Law Commons^™

Cross-Subsidies: Government's Hidden Pocketbook, John Brooks, Brian Galle, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

Governments can use regulation to pay for public goods out of the pockets of consumers, rather than taxpayers. For example, the Affordable Care Act underwrites care for women and the infirm through higher insurance premium payments by healthy men. Building on a classic article from Richard Posner, we show that these “cross-subsidies” between consumers are a common feature of modern law, ranging from telecommunications to intellectual property to employee benefits.

Critics of the ACA, and even some of its supporters, argue that taxes would be a better choice. Taxes are said to be more transparent, and to fit better with …

All Your Works Are Belong To Us: New Frontiers For The Derivative Work Right In Video Games, J. Remy Green

Faculty Scholarship

In copyright law, the author of an original work has the exclusive right to prepare further works derivative of that original. Video game developers’ works are protected by the Copyright Act. As video games take advantage of more advanced technology, however, players are doing more creative, interesting, and original things when they play games. Certain things players do create independent economic value and are the kinds of acts of original authorship our copyright system is designed to encourage. However, since the author of the video game is entitled to the full panoply of rights under the laws of the American …

Liability For Providing Hyperlinks To Copyright-Infringing Content: International And Comparative Law Perspectives, Jane C. Ginsburg, Luke Ali Budiardjo

Faculty Scholarship

Hyperlinking, at once an essential means of navigating the Internet, but also a frequent means to enable infringement of copyright, challenges courts to articulate the legal norms that underpin domestic and international copyright law, in order to ensure effective enforcement of exclusive rights on the one hand, while preserving open communication on the Internet on the other. Several recent cases, primarily in the European Union, demonstrate the difficulties of enforcing the right of communication to the public (or, in U.S. copyright parlance, the right of public performance by transmission) against those who provide hyperlinks that effectively deliver infringing content to …