Law Commons^™

Some Optimism About Fair Use And Copyright Law, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This short paper reflects on the emergence of codes of best practices in fair use, highlighting both the relationship between the best practices approach and an institutional perspective on copyright and the relationship between the best practices approach and social processes of innovation and creativity.

Reply: The Complexity Of Commons, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann, Katherine J. Strandburg

Articles

Constructing Commons in the Cultural Environment, and responses to that article by Professors Thráinn Eggertsson, Wendy Gordon, Gregg Macey, Robert Merges, Elinor Ostrom, and Lawrence Solum. This short Reply comments briefly on each of those responses.

Finding The Middle Ground In Collection Development: How Academic Law Libraries Can Shape Their Collections In Response To The Call For More Practice-Oriented Legal Education, Leslie A. Street, Amanda M. Runyon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To examine how academic law libraries can respond to the call for more practice-oriented legal education, the authors compared trends in collection management decisions regarding secondary sources at academic and law firm libraries along with law firm librarians’ perceptions of law school legal research training of new associates.

Exporting U.S. Criminal Justice, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article explores how and why, in the Cold War’s wake, the U.S. government began to export U.S.-style criminal law and procedure models to developing and politically transitioning states. U.S. criminal law and development consultants now work in countries across the globe. This article reveals how U.S. initiatives have shaped state and non-state actors’ responses to a range of global challenges, even as this approach suffers from a deep democratic deficit. Further, this article argues that U.S. programs perpetuate U.S.-style legal institutional idolatry (which is often tied to systemic dysfunction both in the United States and abroad), and in so …

Sexual Rights And State Governance, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

We sit at an interesting juncture in the evolution (in some cases, devolution) of the idea of sexual rights in international law. For at the very moment that we are experiencing a retraction in both domestic and international commitments to rights associated with sexual and reproductive health, we see sexual rights of a less-reproductive nature gaining greater uptake and acceptance. It is the moral hazard associated with perceived gains in the domain of international rights for lesbians and gay men that I want to address today. In the end, the point I want to bring home is that a particular …

The Unity Of Interpretation, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What is interpretation? One can imagine a range of answers to this question. One answer might begin with the observation that the English word “interpretation” is used to refer to a variety of human activities. Translators at the United Nations interpret remarks made in French when they offer an English translation. Literary critics interpret novels when they investigate the deep and sometimes unconscious motivations of the author. Conductors interpret a score when they make decisions about meter, tempo, and dynamic range. Actors interpret a screenplay when they improvise new lines based on their understanding of the characters. Judges interpret statutes …

Disparate Impact, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There has been a lot of talk about post-racialism since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States. Some have argued that the Obama election illustrates the evolution of the United States from its unfortunate racist past to a more admirable post-racial present in which the problem of invidious racial discrimination has largely been overcome. Others have argued that the Obama election illustrates only that an extraordinarily gifted, mixed-race, multiple Ivy League graduate, Harvard Law Review President was able to overcome the persistent discriminatory racial practices that continue to disadvantage the bulk of …

Testing For Adverse Selection In Insurance Markets, Alma Cohen, Peter Siegelman

Peter Siegelman

This paper reviews and evaluates the empirical literature on adverse selection in insurance markets. We focus on empirical work that seeks to test the basic coverage–risk prediction of adverse selection theory—that is, that policyholders who purchase more insurance coverage tend to be riskier. The analysis of this body of work, we argue, indicates that whether such a correlation exists varies across insurance markets and pools of insurance policies. We discuss various reasons why a coverage–risk correlation may not be found in some pools of insurance policies. The presence of a coverage-risk correlation can be explained either by moral hazard or …

Monitoring Managers Through Corporate Compliance Programs, Charles Angelucci, Martijn Han

