Peter S. Menell, Professor of Law, University of California-Berkeley School of Law February 17, 2010 A little more than a decade ago, Napster rocked the music industry by enabling anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to costlessly and virtually anonymously distribute files to millions of others.  As cyberculture journalist Joseph Menn observed at [...]

Prof. Peter S. Menell, School of Law, University of California at Berkeley Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology Sept. 16, 2009 From ancient origins in the ill-fated Library of Alexandria through the Middle Ages and into modern copyright regimes, societies have long sought to preserve and catalog human knowledge and make it publicly accessible.  [...]

Prof. Peter S. Menell, School of Law, University of California at Berkeley Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology July 24, 2009 Following the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision four years ago, Professor Lawrence Lessig predicted that the decision would gravely hamper innovation in digital technology.  See Robert Hof, “Ten Years of Chilled Innovation,” Business Week [...]

Prof. Peter S. Menell, UC-Berkeley School of Law Feb. 24, 2009 For much of its first decade of meteoric growth, Google built its Internet search engine business without the apparent need or desire to license copyrighted content.  Relying on the DMCA’s online service provider safe harbors, the fair use doctrine, and implied consent, Google 1.0 [...]