Law Commons^™

Hearing On “Stablecoins: How Do They Work, How Are They Used, And What Are Their Risks?” Before The U.S. Senate Committee On Banking, Housing, And Urban Affairs, Hilary J. Allen

Congressional and Other Testimony

THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS will meet in OPEN SESSION, HYBRID FORMAT to conduct a hearing entitled “Stablecoins: How Do They Work, How Are They Used, and What Are Their Risks?” The witnesses will be: Ms. Alexis Goldstein, Director of Financial Policy, Open Markets Institute; Mr. Dante Disparte, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy, Circle; Ms. Jai Massari, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP; and Professor Hilary J. Allen, American University Washington College of Law

A Novel Dataset Measuring Change In Copyright Exceptions, Michael Palmedo

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Copyrights grant creators long periods of market exclusivity during which they or their agents have the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute their works. However, copyright exceptions limit their scope and strength. The laws on both copyright protection and copyright exceptions vary substantially from one country to the next. This working paper introduces a novel, survey-based dataset that describes changes to 24 countries’ laws on copyright exceptions over time. To explore the data, I construct two indices from subsets of the dataset; one that focus on exceptions related to ICT technologies and another that focuses on educational uses. The indices …

The Dream Of Property Professors, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Michael Heller and James Salzman's new book, Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives, is a dream come true for property professors.

I suspect that many of us have moments when we think to ourselves, "wow, this stuff is really interesting," imagining that property law could somehow be of general interest. Too often that dream is killed when the eyes of non-lawyers, including family members, start to glaze over when they hear words like rule against perpetuities or trademark. Heller and Salzman have succeeded in making the stories property professors tell the stuff of a bestseller. They …

Court Personalities And Impoverished Parents, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Professor Tonya Brito's in-depth examination of the pursuit of child support from poor fathers continues to pay significant dividends that extend well beyond family law. Producing Justice in Poor People's Courts: Four Models of State Legal Actors highlights the that differing personalities and approaches can have on impoverished parents involved in child-support-enforcement disputes before the courts. Based on an impressive ethnographic study, Brito's article shows how the actors involved craft stories about impoverished family dynamics as a way to make sense of their own role and complicity in an often unjust system of regulating poor families.

Non-Patent Intellectual Property Barriers To Covid-19 Vaccines, Treatment And Containment, Sean Flynn, Erica Nkrumah, Luca Schirru

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

As the World Trade Organization considers a proposal to waive or otherwise address intellectual property barriers to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the attention given by scholars and policy makers has been focused on patents. The original proposals by South Africa and India, as well as the groundbreaking support of the United States, however, explicitly applied to all forms of intellectual property. This paper documents many instances where non-patent forms of intellectual property create barriers to the global scale up of access to vaccines, treatments, and the ability to contain the virus through social distancing. Addressing …

Research Exceptions In Comparative Copyright Law, Sean Flynn, Michael Palmedo, Andrés Izquierdo

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Recent scholarship has highlighted the positive impact on scholarship of copyright exceptions for text and data mining and of more “open” exceptions for research uses. Until now, however, there has not been a collection and categorization of the world’s copyright laws according to the degree to which they provide exceptions for research. In this report, we release the results of the first such study. We show that every copyright law in the world has at least one exception to promote research uses of copyrighted works, but that such exceptions vary widely between countries. We conclude that the world’s exceptions for …

Unmasking The Nineteenth Amendment Centennial Through The Pandemic Lenses Of Liberty, Loss, Masculinity, And Leadership [Comments], Jamie Abrams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Celebrating the Centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment in this political, economic, and social moment was a tale of two extremes. On the one hand, the Centennial occurred contemporaneously with the election of Kamala Harris as the nation's first woman Vice President offering a tremendous celebratory bookend of political success. On the other hand, we celebrated the Centennial amid a global pandemic that has taken over 740,000 American lives2 and in a crescendo of searingly painful calls for racial justice. In reflecting on the Centennial in this political, social, and economic moment, this article unmasks the lenses of loss, liberty, masculinity, …

