MULS 2009 Works-In-Progress Workshop (June Session)

champTo open my month as faculty blogger, I would first like to thank my colleague Michael O’Hear, whose dedication to, and work for, the Marquette Faculty Blog since its creation last summer have been incredible.  This is very much one of the major reasons why this project has been so successful and brought so many wonderful contributions to so many aspects of the law so far.

Another fundamental area where the Marquette Law School faculty is also showing important contributions to the law is the production of scholarship that results in law review articles, book chapters, textbooks, etc.  We often present and discuss these works when they are still in progress in conferences around the country with our colleagues in our areas at other schools.  Still, to facilitate even further these very important discussions, the MULS Academic Programs Committee, led by Professor Chad Oldfather, has organized two sessions of an in-house Works-in-Progress Workshop for June and July.

The June session was a great success. A group of eight of us met this past Wednesday and presented our works-in-progress, from very rough to more completed drafts of scholarship, to our colleagues participating in the program. 

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The Pirate Bay Is Keel-Hauled

Pirate FlagThe Pirate Bay verdict was handed down yesterday in Sweden, and the four defendants were found guilty. Like Evan Brown, I don’t see much of significance in the verdict, although Mike Madison does.

However, what I do find interesting about the whole Pirate Bay situation is “Steal This Film II,” a documentary of comments on filesharing and copyright law produced in support of the defendants. Last week, our own IP Law Society here at Marquette organized a showing of the film. What I found particularly intriguing about “Steal This Film II” is its view of how creative content is produced: it’s not produced at all. Rather, content is found, like rabbits in a field; the rabbits then reproduce on their own, while the “author” stands around doing nothing. (See here at 22:46.) This is a view that I think is unconsciously held by a lot of commentators on this issue: there’s no need to ensure that copyright owners are paid for content, because content will continue to get produced in exactly the same quantity and quality as it is today. (Or, as Jessica Litman suggested at the Nies Lecture this year, perhaps we will have to live with a few less special-effects explosions—no big whoop.)

The issue of how to manage the conflict between copyright and digital technologies becomes much easier if you ignore the problem of how to compensate copyright owners. The very reason the problem is difficult is because two seemingly incompatible goals have come into conflict. One is ensuring that expensive works continue to get produced at the same rate they are now. The second is ensuring that digital technologies develop to their full potential. Eliminate one of those goals and—presto!—the problem becomes trivially simple.

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New Issue of Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review Is Here

Thanks to the outstanding work of its editors and staff members, the Winter 2009 issue of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review has just been released to the public! The issue opens with an article from Professor Jerome H. Reichman, the Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law at Duke Law School, on “Rethinking the Role of Clinical Trial Data in International Intellectual Property: The Case for a Public Goods Approach.”  An early version of this article was presented by Professor Reichman as the 11th Honorable Helen Wilson Nies Momorial lecture at Marquette Law School in March of 2008.  The publication also features two additional articles, one from St. Mary’s University School of Law Professor Robert H. Hu on “International Legal Protection of Trademarks in China,” and one from  Dr. Thomas M. Mackey on “Nanobiotechnology, Synthetic Biology, and RNAI: Patent Portfolios for Maximal Near-Term Commercialization and Commons for Maximal Long-Term Medical Gain.”  Last, but not least, two excellent comments from our own students conclude the issue: Tiffany N. Beaty on “Navigating the Safe Harbor Rule: The Need for a DMCA Compass,” and Jeremiah A. Bryaron on “What Goes Around, Comes Around: How Indian Tribes Can Profit in the Aftermath of Seminole Tribe and Florida Prepaid.”

To all students and authors who put so much work into making this endeavor a success, congratulations again on an excellent Issue of the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review! And to all others . . . enjoy the readings; they are truly interesting and greatly contribute to the academic and professional dialogue well beyond the intellectual property community!

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