Law Commons^™

Catch 1201: A Legislative History And Content Analysis Of The Dmca Exemption Proceedings, Bill D. Herman, Oscar H. Gandy

ExpressO

17 USC Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits circumventing a technological protection measure (TPM) that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. In the name of mitigating the innocent casualties of this new ban, Congress constructed a triennial rulemaking, administered by the Register of Copyrights, to determine temporary exemptions. This paper considers the legislative history of this rulemaking, and it reports the results of a systematic content analysis of its 2000 and 2003 proceedings.

Inspired by the literature on political agendas, policymaking institutions, venue shifting, and theories of delegation, we conclude that the legislative motivations for Section 1201 were laundered through international treaties, …

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

ExpressO

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.

Of Rainbows And Rivers: Lessons For Telecommunications Spectrum Policy From Transitions In Property Rights And Commons In Water Law, Dale B. Thompson

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A number of industries utilize the telecommunications spectrum to provide billions of dollars of services. However, some have noted that technological development and implementation of spectrum applications have not progressed as fast in the United States as in other parts of the world To improve technological development, many have recommended significant changes in United States policy of allocating spectrum, some based on a “property rights” approach, and others based on a “commons” approach. This article takes a novel approach to this problem, by applying lessons from our two hundred year history of water law to spectrum policy. Also, instead of …

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

ExpressO

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 …

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 …

Communication Breakdown?: The Future Of Global Connectivity After The Privatization Of Intelsat, Kenneth D. Katkin

ExpressO

In 1971, 85 nations (including the United States) formed the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization “INTELSAT,” a public intergovernmental treaty organization. INTELSAT was charged with operating the world’s first global telecommunications satellite system, in order to guarantee the interconnectedness of the world’s communications systems and the availability of international telecommunications service to every nation on earth. By the late 1980s, however, INTELSAT’s operations began to experience substantial competition from the private sector. In 2000, the proliferation of privately-owned telecommunications satellites and transoceanic fiber optic cables led the U.S. Congress to mandate the privatization of INTELSAT. That privatization process began in 2001, …