2014 – Page 37 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

An Expanded Role for Jay Ranney as Schoone Visiting Fellow

Post author:Joseph D. Kearney
Post published:June 26, 2014
Post category:Marquette Law School Public

ranney-TN As set forth in this release, the Law School has appointed Joseph A. Ranney as its Adrian P. Schoone Visiting Fellow in Wisconsin Law. Ranney will use his fellowship to write a book that examines the role states have played in the evolution of American law, with a focus on the contributions made by Wisconsin. Ranney is (and will continue to be) a partner at DeWitt, Ross & Stevens, S.C., in Madison and a longtime member of Marquette University Law School’s part-time faculty. His previous books include Trusting Nothing to Providence: A History of Wisconsin’s Legal System (1998), considered the leading legal history of the state, and In the Wake of Slavery (2006), examining the path of the law and its effects in the Reconstruction-era South. He is also well known to the Wisconsin bar for his frequent contributions to Wisconsin Lawyer, the official magazine of the State Bar of Wisconsin, and he has made a number of contributions to the Marquette Law Review. The fellowship is made possible by the Law School’s Adrian P. Schoone Fund for the Study of Wisconsin Law and Legal Institutions, announced last year, and its fruits no doubt will include contributions by Jay Ranney to this faculty blog during the course of his fellowship. It is a pleasure to welcome him to his new role.

Marquette Law School Wins 2014 Diversity Matters Award

Post author:Melissa Love Koenig
Post published:June 25, 2014
Post category:Legal Profession Marquette Law School Public

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) honored Marquette Law School at its spring conference with the 2014 Diversity Matters Award. The LSAC Diversity Initiatives Office and Discover Law sponsor the award. The award recognizes Marquette’s commitment to diversity and its programming for high school students and college students from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in law school and the legal profession. Marquette received the third place award two years ago.

Is Hachette Being Hoisted by Its Own DRM Petard?

Post author:Bruce E. Boyden
Post published:June 20, 2014
Post category:Computer Law Intellectual Property Law Public

books Rebecca Tushnet points to this column by Cory Doctorow arguing that Hachette is being held hostage in its fight with Amazon over e-book versions of its books because of its “single-minded insistence on DRM”: “It’s likely that every Hachette ebook ever sold has been locked with some company’s proprietary DRM, and therein lies the rub.” Doctorow argues that because of the DMCA Hachette can no longer get access, or authorize others to get access to, its own books:

Under US law (the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and its global counterparts (such as the EUCD), only the company that put the DRM on a copyrighted work can remove it. Although you can learn how to remove Amazon’s DRM with literally a single, three-word search, it is nevertheless illegal to do so, unless you’re Amazon. So while it’s technical child’s play to release a Hachette app that converts your Kindle library to work with Apple’s Ibooks or Google’s Play Store, such a move is illegal.

It is an own-goal masterstroke.

Everyone loves irony, but I can’t figure out how to make Doctorow’s argument work. First, I can’t figure out what the anticircumvention problem would be. Second, I can’t figure out why Hachette wouldn’t be able to provide other distributors with e-book versions of its books.