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Full-Text Articles in Law
Created Facts And The Flawed Ontology Of Copyright Law, Justin Hughes
Created Facts And The Flawed Ontology Of Copyright Law, Justin Hughes
Articles
It is black letter doctrine that facts are not copyrightable: facts are discovered, not created—so they will always lack the originality needed for copyright protection. As straightforward as this reasoning seems, it is fundamentally flawed. Using the “social facts” theory of philosopher John Searle, this Article explores a variety of “created facts” cases—designation systems, systematic evaluations, and privately written laws—in which original expression from private individuals is adopted by social convention and generates facts in our social reality. In the course of this discussion, the paper places facts in their historical and philosophical context, explores how courts conflate facts with …
The New Massachusetts Health Law: Preemption And Experimentation, Edward A. Zelinsky
The New Massachusetts Health Law: Preemption And Experimentation, Edward A. Zelinsky
Articles
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempts major features of the new Massachusetts health law. Although regrettable, this conclusion is mandated by ERISA's statutory terminology and the controlling case law. Other states, in fashioning their health care policies, are looking at elements of the new Massachusetts law. Just as ERISA preempts the individual and business contribution mandates of the Massachusetts statute, ERISA will preempt any similar provisions adopted by other states.
Because state experimentation with health care is particularly desirable today, Congress should, at a minimum, amend ERISA to validate the new Massachusetts health law. More comprehensively, …
That’S A Fine Chablis You’Re Not Drinking: The Proper Place For Geographical Indications In Trademark Law, Justin Hughes, Lynne Beresford, Annette Kur, Kenneth Plevan, Susan Scafidi
That’S A Fine Chablis You’Re Not Drinking: The Proper Place For Geographical Indications In Trademark Law, Justin Hughes, Lynne Beresford, Annette Kur, Kenneth Plevan, Susan Scafidi
Articles
No abstract provided.
Dispatches From The Tort Wars, Anthony J. Sebok
Dispatches From The Tort Wars, Anthony J. Sebok
Articles
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, as a political matter, the modern tort reform movement has been very successful. This essay reviews three books that either rebut the tort reform movement's central theses or analyze the strategies that allowed the movement to prevail. I discuss Tom Baker's The Medical Malpractice Myth, Herbert Kritzer's Risks, Reputations, and Rewards: Contingency Fee Legal Practice in the United States, and William Haltom & Michael McCann's Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis. Although each book has a very different focus from the other two, I argue that a common theme …
Means Testing: The Failed Bankruptcy Revolution Of 2005, David G. Carlson
Means Testing: The Failed Bankruptcy Revolution Of 2005, David G. Carlson
Articles
The monumental bankruptcy amendments of 2005 made means testing the very center of the attempt to restore discipline to consumer spending. Yet, one year of practical experiences shows that either the means test either promotes bankruptcy abuse, or it is meanginless, depending on whether courts think the mechanical means test pre-empts pre-2005 law, or whether it merely supplements it. This article explores the means test in details, shows why it is a flop, and what the courts have made of it so far.
Hegel And The Becoming Of Essence, David G. Carlson
The Historical Race Competition For Corporate Charters And The Rise And Decline Of New Jersey: 1880-1910, Charles M. Yablon
The Historical Race Competition For Corporate Charters And The Rise And Decline Of New Jersey: 1880-1910, Charles M. Yablon
Articles
No abstract provided.
American Moral Rights And Fixing The Dastar Gap, Justin Hughes
American Moral Rights And Fixing The Dastar Gap, Justin Hughes
Articles
When the United States acceded to the Berne Convention in 1988, Congress concluded that a compendium of causes of action under American law, including Lanham Act claims, provided the moral rights protections mandated by Berne Article 6bis. This claim of patchwork protection of moral rights has always been widely criticized, but became more dubious in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox. In Dastar, the Court held that vis-a-vis works in the public domain there is no Lanham section 43(a) obligation to credit the original creator or copyright owner as the origin of …
The Incoherence Of Dormant Commerce Clause Nondiscrimination: A Rejoinder To Professor Denning, Edward A. Zelinsky
The Incoherence Of Dormant Commerce Clause Nondiscrimination: A Rejoinder To Professor Denning, Edward A. Zelinsky
Articles
A sound intuition animates Professor Denning's defense of the doctrinal status quo under the dormant commerce clause: the courts should not lightly abandon well-established constitutional canons. I nevertheless remain unconvinced by Professor Denning's effort to justify the long-standing interpretation of the dormant commerce clause as forbidding taxes which discriminate against interstate commerce. Whatever the historical justification for this constitutional precept, its past utility, or its visceral appeal, dormant commerce clause nondiscrimination is today doctrinally incoherent in tax contexts. The problem is not one of borderlines and close cases. Rather, at its core, the notion of dormant commerce clause tax nondiscrimination …
Disparities Between Asbestosis And Silicosis Claims Generated By Litigation Screenings And Clinical Studies, Lester Brickman
Disparities Between Asbestosis And Silicosis Claims Generated By Litigation Screenings And Clinical Studies, Lester Brickman
Articles
In 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack, presiding over an MDL proceeding involving 10,000 claims of silicosis, issued a 264 page opinion rejecting the reliability of thousands of medical reports generated by litigation screenings. In that report, she documented in great detail the existence of a fraudulent scheme to create bogus medical evidence that lead her to conclude that it is apparent that truth and justice had very little to do with these diagnoses. . . . [Indeed] it is clear that lawyers, doctors and screening companies were all willing participants in a scheme to manufacture. . . [diagnoses] …
On The Legal Consequences Of Sauces: Should Thomas Keller’S Recipes Be Per Se Copyrightable?, Christopher Buccafusco
On The Legal Consequences Of Sauces: Should Thomas Keller’S Recipes Be Per Se Copyrightable?, Christopher Buccafusco
Articles
The restaurant industry now takes in over $500 billion a year, but recent courts have been skeptical of the notion that one of its most valuable assets, original recipes, are subject to copyright protection. With more litigation looming and the contours of the debate insufficiently mapped out, this article establishes the appropriate groundwork for analyzing the copyrightability of recipes. I show that, contrary to recent appellate court opinions, recipes meet the statutory requirements for copyrightability. I argue, by analogizing to musical compositions, that written recipes work to satisfy the fixation requirement of copyright law just as musical notation does for …
Introduction, Kyron Huigens
A Comment On Professor Buell’S Paper, Charles M. Yablon
A Comment On Professor Buell’S Paper, Charles M. Yablon
Articles
No abstract provided.
The New Casuistry, Peter Goodrich
Access To The Courts: An Essay For The Georgetown University Law Center Conference On The Independence Of The Courts, David S. Udell, Rebekah Diller
Access To The Courts: An Essay For The Georgetown University Law Center Conference On The Independence Of The Courts, David S. Udell, Rebekah Diller
Articles
No abstract provided.
Business Imperatives And Fiduciary Duty, Melanie B. Leslie
Business Imperatives And Fiduciary Duty, Melanie B. Leslie
Articles
No abstract provided.