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Full-Text Articles in Law and Society
Liberating Copyright: Thinking Beyond Free Speech, Jennifer E. Rothman
Liberating Copyright: Thinking Beyond Free Speech, Jennifer E. Rothman
All Faculty Scholarship
Scholars have often turned to the First Amendment to limit the scope of ever-expanding copyright law. This approach has mostly failed to convince courts that independent review is merited and has offered little to individuals engaged in personal rather than political or cultural expression. In this Article, I consider the value of an alternative paradigm using the lens of substantive due process and liberty to evaluate users’ rights. A liberty-based approach uses this other developed body of constitutional law to demarcate justifiable personal, identity-based uses of copyrighted works. Uses that are essential for mental integrity, intimacy promotion, communication, or religious …
Open Secrets, Michael J. Madison
Open Secrets, Michael J. Madison
Book Chapters
The law of trade secrets is often conceptualized in bilateral terms, as creating and enforcing rights between trade secret owners, on the one hand, and misappropriators on the other hand. This paper, a chapter in a forthcoming collection on the law of trade secrets, argues that trade secrets and the law that guards them can serve structural and institutional roles as well. Somewhat surprisingly, given the law’s focus on secrecy, among the institutional products of trade secrets law are commons, or managed openness: environments designed to facilitate the structured sharing of information. The paper illustrates with examples drawn from existing …
Constructing Commons In The Cultural Environment, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann, Katherine J. Strandburg
Constructing Commons In The Cultural Environment, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann, Katherine J. Strandburg
Articles
This Essay considers the problem of understanding intellectual sharing/pooling arrangements and the construction of cultural commons arrangements. We argue that an adaptation of the approach pioneered by Elinor Ostrom and collaborators to commons arrangements in the natural environment may provide a template for the examination of constructed commons in the cultural environment. The approach promises to lead to a better understanding of how participants in commons and pooling arrangements structure their interactions in relation to the environment(s) within which they are embedded and with which they share interdependent relationships. Such an improved understanding is critical for obtaining a more complete …
Reply: The Complexity Of Commons, Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann, Katherine J. Strandburg
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.
Some Optimism About Fair Use And Copyright Law, Michael J. Madison
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.
Creativity And Craft, Michael J. Madison
Creativity And Craft, Michael J. Madison
Book Chapters
I revisit the distinction between intangible works of authorship and tangible objects, which is a fundamental proposition of modern copyright law. I suggest that reconsidering that distinction, at least in part, may expand the range of possibilities for aligning modern copyright as an economic construct with the historical roots of copyright and with ethical claims about authorial expression. Revisiting that distinction also may provide contemporary lawyers and policymakers with a much-needed tool for managing challenges posed by digital technology.