Law Commons^™

Digital Wars -- Legal Battles And Economic Bottlenecks In The Digital Information Industries, Curt A. Hessler

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The Digital Age has spawned major legal battles over the fundamental principles of intellectual property law and antitrust law. These diverse struggles can best be analyzed using the basic norm of "value added" from neo-classical normative economics. This analysis suggests that current intellectual property doctirnes provide excessive protection and current antitrust doctrines remain awkward in dealing with the cross-market leveraging of monopoly power in the presence of "natural monopolies" created by network effects.

Digital Wars -- Legal Battles And Economic Bottlenecks In The Digital Information Industries, Curt A. Hessler

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The Digital Revolution has created the apparent anomaly that information, though very cheap to create and near costless to share, is managed by industries that are increasingly concentrated and roiled by endless legal warfare. This paper surveys the major legal battles by subjecting all of them to the familiar norm of "maximizing economic value added", as defined by neo-classical "welfare economics". The various legal wars are traced to defects and confusions in current legal approaches to intellectual property (the "property wars") and to antitrust doctrines (the "monopoly wars").

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

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No abstract provided.

Sharing Potential And The Potential For Sharing: Open Source Licensing As A Legal And Economic Modality For The Dissemination Of Renewable Energy Technology, Jason Wiener

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No abstract provided.

A Model For Emergency Service Of Voip Through Certification And Labeling, Patrick S. Ryan, Tom Lookabaugh, Douglas Sicker

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) will transform many aspects of traditional telephony service, including the technology, the business models, and the regulatory constructs that govern such service. Perhaps not unexpectedly, this transformation is generating a host of technical, business, social, and policy problems. In attempting to respond to these problems, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could mandate obligations or specific solutions to VoIP policy issues; however, it is instead looking first to industry initiatives focused on the key functionality that users have come to expect of telecommunications services. High among this list of desired functionality is user access to emergency …

What Makes Asset Securitization "Inefficient"?, Kenji Yamazaki

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Despite the damage caused by the recent Enron scandal , the asset securitization market has been vibrant and has become a popular financing alternative . A number of academics emphasize its merits and suggest that it is a more favorable way of financing, and Congress’s proposal to make sales of asset in securitization immune from characterization as secured transactions under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001 (the “Reform Act”) almost materialized when the Enron scandal hit the scene. Conversely, there have been accusations that securitization is not a legitimate way of financing because, for example, it fosters fraudulent transactions.

Why …

An Economic Theory Of Infrastructure And Commons Management, Brett M. Frischmann

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In this article, Professor Frischmann combines a number of current debates across many disciplinary lines, all of which examine from different perspectives whether certain resources should be managed through a regime of private property or through a regime of open access. Frischmann develops and applies a theory that demonstrates there are strong economic arguments for managing and sustaining openly accessible infrastructure. The approach he takes differs from conventional analyses in that he focuses extensively on demand-side considerations and fully explores how infrastructure resources generate value for consumers and society. As a result, the theory brings into focus the social value …

Keeping Score: The Struggle For Music Copyright, Michael W. Carroll

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Inspired by the passionate contemporary debates about music copyright, this Article investigates how, when, and why music first came within copyright's domain. Although music publishers and recording companies are among the most aggressive advocates for strong copyright protection today, when copyright law was first invented in eighteenth-century England, music publishers resisted its extension to music. This Article sheds light on a series of early legal disputes concerning printed music that yield important insights into original understandings of copyright law and music's role in society. By focusing attention on this understudied episode, this Article demonstrates that the concept of copyright was …