Law Commons^™

Some Key Things Entrepreneurs Need To Know About The Law And Lawyers, Lawrence J. Trautman, Anthony Luppino, Malika S. Simmons

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

New business formation is a powerful economic engine that creates jobs. Diverse legal issues are encountered as a start-up entity approaches formation, initial capitalization and fundraising, arrangements with employees and independent contractors, and relationships with other third parties. The endeavors of a typical start-up in the United States will likely implicate many of the following areas of law: intellectual property; business organizations; tax laws; employment and labor laws; securities regulation; contracts and licensing agreements; commercial sales; debtor-creditor relations; real estate law; health and safety laws/codes; permits and licenses; environmental protection; industry specific regulatory laws and approval processes; tort/personal injury, products …

Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

In this work, I discuss the tension between gift and market economy throughout the history of creativity. For millennia, the production of creative artifacts has lain at the intersection between gift and market economy. From the time of Pindar and Simonides – and until the Romanticism will commence a process leading to the complete commodification of creative artifacts – market exchange models run parallel to gift exchange. From Roman amicitia to the medieval and Renaissance belief that “scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest,” creativity has been repeatedly construed as a gift. Again, at the time of the British …

Infringement As Unfair Competition: A Blueprint For Global Governance?, Sean Pager, Eric Priest

Sean Pager

INFRINGEMENT AS UNFAIR COMPETITION: A BLUEPRINT FOR GLOBAL GOVERNANCE?

Sean A. Pager Michigan State University College of Law

Eric Priest University of Oregon School of Law

ABSTRACT

This Article examines a new approach to address persistent regulatory failures in global supply chains. In a series of recent cases, unfair competition actions have been brought in U.S. court against foreign manufacturers who infringe software overseas under the theory that the cost savings from infringement confers an unfair advantage in U.S. markets. While this theory has been advanced in the intellectual property context, the same approach could work to target abuses in …

Campbell At 21/Sony At 31, Jessica Litman

Jessica Litman

When copyright lawyers gather to discuss fair use, the most common refrain is its alarming expansion. Their distress about fair use’s enlarged footprint seems completely untethered from any appreciation of the remarkable increase in exclusive copyright rights. In the nearly 40 years since Congress enacted the 1976 copyright act, the rights of copyright owners have expanded markedly. Copyright owners’ demands for further expansion continue unabated. Meanwhile, they raise strident objections to proposals to add new privileges and exceptions to the statute to shelter non-infringing uses that might be implicated by their expanded rights. Copyright owners have used the resulting uncertainty …

Transformative Teaching And Educational Fair Use After Georgia State, Brandon C. Butler

Brandon C. Butler

The Supreme Court has said that copyright’s fair use doctrine is a “First Amendment safety valve” because it ensures that certain crucial cultural activities are not unduly burdened by copyright. While many such activities (criticism, commentary, parody) have benefited from the courts’ increased attention to first amendment values, one such activity, education, has been mired for years in a minimalist, market-based vision of fair use that is largely out of touch with mainstream fair use jurisprudence. The latest installment in the history of educational fair use, the 11th Circuit’s opinion in the Georgia State e-reserves case, may be the last …

Copyright Porn Trolls, Wasting Taxi Medallions, And The Propriety Of ‘Property’, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

What happens when the government creates privileges that have powers rivaling those that the common law accords to property? Recent events in two seemingly unrelated areas suggest a troubling answer to that question. First, in copyright, porn trolls have sued thousands of John Does for allegedly participating in illegal file sharing. These suits evidently seek not judicial vindication but merely the defendants' identities, which the plaintiffs then use to reap settlement payments from guilty and innocent alike. Second, taxi drivers in cities across the world have launched legal, political, and physical attacks against Uber and other networked transportation services, accusing …