest effort …


Mainstreaming Equality In Federal Budgeting: Addressing Educational Inequities With Regard To The States, Elizabeth K. Hinson Sep 2015

Mainstreaming Equality In Federal Budgeting: Addressing Educational Inequities With Regard To The States, Elizabeth K. Hinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Great Society reformers targeted poverty as the defining characteristic for a novel federal education policy in the United States in 1965. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reincarnated within the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, distributes financial aid to disadvantaged students within public schools solely based upon students’ socioeconomic status. This Article does not dispute that financial resources improve student outcomes, but this Article argues that Title I’s funding formula is ineffective, and a new funding scheme – specifically, a mainstreaming equality funding scheme – must replace it. The implementation of this funding scheme …


Lessons From Institutional Shareholder Services: Governing Benefit Corporations' Third-Party Standard, Tammi S. Etheridge Sep 2015

Lessons From Institutional Shareholder Services: Governing Benefit Corporations' Third-Party Standard, Tammi S. Etheridge

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Almost one hundred years ago, Henry Ford, as CEO of the Ford Motor Company, announced a plan to cease payment of special dividends to shareholders. Instead, the company would reinvest its profits to employ more workers and build more factories. Investing in new workers and factories would cut the cost of cars and make them affordable to more people. Ford publicly declared that his “ambition [was] to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting …


Access To Justice For Asylum Seekers: Developing An Effective Model Of Holistic Asylum Representation, Sabrineh Ardalan Jul 2015

Access To Justice For Asylum Seekers: Developing An Effective Model Of Holistic Asylum Representation, Sabrineh Ardalan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Abducted, beaten, and tortured by government forces that accused him of supporting an opposition group, Matthew fled to the United States with the help of his church pastor.1 The pastor lent Matthew money and helped him obtain a passport and a visa. The pastor also put Matthew in touch with an acquaintance in Boston, who gave him a place to stay for a short time and encouraged him to apply for asylum. The acquaintance sat down with Matthew and helped him fill out the asylum application form. He told Matthew to be as specific and detailed as possible since that …


Rethinking Special Education's "Least Restrictive Environment" Requirement, Cari Carson Jun 2015

Rethinking Special Education's "Least Restrictive Environment" Requirement, Cari Carson

Michigan Law Review

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act promotes the education of students with disabilities together with their nondisabled peers, requiring education in the “least restrictive environment” (“LRE”). This requirement has long been subject to competing interpretations. This Note contends that the dominant interpretation—requiring education in the least restrictive environment available—is deficient and allows students to be placed in unnecessarily restrictive settings. Drawing from child mental health law, this Note proposes an alternative LRE approach that requires education in the least restrictive environment needed and argues that this alternative approach is a better reading of the law.


Cooperative Mineral Interest Development In The Lone Star State: It's Time To Mess With Texas, Matthew K. Trawick May 2015

Cooperative Mineral Interest Development In The Lone Star State: It's Time To Mess With Texas, Matthew K. Trawick

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Since the early discoveries of the Spindletop, King Ranch, and East Texas oil fields, the oil and gas industry has dominated the Texas economy. The industry has also played an important role in shaping state politics and culture. The oil boom of the early 1900s created thousands of jobs for ordinary workers and immense wealth for a select few. Early Texas oil barons made headlines because of their lavish lifestyles and often extreme political beliefs. Legendary wildcatter H.L. Hunt typified this oil-fueled exuberance. Hunt became one of the eight richest individuals in the United States after securing mineral rights to …


How The Ali's Restatement Third Of Property Is Influencing The Law Of Trusts And Estates, Lawrence W. Waggoner May 2015

How The Ali's Restatement Third Of Property Is Influencing The Law Of Trusts And Estates, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Restatements, once limited to restating existing law, are now substantially devoted to law reform. The ALI's website states its law-reform policy thus: "The American Law Institute is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law." In 2014, the Brooklyn Law Review published a symposium issue on Restatements of the Law. A paper in that symposium argued against the ALI's law-reform policy. The authors specifically speculated that the reformist rather than restatist character of the recently completed Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers (Property Restatement) has "very …


