Speaking Freely Opinion Papers

Revamped Legal Structure Is Key
to the Future of Journalism
by Bruce Sanford, Esq.

Journalism’s struggle to find a way to prosper financially on the Internet has NOT GIVEN appropriate consideration to how Washington’s laws have defined the economics of the communications business.  Indeed, the anxiety over the Internet’s impact on the business model for journalism ignores the underlying legal rules and public policy that structure any business on the Web....  » Read More

Perspectives Policy Papers

Defining Away the First Amendment
by Robert Corn-Revere, Esq.

Ever since the D.C. Circuit in Comcast Corporation v. FCC on April 6 reminded the Commission that Congress first had to give it authority before it can regulate broadband networks, the Washington policy debate has drifted toward one word – reclassification.... » Read More

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Intellectual Property Issues

Assessing the DMCA Safe Harbors:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
by Prof. Peter S. Menell, Director,  
University of California-Berkeley School of Law

With nearly 12 years of experience, we are now in a better position to assess the effects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 512 safe harbors.  At the time that Congress.... » Read More

Restoration of Copyright:
An International Perspective
by Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg,
Columbia University School of Law

When the United States ratified the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) in 1994, it undertook to implement Article 18 of the Berne Convention.... » Read More

Why Patent Law Exaggerates Damages
by Prof. Doug Lichtman,
UCLA School of Law

Patent law intentionally and explicitly exaggerates damages.  That is, when a court decides that a valid patent has been infringed, it typically imposes a remedy, the net value of which clearly exceeds the value of any deal the parties would have made had they negotiated a license prior to the infringement.  There are many reasons for this....  » Read More

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Media & Communications Policy Blog

Sen. Franken Opines on Net Neutrality
(or Something)
by Patrick Maines

There’s no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but chowderheads abound there.  We can infer this from the cosmologists’ predictions of Earth-like planets, and from the way our elected leaders demonstrate the density of Homo sapiens..... » Read More

The DISCLOSE Act Creeps Along
by Patrick Maines

Sometime before the end of the world (which is to say any day now) it’s going to occur to our congressional leaders that the United States is facing some actual problems that might usefully be addressed.  In the meantime.... » Read More