Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
Of Property Rights And Rights To Property, James E. Krier
Of Property Rights And Rights To Property, James E. Krier
Articles
In 2004, President George W. Bush said, “I believe in private property so much, I want everyone in America to have some.” Much earlier, in 1948, an economics professor from the University of Texas expressed the same sentiment in strikingly similar terms. When asked by an investigatory committee of the Texas legislature whether he favored private property, he replied, “I do . . . and so strongly that I want everyone in Texas to have some.” Even putting aside the possibility that the President’s speechwriters found inspiration in an unacknowledged source, there are several interesting things to note about these …
Intellectual Liability, Daniel A. Crane
Intellectual Liability, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Intellectual property is increasingly a misnomer since the right to exclude is the defining characteristic of property and incentives to engage in inventive and creative activity are increasingly being granted in the form of liability rights (which allow the holder of the right to collect a royalty from users) rather than property rights (which allow the holder of the right to exclude others from using the invention or creation). Much of this recent reorientation in the direction of liability rules arises from a concern over holdout or monopoly power in intellectual property. The debate over whether liability rules or property …
Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Uncertainty About Property Rights, Stewart E. Sterk
Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Uncertainty About Property Rights, Stewart E. Sterk
Michigan Law Review
Clarity can be a considerable virtue in property rights. But even when property rights are defined clearly in the abstract, ascertaining the scope of those rights in concrete situations often entails significant cost. In some instances, the cost of acquiring information about the scope of property rights will exceed the social value of that information. In those circumstances, further search for information about the scope of rights is inefficient; the social harm avoided by further search does not justify the costs of the search. Potential resource users, however make decisions based on private costs and benefits, not social costs and …
Review Of Optional Law: The Structure Of Legal Entitlements, Omri Ben-Shahar
Review Of Optional Law: The Structure Of Legal Entitlements, Omri Ben-Shahar
Reviews
The concept of "property rights" plays a prominent role in economic theory. Economists have been studying how property rights emerged as a system of allocation, replacing regimes of open access and lack of legal order. Property rights are regularly viewed by economists as the primary policy tool to control the incentives to invest in new assets (e.g., in information) and to maintain existing assets (e.g., fisheries) when contracts are incomplete. Property rights are the endowments that individuals exchange in a market economy, the equity that investors trade in financial markets. Property rights are a basic building block in economics.
Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern
Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note addresses the broadened scope of protection granted to copyright holders under the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). This broadened scope extends to copyright holders the right to control access to their works, diminishing the consumer's 'fair use" of those works that previously served as a defense to alleged copyright infringements. While access controls are supported by economists who believe they are useful in correcting market inefficiencies and excluding free riders, this Note suggests that access controls cannot correct all market inefficiencies. Furthermore, such access controls deny access and use of copyrighted material …
Three Faces Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
Three Faces Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
Articles
Private property is a rather elusive concept. Any kid knows what it means for something to be mine or yours, but grownup legal theorists get flustered when they try to pin down the term. Typically they, actually we, turn to a familiar analytic toolkit: including, for example, Blackstone's image of private property as "sole and despotic dominion"; Hardin's metaphor of the "tragedy of the commons"; and, more generally, the division of ownership into a trilogy of private, commons, and state forms. While each analytic tool has a distinguished pedigree and certain present usefulness, each also imposes a cost because it …