Clarifying Nonprofit Purchase Rights In Affordable Housing, Brandon Weiss

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Disputes around the country are proliferating as limited partner investors attempt to thwart the ability of nonprofits to exercise statutorily defined rights of first refusal to acquire low-income housing tax credit developments upon the expiration of rent restrictions. Such efforts, increasingly being made by "aggregator" investors, frustrate congressional intent, violate long-held norms and expectations in the industry, are costly for nonprofits to litigate, jeopardize the ongoing affordability of an already scarce federally assisted housing stock, and threaten to displace low-income tenants. This Essay describes the problem, explores the collision of housing policy and tax policy that gives rise to it, …

Explaining Florida Man, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

"Florida Man" is a popular cultural phenomenon in which journalists report on Floridians'unusual (and often criminal) behavior, and readers relish in and share the stories, largely on social media. A meme based on Florida Man news stories emerged in 2013 and continues to capture people's attention nationwide. Florida man is one of the latest unique trends to come from the Sunshine State and contributes to Florida's reputation as a quirky place.

Explanations for Florida Man center on Florida'sPublic Records Law, which is known as one of the most expansive open records laws in the country. All states and the District …

Who Gets To Make A Living? Street Vending In America, Joseph Pileri

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Street vending has long provided those at the margins of American society with the opportunity for economic advancement. A key segment of the informal economy, street vending has low barriers of entry and attracts entrepreneurs who lack the resources, ability, or desire to start brick-and-mortar businesses or work for someone else. Street vending also contributes to the vitality and safety of urban America.

Despite the pivotal role that street vending plays, cities around the country criminalize vending by treating the violation of street vending regulations as a criminal offense. Recent high-profile vendor arrests in New York City and Washington, DC …

Prosecutors, Ethics And The Pursuit Of Racial Justice, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The 2020 murder of George Floyd catalyzed a national reckoning on race, and scrutiny of barriers to racial justice, rightfully focused on policing. However, as this Symposium has demonstrated, it is also critical to interrogate the prosecutorial function, given the outsize role prosecutors play in the criminal legal system. Scholars and advocates have utilized a number of frames to explore a key topic of this symposium-the intersection between prosecutorial discretion, prosecutorial ethics, and racial inequity.'

Although the renewed interest in the prosecutor's role in the pursuit of racial justice raises many new questions and opportunities, the scaffolding for such work …

Debunking The Efficacy Of Standard Contract Boilerplate: Part Iii, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

There are several things wrong with this paragraph. First, the heading "Knowledge of Residence" is underinclusive, as the paragraph concerns more than where each party lives. A more inclusive and effective heading would be "Knowledge of Contact Information." Second, the introductory phrase is ambiguous, as one could read "for so long as the minor children are less than eighteen years of age" as requiring the parties to exchange information only until one of the parties' children turns 18. Moreover, "eighteen years of age" is archaic and clunky legalese. Keep it simple, solicitors: "eighteen" or "age eighteen" would suffice. Applying these …

Submission To Canadian Government Consultation On A Modern Copyright Framework For Ai And The Internet Of Things, Sean Flynn, Lucie Guibault, Christian Handke, Joan-Josep Vallbé, Michael Palmedo, Carys J. Craig, Michael Geist, João Quintais

Testimony and Submissions

We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Canadian Government’s consultation on a modern copyright framework for AI and the Internet of Things. Below, we present some of our research findings relating to the importance of flexibility in copyright law to permit text and data mining (“TDM”). As the consultation paper recognizes, TDM is a critical element of artificial intelligence. Our research supports the adoption of a specific exception for uses of works in TDM to supplement Canada’s existing general fair dealing exception.