Martijn A. Han

Compliance programs entail monitoring of employees' behavior with the claimed objective of fighting corporate crime. (Competition) Authorities promote such intra-firm monitoring. In a three-tier hierarchy model, authority-shareholder-manager, we study the impact of monitoring through a compliance program on contracting within the firm and the authority's optimal sanctions and leniency policy. We find that compliance programs are beneficial in the fight against corporate crime if and only if the managerial sanction is low. Moreover, when the shareholder blows the whistle, the authority optimally grants partial corporate leniency, while not granting individual leniency to the involved employees. Conversely, when the employee blows …

Towards Voluntary Interoperable Open Access Licenses For The Global Earth Observation System Of Systems (Geoss), Harlan Onsrud, James Campbell, Bastiaan Van Loenen

Harlan J Onsrud

Access to earth observation data has become critically important for the wellbeing of society. A major impediment to achieving widespread sharing of earth observation data is lack of an operational web-wide system that is transparent and consistent in allowing users to legally access and use the earth observations of others without seeking permission from data contributors or investigating terms of usage on a case-by-case basis. This article explores approaches to supplying a license-based system to overcome this impediment in the context of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. It discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the explored approaches and …

Firms As Social Actors, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A close look at what firms are and how they act.

Sincerity And Reason Giving: When May Legal Decision-Makers Lie?, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Reasons For Reasons, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

The Rule Of Law As The Rule Of Reasons, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Let’S “Transform” The Colts The Way We Do Public Schools: Phase 2, Jeff Abbott

Jeff Abbott

This article uses tongue in cheek to compare the possible closing, turnaround, restart, or transformation of the Indianapolis Colts with what is happening in school reform.

Managing Medical Bills On The Brink Of Bankruptcy, Melissa B. Jacoby, Mirya Holman

Melissa B. Jacoby

This paper presents original empirical evidence on financial interactions between medical providers and their patients who go bankrupt. We use a nationally representative sample of people who filed for bankruptcy in 2007 to compare two popular but hotly contested methods of measuring medical burden. By applying both methods to the same filers, we find that nearly four out of five respondents had some financial obligation for medical care not covered by insurance in the two years prior to filing as measured by the survey method. The court record method paints a different picture, with only half of the cases containing …

What Would Coase Do? (About Parking Regulation), Michael E. Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

American municipalities typically require landowners to provide visitors and guests with ample amounts of parking, in order to prevent externalities such as cruising (drivers wasting gasoline and polluting the air while searching for scarce parking). However, minimum parking requirements may create social harms that outweigh this benefit. By artificially increasing the supply of parking, minimum parking requirements effectively subsidize driving, thus increasing rather than decreasing pollution and congestion.

2010 Planetizen Blog Posts, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Scholar-Baller: Student Athlete Socialization, Motivation, And Academic Performance In American Society, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.

Spatial Inequality As Constitutional Infirmity: Equal Protection, Child Poverty And Place, Lisa R. Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

This is the first in a series of articles that maps legal conceptions of (in)equality onto the socio-geographical concept of spatial inequality, with a view to generating legal remedies for those living in places marked by socioeconomic disadvantage. Written for a symposium on “rural law,” this article considers in particular whether the funding and delivery of government services at the county level in the state of Montana violate the state’s constitution because of the grossly disparate abilities among Montana counties to finance and provide such services. Pruitt’s analysis focuses on children as a particularly vulnerable and immobile population, many of …

A Critical Race Analysis Of The Hiring Process For Head Coaches In Ncaa College Football, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

In this article, we respond to Singer’s (2005) challenge to sport management scholars to consider race-based epistemologies in conducting certain kinds of research in the field, as we use critical race theory (CRT) as a framework to analyze the Black Coaches & Administrators (BCA) Hiring Report Card (HRC) (Harrison & Yee, 2009). The BCA HRC was created as a result of the access discrimination that has historically taken place in college sport (Brooks & Althouse, 2000; Cunningham & Sagas, 2005), which has consequently contributed to the underrepresentation of racial minorities in the head coach position in college football. The HRC …

Erau Aviation Wildlife Hazard Newsletter, Paul F. Eschenfelder

Paul F. Eschenfelder

No abstract provided.

