Law Commons^™

The Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired Persons: Why A Treaty Was Preferable To Soft Law, Margot E. Kaminski, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid

Publications

This paper addresses the debates leading up to the recently adopted international treaty on copyright exceptions for the visually impaired, the Marrakesh International Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. This treaty was successfully adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in June 2013.

Leading up to the negotiation of this instrument, multiple UN member states pushed for the instrument to be negotiated as soft law instead of a treaty. We argue that making this instrument soft law would have precluded its success. WIPO thus correctly chose to …

Book Review, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

Overview Of Panel: Judges, Diplomats, And Peacebuilders: Evaluating International Dispute Resolution As A System, Anna Spain

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No abstract provided.

The Capture Of International Intellectual Property Law Through The U.S. Trade Regime, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

For years, the United States has included intellectual property ("IP") law in its free trade agreements. This Article finds that the IP law in recent U.S. free trade agreements differs subtly but significantly from U.S. IP law. These differences are not the result of deliberate government choices, but of the capture of the U.S. trade regime.

A growing number of voices has publicly criticized the lack of transparency and democratic accountability in the trade agreement negotiating process. But legal scholarship largely praises the 'fast track" trade negotiating system. This Article reorients the debate over the trade negotiating process away from …

Classcrits Mission Statement, Justin Desautels-Stein, Angela P. Harris, Martha Mccluskey, Athena Mutua, James Pope, Ann Tweedy

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No abstract provided.

Marked!, Aya Gruber

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No abstract provided.

Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García

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Research on the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content has revealed an unlikely symbiosis between uncertainty and efficiency. Contrary to received wisdom, which tells us that in order to increase efficiency, we must increase stability, this Article suggests that uncertainty can actually be used to increase efficiency in the marketplace. In the music industry, the battle over terrestrial performance rights--that is, the right of a copyright holder to collect royalties for plays of a sound recording on terrestrial radio--has raged for decades. In June 2012, in a deal that circumvented the statutory license for sound recordings for the …

Torn Between Two Selves: Should Law Care More About Experiencing Selves Or Remembering Selves?, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Based upon psychological research and neuroscience studies about subjective well-being, 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics Daniel Kahneman poses a riddle about which of these two selves should count: experiencing selves or remembering selves. Our remembered emotions (memories) are usually rosier than our experienced emotions, and people are motivated by their predicted emotions, which tend to coincide with their emotional memories. This Article advocates that law should care more about experiencing selves than remembering selves if and when experiences result in chronic health or stress consequences that either (1) societies care about more than people do (because of externalities, public bads, …

Machine Learning And Law, Harry Surden

Publications

This Article explores the application of machine learning techniques within the practice of law. Broadly speaking “machine learning” refers to computer algorithms that have the ability to “learn” or improve in performance over time on some task. In general, machine learning algorithms are designed to detect patterns in data and then apply these patterns going forward to new data in order to automate particular tasks. Outside of law, machine learning techniques have been successfully applied to automate tasks that were once thought to necessitate human intelligence — for example language translation, fraud-detection, driving automobiles, facial recognition, and data-mining. If performing …

Rethinking Domestic Violence, Rethinking Violence, Aya Gruber

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No abstract provided.

The White Whale: Bringing Emotion And Relevance To The Contemporary Trusts And Estates Course, Wayne M. Gazur

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No abstract provided.

Congratulations To The 2014 Recipients Of The Oakley Advocacy And Pagi Awards!, Susan Nevelow Mart

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No abstract provided.

Health Care, Title Vi, And Racism's New Normal, Dayna Bowen Matthew

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No abstract provided.

Legal Academia And The Blindness Of The Elites, Paul Campos

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No abstract provided.

Copyright Crime And Punishment: The First Amendment's Proportionality Puzzle, Margot Kaminski

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The United States is often considered to be the most speech-protective country in the world. Paradoxically, the features that have led to this reputation have created areas in which the United States is in fact less speech protective than other countries. The Supreme Court's increasing use of a categorical approach to the First Amendment has created a growing divide between the US. approach to reconciling copyright and free expression and the proportionality analysis adopted by most of the rest of the world.

In practice, the U.S. categorical approach to the First Amendment minimizes opportunities for judicial oversight of copyright. Consequently, …