Empirical research shows that more publication of citable research takes place in countries with “open” …

Submission To South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee On Trade And Industry - Re: Copyright Amendment Bill [B13b - 2017], Global Expert Network On Copyright User Rights

Testimony and Submissions

This submission is on behalf of the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights. The Network is an association of over 100 copyright academics from over 30 countries who conduct research and offer technical assistance to governments and stakeholders on the reform of copyright limitations and exceptions to promote the public interest.

Professor Sean Flynn, Counsel of Record, is a former Law Clerk for the late Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson, is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town IP Unit, and has been conducting research and leading academic projects in South Africa for over two decades. …

The Shadow Bargainers, Jenny Roberts, Ronald F. Wright, Betina Cutaia Wilkinson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Plea bargaining happens in almost every criminal case, yet there is little empirical study about what actually happens when prosecutors and defense lawyers negotiate. This Article looks into the bargaining part of plea bargaining. It reports on the responses of over 500 public defenders who participated in our nationwide survey about their objectives and practices during plea negotiations.

The survey responses create a rare empirical test of a major tenet of negotiation theory, the claim that attorneys bargain in the "shadow of the trial." This is a theory that some defenders embrace and others reject. Describing the factors they believe …

Blockchain & Secured Transactions Proceedings Of The 2021 Spring Conference: The Impact Of Blockchain On The Practice Of Law: Presentation 4, Heather Hughes

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Secured transactions are governed by Uniform Commercial Code Article 9. UCC Article 9 governs any extension of credit secured by personalty. If you think about it, this statute governs a massive swath of market activity: secured credit facilities, margin trading of securities, asset securitizations, and purchase money transactions for goods, I could name more. But it's a statute that's very wide ranging. Given this expansive scope, blockchain-based transaction platforms have numerous implications for lawyers who deal with secured transactions. In my brief time here, I'm going to identify just two of them.

Statements To The Wipo Standing Committee On Committee On Copyright And Related Rights, Electronic Information For Libraries

Testimony and Submissions

As an NGO accredited with permanent observer status at WIPO, EIFL has the opportunity to make interventions at sessions of WIPO committees and meetings

EIFL advocates at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for an international copyright framework that benefits libraries in developing and transition economy countries. We participate in sessions of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) that usually meets in Geneva twice a year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just one SCCR took place in 2021, in hybrid mode (online for observers and limited physical participation for member state delegates).

We work with Member States …

Keynote Prosecutors And Race: Responsibility And Accountability, Angela J. Davis

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Thank you so much, Madeline. I want to thank the Rutgers University Law Review and the Rutgers Center on Criminal Justice, Youth Rights, and Race for inviting me to participate in this very important symposium on Prosecutors, Power, and Racial Justice: Building an Anti-Racist Prosecutorial System. I want to give a special thanks to Professor Cohen and Gisselly, and all of the students who worked so hard to put the symposium together. It's such an important topic. I appreciate your interest, and [I] am particularly thankful to all of you [who] are here on this Friday afternoon to talk about …

Widening The Lens On Content Moderation, Jenna Ruddock, Justin Sherman

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Legal Education's Curricular Tipping Point Toward Inclusive Socratic Teaching, Jamie Abrams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Two seismic curricular disruptions create a tipping point for legal education to reform and transform. COVID-19 abruptly disrupted the delivery of legal education. It aligned with a tectonic racial justice reckoning, as more professors and institutions reconsidered their content and classroom cultures, allying with faculty of color who had long confronted these issues actively. The frenzy of these dual disruptions starkly contrasts with the steady drumbeat of critical legal scholars advocating for decades to reduce hierarchies and inequalities in legal education pedagogy.

This context presents a tipping point supporting two pedagogical reforms that leverage this unique moment. First, it is …

Designing Effective Regulation For Blockchain-Based Markets, Heather Hughes

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Effective regulation of blockchain-based markets calls for coordination among lawyers, businesses, coders, and lawmakers. How might we achieve adequate coordination and why is it important? This Article takes up these questions, using one example of an increasingly popular type of blockchain-based financial transaction: the issuance of tokens backed by off-chain assets. The objective here is not to advocate for a particular regulatory treatment for asset tokenization, but rather to use this deal type as a springboard to discuss what "effective regulation" means in the context of blockchain-enabled markets.

