Law Commons^™

Fixing Fair Use, Michael W. Carroll

Working Paper Series

The fair use doctrine in copyright law balances expressive freedoms by permitting one to use another’s copyrighted expression under certain circumstances. The doctrine’s extreme context-sensitivity renders it of little value to those who require reasonable ex ante certainty about the legality of a proposed use. In this Article, Professor Carroll advances a legislative proposal to create a Fair Use Board in the U.S. Copyright Office that would have power to declare a proposed use of another’s copyrighted work to be a fair use. Like a private letter ruling from the IRS or a “no action” letter from the SEC, a …

Minding The Gaps: Fairness, Welfare, And The Constitutive Structure Of Distributive Assessment, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Despite over a century’s disputation and attendant opportunity for clarification, the field of inquiry now loosely labeled “welfare economics” (WE) remains surprisingly prone to foundational confusions. The same holds of work done by many practitioners of WE’s influential offshoot, normative “law and economics” (LE).

A conspicuous contemporary case of confusion turns up in recent discussion concerning “fairness versus welfare.” The very naming of this putative dispute signals a crude category error. “Welfare” denotes a proposed object of distribution. “Fairness” describes and appropriate pattern of distribution. Welfare itself is distributed fairly or unfairly. “Fairness versus welfare” is analytically on all fours …

The Status Of Administrative Agencies Under The Georgia Constitution, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

This Article discusses the place of administrative agencies under the Georgia Constitution. The rules of the Georgia Supreme Court on these issues, like the comparable rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court, make excellent reading for anyone interested in Georgia law, government, politics, and history. Most of the decisions surveyed in this Article are correct, but not necessarily for the reasons given by the Georgia Supreme Court. Some of the opinions offer comprehensive treatises on sections of the Georgia Constitution and aspects of administrative law, while others reach conclusions without much explanation. Some results are at odds with prior decisions that …

Terrorism And Asylum Seekers: Why The Real Id Act Is A False Promise, Marisa S. Cianciarulo

Working Paper Series

The Real ID Act, passed on May 11, 2005, is the first post-September 11 antiterrorism legislation specifically to target a group of vulnerable individuals to whom the United States has historically granted protection: asylum seekers. The passage of the Real ID Act led asylum advocates to wring their hands in despair and immigration restrictionists to clap their hands in glee. This Article argues that both sides of the debate may have been justified in their reactions, but not because of the immediate chilling impact on asylum that they seem to expect. With regard to requirements for establishing asylum eligibility, the …

Addressing The Scourge Of Human Trafficking: The Challenge Ahead, Roza Pati

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Citizen Participation In Rulemaking: Past, Present, And Future, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Administrative law scholars and governmental reformers argue that advances in information technology will greatly expand public participation in regulatory policy making. They claim that e-rulemaking, or the application of new technology to administrative rulemaking, promises to transform a previously insulated process into one in which ordinary citizens regularly provide input. With the federal government having implemented several e-rulemaking initiatives in recent years, we can now begin to assess whether such a transformation is in the works—or even on the horizon. This paper compares empirical observations on citizen participation in the past, before e-rulemaking, with more recent data on citizen participation …