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Full-Text Articles in Law
Acta's Constitutional Problems: The Treaty Is Not A Treaty, Sean Flynn
Acta's Constitutional Problems: The Treaty Is Not A Treaty, Sean Flynn
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
On the eve of the United States’ entry into the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (“ACTA”), there is considerable confusion as to just what legal effect the agreement will have. In written answers to Senator Ron Wyden, the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) went to lengths to describe ACTA as non-binding, asserting that “ACTA does not constrain Congress’ authority to change U.S. law,” and that it would operate only as an “Executive Agreement” that “can be implemented without new legislation.” But European negotiators have described the agreement to their legislature in very different terms, asserting that ACTA is “a binding international agreement …
Foreseeability And Copyright Incentives, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Foreseeability And Copyright Incentives, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
Copyright law’s principal justification today is the economic theory of creator incentives. Central to this theory is the recognition that while copyright’s exclusive rights framework provides creators with an economic incentive to create, it also entails large social costs, and that creators therefore need to be given just enough incentive to create in order to balance the system’s benefits against its costs. Yet, none of copyright’s current doctrines enable courts to circumscribe a creator’s entitlement by reference to limitations inherent in the very idea of incentives. While the common law too relies on providing actors with incentives to behave in …
Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin
Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin
Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers
Classic theories for the evolution of property rights consider the emergence of private property to be a progressive development reflecting a society’s movement to a more efficient property regime. This article argues that instead of this progressive dynamic, a more subtle and damaging chain reaction dynamic can come into play that traditional theories for intellectual and other property rights neither anticipate nor explain. The article suggests that the expansion of intellectual and other property rights have an internally generative dynamic. Drawing upon contemporary case studies, the article argues that property rights evolve in reaction to each other. The creation of …
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …
Copyright And Free Expression: The Convergence Of Conflicting Normative Frameworks, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Copyright And Free Expression: The Convergence Of Conflicting Normative Frameworks, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
Recent attempts to expand the domain of copyright law in different parts of the world have necessitated renewed efforts to evaluate the philosophical justifications that are advocated for its existence as an independent institution. Copyright, conceived of as a proprietary institution, reveals an interesting philosophical interaction with other libertarian interests, most notably the right to free expression. This paper seeks to understand the nature of this interaction and the resulting normative decisions. The paper seeks to analyze copyright law and its recent expansions, specifically from the perspective of the human rights discourse. It looks at the historical origins of modern …
Whose Music Is It Anyway?: How We Came To View Musical Expression As A Form Of Property -- Part I, Michael W. Carroll
Whose Music Is It Anyway?: How We Came To View Musical Expression As A Form Of Property -- Part I, Michael W. Carroll
Working Paper Series
Many participants in the music industry consider unauthorized downloading of music files over the Internet to be “theft” of their “property.” Many Internet users who exchange music files reject that characterization. Prompted by this dispute, this Article explores how those who create and distribute music first came to look upon music as their property and when in Western history the law first supported this view. By analyzing the economic and legal structures governing musicmaking in Western Europe from the classical period in Greece through the Renaissance, the Article shows that the law first granted some exclusive rights in the Middle …