Testimony Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Financial Services On “Addressing Climate As A Systemic Risk: The Need To Build Resilience Within Our Banking And Financial System” In June 2021, Hilary J. Allen

Congressional and Other Testimony

No abstract provided.

Eifl And Library Group Comments On Updated Draft Wipo Cmo Toolkit (2021), Electronic Information For Libraries

Testimony and Submissions

EIFL and partner organizations in the library, archives and museum communities responded to a public consultation to provide additional comments on the updated draft WIPO Good Practice Toolkit for Collective Management Organizations (CMOs), released on 27 May 2021. Publication of the updated draft Toolkit follows an earlier consultation that took place in April 2021.

The updated version of the Toolkit contains an expanded section on supervision and monitoring of CMOs (Section 13). We noted three concerns in the updated Section 13, in particular. In our comments, we propose a number of amendments to address the concerns in Section 13, along …

Tax Consequences Of Nonfungible Tokens (Nfts), Walter Effross, Leonard Goodman Cpa, Ph.D., Anthony Pochesci Cpa, Jay Soled Ll.M.

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

These new blockchain-created digital assets may be treated as intangibles for tax purposes, but a dearth of guidance leaves questions.

“By Accident Of Birth”: The Battle Over Birthright Citizenship After United States V. Wong Kim Ark, Amanda Frost

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In theory, birthright citizenship has been well established in U.S. law since 1898, when the Supreme Court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that all born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens. The experience of immigrants and their families over the last 120 years tells a different story, however. This article draws on government records documenting the Wong family's struggle for legal recognition to illuminate the convoluted history of birthright citizenship. Newly discovered archival materials reveal that Wong Kim Ark and his family experienced firsthand, and at times shaped, the fluctuating relationship between immigration, citizenship, and access to …

Protecting And Fostering Online Platform Competition: The Role Of Antitrust Law, Jonathan Baker

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay provides a perspective on the role of antitrust law in protecting and fostering competition in the digital economy, with particular attention to online platforms. It highlights the danger of anticompetitive exclusionary conduct by dominant online platforms and describes ways that antitrust law can challenge and deter such conduct. The essay also identifies a number of difficulties that U.S. courts and enforcers face in challenging harmful exclusionary conduct by dominant platforms, and discusses some ways that regulation can supplement antitrust law in fostering competition.

Regulating The Digital Resonance, Hassan Salman

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements As A Tool For Nature Protection, William Snape

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Reforming The Right To Remuneration In The South African Copyright Amendment Bill, Malebakeng Agnes Forere

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

One of the core goals of South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill is to provide a right to fair remuneration for all authors and performers. This objective was motivated by the experiences of numerous famous South African creators who, despite their success in the creative industry, died as paupers. The problem that the Bill seeks to address is that the distributors of copyrighted work are dominated by multinational monopolies that are able to exact enormous concessions in their contracts with South African creators. Among the tools to address this problem in the Bill is a new right to a “fair royalty” …

“Presentation Principles”: Connecting Core Lawyering Skills To A Contemporary Lawyering Framework In The Digital Age, Ann Shalleck

Presentations

One way we try to make the connection between core lawyering skills and those inherent in contemporary practice is to examine what unifies what might otherwise be considered discrete lawyering skills. Because we are so aware of how technology is constantly changing and how lawyers and our students need to adapt to its forms and logics in their practice, familiar issues of how to communicate become more evident to us. Technology, therefore, gives us the opportunity to reexamine long held practices, habits of mind, and approaches to teaching students how to present information to colleagues, supervisors, clients, adversaries, tribunals, and …