Author(s): Jennifer Urban Year: 2006 Abstract: Digital Millennium Copyright Act, created a process that was intended to help copyright owners ensure rapid removal of allegedly infringing material from the Internet while guaranteeing compliant OSPs a safe harbor from liability for Internet users’ acts of copyright infringement. The U.S. copyright industry thus gained a new tool […]
Efficient Process or “Chilling Effects”? Takedown Notices Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Envisioning Copyright Law’s Digital Future
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2009 Abstract: Copyright initially developed in response to the printing press and gradually evolved to encompass other methods of mechanically storing and reproducing works of authorship, such as photography, motion pictures, and sound recordings. The advent of broadcasting – the ability to perform works at distant points – led to […]
Bankruptcy Treatment of Intellectual Property Assets: An Economic Analysis
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2009 Abstract: With the rise of intellectual property in the modern economy, bankruptcy treatment of intellectual property assets has taken on ever greater importance. The law in this area must balance different approaches to asset management. Viewing the world from an ex ante perspective, intellectual property laws seek to foster […]
An Economic Assessment of Market-Based Approaches to Regulating the Municipal Solid Waste Stream
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2004 Abstract: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was widely reported that the United States faced a solid waste crisis. Existing landfills were reaching capacity or being shut down because of more stringent regulations while waste volumes were continuing to rise. At the time, several market-oriented policy analysts […]
A Method for Reforming the Patent System
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2007 Abstract: The principal recent studies of patent reform (NAS (2004), FTC (2003), Jaffe and Lerner (2004)) contend that a uniform system of patent protection must (or should) be available for anything under the sun made by man based upon one or more of the following premises: (1) the Patent […]
Intellectual Property and the Law of Land
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2008 Abstract: In his response to my previous Regulation article, Professor Richard Epstein misses the gist and key implications of my criticism of his position. My essay questioned his overreliance on claims of structural unity between real and intellectual property systems, a claim he makes in a 2006 Progress & […]
Unwinding Sony
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2009 Abstract: The dawning of the digital age has brought the Supreme Court’s Sony “staple article of commerce” doctrine to center stage in legal and policy discussions about the proper role and scope of copyright protection. To technology companies, it represents a vital safe harbor for product design; to the […]
Indirect Copyright Liability and Technological Innovation
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2009 Abstract: Over the past decade, numerous scholars and commentators have asserted that the indirect copyright liability standards applied in the Napster, Aimster, and Grokster decisions, among others, significantly chill technological innovation. This article examines this critical conjecture and offers both a broader framework for assessing the relationship between indirect […]
Economic Implications of State Sovereign Immunity from Infringement of Federal Intellectual Property Rights
Author(s): Peter S. Menell Year: 2001 Abstract: In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decisions constraining Congress’ ability to abrogate state sovereign immunity, Professor Peter S. Menell examines the propensity of states and state actors to infringe federal intellectual property rights, the viability of alternative means of protecting federal intellectual property rights, and potential implications […]
Patents, Entry and Growth in the Software Industry
Author(s): Robert P. Merges Year: 2006 Abstract: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, people in the software industry often said that the coming of patents would spell doom, particularly for small companies. The entry of new firms – the seedbed of growth in the industry – would dry up, and only large, bureaucratic and […]