No Good Options: Picking Up The Pieces After King V. Burwell, Nicholas Bagley, David K. Jones Apr 2015

No Good Options: Picking Up The Pieces After King V. Burwell, Nicholas Bagley, David K. Jones

Articles

If the Supreme Court rules against the government in King v. Burwell, insurance subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will evaporate in the thirty-four states that have refused to establish their own health-care exchanges. The pain could be felt within weeks. Without subsidies, an estimated eight or nine million people stand to lose their health coverage. Because sicker people will retain coverage at a much higher rate than healthier people, insurance premiums in the individual market will surge by as much as fifty percent. Policymakers will come under intense pressure to mitigate the fallout from a government loss …


Criminal Infliction Of Emotional Distress, Avlana K. Eisenberg Mar 2015

Criminal Infliction Of Emotional Distress, Avlana K. Eisenberg

Michigan Law Review

This Article identifies and critiques a trend to criminalize the infliction of emotional harm independent of any physical injury or threat. The Article defines a new category of criminal infliction of emotional distress (“CIED”) statutes, which include laws designed to combat behaviors such as harassing, stalking, and bullying. In contrast to tort liability for emotional harm, which is cabined by statutes and the common law, CIED statutes allow states to regulate and punish the infliction of emotional harm in an increasingly expansive way. In assessing harm and devising punishment, the law has always taken nonphysical harm seriously, but traditionally it …


Fraud Is Already Illegal: Section 621 Of The Dodd-Frank Act In The Context Of The Securities Laws, Nathan R. Schuur Feb 2015

Fraud Is Already Illegal: Section 621 Of The Dodd-Frank Act In The Context Of The Securities Laws, Nathan R. Schuur

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, lawmakers and the public focused on abuses in the securitization industry. Abacus, a Synthetic CDO created by Goldman Sachs & Co., became a symbol of what many felt was a corrupt system when it became known that Goldman and Fabrice Tourre, a Vice President at its Correlation Trading Desk, had assisted a hedge fund in designing the security to fail. Perceived failings of the securities laws to prevent transactions like Abacus spurred Congress to enact Section 621 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which prohibits conflicts of interest in asset-backed securitizations. But the law is …


Eliminating Arbitrary Age Descrimination In 401(K) And Pension Plan Eligibility Requirements: A Simple Fix To Encourage Younger Workers To Save For Retirement, Andrew J. Clopton Jan 2015

Eliminating Arbitrary Age Descrimination In 401(K) And Pension Plan Eligibility Requirements: A Simple Fix To Encourage Younger Workers To Save For Retirement, Andrew J. Clopton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Current federal law allows companies to exclude their youngest workers from participating in 401(k) and other pension plans. Public policy should encourage young workers to contribute to retirement as early as practicable, rather than impose obstacles to saving. Workers who begin saving even a few years earlier improve their retirement security and reduce the likelihood they will be dependent on the government later in life. While “age discrimination” is conventionally thought of as the mistreatment of older workers, this concept applies equally to employees who are differentiated based solely on their young age. Thus, Congress should amend the Internal Revenue …


Surviving Preemption In A World Of Comprehensive Regulations, Kyle Anne Piasecki Jan 2015

Surviving Preemption In A World Of Comprehensive Regulations, Kyle Anne Piasecki

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

The Clean Air Act imposes a federal regulatory regime on a number of sources of air pollution. It does not, however, provide a ready means of relief to individuals harmed by air polluters. Nevertheless, many courts have held that the Clean Air Act preempts state common law tort claims that do provide a means to such relief. The disparate benefits of the Clean Air Act and common law tort claims may indicate different purposes and make court imposed preemption of common law tort claims improper. This Comment argues that the Savings Clause in the Clean Air Act and in parallel …


Michigan Craft Beer Legislation, Kincaid C. Brown Jan 2015

Michigan Craft Beer Legislation, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Michigan is currently in the midst of a craft beer boom. The Michigan Brewers Guild’s member list includes more than 150 breweries and brewpubs brewing craft beer. Michigan’s craft beer industry is boosting the state’s economy. According to an analysis by the Brewers Association customized by the Michigan Brewers Guild, the craft beer industry is directly responsible for more than 5,000 Michigan jobs and contributes more than $277 million to the state’s economy and more than $144 million in wages.