Legal Interoperability In Support Of Spatially Enabling Society, Harlan J. Onsrud

Harlan J Onsrud

Spatial data is critically important for the wellbeing of society. Yet appropriate spatial data is often very difficult to find and, when found, the legal ability to use it is often in question. Lack of an operational web-wide capability allowing users to legally access and use the geospatial data of others without seeking permission on a case-by-case basis remains as an entrenched major impediment to general spatial enablement for all sectors in society. This chapter presents a legal inter-operability vision for offering, acquiring, and using spatial data and proposes an operational environment for gaining much greater legal clarity and efficiency …

Newspaper Theft, Self-Preservation And The Dimensions Of Censorship, Erik Ugland, Jennifer Lambe

Erik Ugland

One of the most common yet understudied means of suppressing free expression on college and university campuses is the theft of freely-distributed student publications, particularly newspapers. This study examines news accounts of nearly 300 newspaper theft incidents at colleges and universities between 1995 and 2008 in order to identify the manifestations and consequences of this peculiar form of censorship, and to augment existing research on censorship and tolerance by looking not at what people say about free expression but at what they do when they have the power of censorship in their own hands. Among the key findings is that …

The Business Of Punishing: Impediments To Accountability In The Private Corrections Industry, Stephen Raher

Stephen Raher

No abstract provided.

Organizations And Economics, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A contribution to a symposium on a paper by Richard Posner.

Gay And Lesbian Elders: History, Law, And Identity Politics In The United States, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The approximately two million gay and lesbian elders in the United States are an underserved and understudied population. At a time when gay men and lesbians enjoy an unprecedented degree of social acceptance and legal protection, many elders face the daily challenges of aging isolated from family, detached from the larger gay and lesbian community, and ignored by mainstream aging initiatives. Drawing on materials from law, history, and social theory, this book integrates practical proposals for reform with larger issues of sexuality and identity. Beginning with a summary of existing demographic data and offering a historical overview of pre-Stonewall views …

The Effect Of Representational Gender On Policy Preferences In U.S. Municipalities, Mirya R. Holman

Mirya R Holman

The research presented here explores the effect of gender and gender consciousness on the policy preference of local elected officials. Remedying a gap in the scholarship on women in local office, I examine the attitudes of mayors and council members on a variety of urban policy issues. First positing a gender gap theory of representative attitudes, I find almost no differences in policy preferences between men and women serving in local office. As an alternative, I posit and test a gender consciousness theory of policy preferences. Using open-ended survey data, I find that possessing a gender consciousness has a significant …

Diversification Across Time, Ian Ayres, Barry Nalebuff

Ian Ayres

By employing leverage to gain more exposure to stocks when young, individuals can achieve better diversification across time. Using stock data going back to 1871, we show that early leverage combined with reduced equity exposure when older can reduce lifetime portfolio risk. For example, an initially-leveraged portfolio can produce the same mean accumulation as a constant 75% stock allocation with a 21% smaller standard deviation. Since the mean accumulation is the same, the reduction in volatility does not depend on the equity premium. A leveraged lifecycle strategy can also allow investors to come closer to their utility-maximizing allocation. If risk …

¿En Qué Momento Se Jodió El Sur? Crecimiento Económico, Derechos De Propiedad Y Regulación Del Crédito En Las Colonias Británicas Y Españolas En América, Enrique Pasquel

Enrique Pasquel

Las instituciones legales de las colonias británicas y españolas pueden ayudar a explicar los distintos niveles de desarrollo económico en esas regiones. Este artículo se centra en el marco legal de los derechos de propiedad y el mercado del crédito en la época colonial, analizando las políticas de asignación de tierras, el establecimiento de registros, los programas de titulación, las cargas sobre la tierra y las restricciones al crédito.