Fighting Foreign-Corporate Political Access: Applying Corporate Veil-Piercing Doctrine To Domestic-Subsidiary Contributions, Ryan Rott Jan 2015

Fighting Foreign-Corporate Political Access: Applying Corporate Veil-Piercing Doctrine To Domestic-Subsidiary Contributions, Ryan Rott

Michigan Law Review

Campaign finance regulations limit speech. The laws preclude foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from participating in U.S. politics via campaign contributions. The unusual characteristics of corporations, however, may allow foreign corporations to exploit a loophole in the regulatory regime. A foreign corporation may contribute to political campaigns by acquiring a domestic subsidiary and dominating it. This Note addresses how these unusual corporate behaviors enable foreign corporations to illegally corrupt the political process. This Note concludes that to close the loophole without violating the free speech rights of domestic subsidiaries, Congress should enact legislation which would apply corporate veil-piercing theory to …


The Risk Of Money Laundering Through Crowdfunding: A Funding Portal's Guide To Compliance And Crime Fighting, Zachary Robock Dec 2014

The Risk Of Money Laundering Through Crowdfunding: A Funding Portal's Guide To Compliance And Crime Fighting, Zachary Robock

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

With the recent passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”) and proposed regulations, equity crowdfunding is poised to play an important role in fundraising for many types of emerging growth companies. A fundamental purpose of crowdfunding is to reduce economic barriers to capital markets for emerging growth companies, in part by relaxing rigorous information disclosure requirements currently mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Relaxed regulation should help reduce the cost of fundraising, but it will also present certain risks. Investor fraud is a common concern, which is addressed at length in the JOBS Act and …


The Fragmented Regulation Of Investment Advice: A Call For Harmonization, Christine Lazaro, Benjamin P. Edwards Dec 2014

The Fragmented Regulation Of Investment Advice: A Call For Harmonization, Christine Lazaro, Benjamin P. Edwards

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Decades of short-term thinking and regulatory fixes created the bewilderingly complex statutory and regulatory structures governing the giving of personalized investment advice to retail customers. Although deeply flawed, the current systems remain entrenched because of the difficulties inherent in making radical alterations. Importantly, the current patchwork systems do not seem to serve retail customers particularly well. Retail customers tend to make predictable and costly mistakes in allocating their assets. Some of this occurs because many investors lack basic financial literacy. A recent study released by the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) on financial literacy among investors …


The Volcker Rule, Banking Entities, And Covered Funds Activities, Jeffrey Koh, Kyle Gaughan Dec 2014

The Volcker Rule, Banking Entities, And Covered Funds Activities, Jeffrey Koh, Kyle Gaughan

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

With the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, Congress instituted a host of new laws attempting to protect consumers from the types of risky trading that led to the 2008 economic crisis. However, many of the new rules and regulations, including the Volcker Rule, are yet to fully take effect. Among other restrictions, the Volcker Rule attempts to curtail risky trading by limiting banking entity investments in private equity and venture capital funds. As the Volcker Rule nears its implementation deadline, banking entities are concerned that they will face substantial losses in having to comply with the Volcker Rule by …


The Cost Of Nothing Trumps The Value Of Everything: The Failure Of Regulatory Economics To Keep Pace With Improvements In Quantitative Risk Analysis, Adam M. Finkel Oct 2014

The Cost Of Nothing Trumps The Value Of Everything: The Failure Of Regulatory Economics To Keep Pace With Improvements In Quantitative Risk Analysis, Adam M. Finkel

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The entire U.S. federal regulatory apparatus, especially that part devoted to reducing (or deciding not to reduce) risks to the environment, health, and safety (EHS), relies increasingly on judgments of whether each regulation would yield benefits in excess of its costs. These judgments depend in turn upon empirical analysis of the potential increases in longevity, quality of life, and environmental quality that the regulation can confer, and also of the economic resources needed to “purchase” those benefits—analyses whose quality can range from extremely fine to disappointingly poor. The quality of a risk analysis (from which the benefits of control are …