Monthly Archives: September, 2024
Jennifer Rothman, ‘Postmortem Publicity Rights at the Property-Personality Divide’
ABSTRACT In this essay, I consider what private law theory and its various understandings of property reveal about the right of publicity. I begin by identifying the current state of right of publicity laws and the ongoing confusion over the right’s status as property. I then consider what it would mean to take seriously the […]
Peter Devonshire, ‘Account of Profits: An Exemplar of Fiduciary Doctrine?’
ABSTRACT The strict obligations governing the conduct of fiduciaries is intended to discourage temptation and encourage fidelity. These objectives potentially lose their force if the remedy has a different emphasis. An account of profits serves a crucial function in disgorging illicit gains. The determination of accountable gains and the amount that must ultimately be disgorged […]
Rivlin and Lifshitz, ‘Reimagining Marital Property at Death’
ABSTRACT This paper argues that death should not automatically terminate the marital partnership, and it suggests a novel and comprehensive model for the regulation of marital property upon death. According to the conventional view, the idea of marital partnership implies an equal division of the marital assets upon dissolution. Thus, in the event of death, […]
‘LAION wins copyright infringement lawsuit in German court’
Copyright AI nerds have been eagerly awaiting a decision in the German case of Kneschke v LAION (previous blog post about the case here), and yesterday we got a ruling (text of the decision in German here, courtesy of Mirko Brüß). In short, LAION was successful in its defence against claims for copyright infringement … […]
John Lande, ‘Theory and Practice of Mediation Representation’
ABSTRACT These days, American attorneys regularly represent clients in mediation. This representation is a complex process, and attorneys and law students need guidance about how to serve clients well in this context. This article offers a theoretical framework for analyzing mediation representation based on Real Practice System Theory. It reviews books that outline elements of […]
Mark Blankenship, ‘Reconsidering the “Aesthetic Nondiscrimination” Doctrine in American Copyright Law’
ABSTRACT The term ‘aesthetic nondiscrimination’ has been widely used by various copyright scholars to describe the legal concept that judges should refrain from making determinations about the aesthetic value of a work. This term, however, is incredibly misleading, because it creates several implications and assumptions that do not support the holding and facts surrounding the […]
‘BC Supreme Court orders will variation due to gender bias’
The Supreme Court of British Columbia varied a will to address the gender-based discrimination that influenced the distribution of an estate, most of which went to the son, to increase the daughter’s share in the estate. The testator in this case had two children, a daughter and a son. Her 2018 will bequeathed the majority […]
Douglas Brodie, ‘The new law of illegality’
ABSTRACT The defence of illegality has undergone significant modernisation at the hands of the judiciary in recent years and public policy considerations are much more explicitly at play. Concepts such as proportionality have become key in decision making. The authority of some of the older case law may have been cast in doubt. At the […]
‘How SLAPPs Threaten the Right to Know – and What to Do about It’
28 September is the International Day for Universal Access to Information (aka International Right to Know Day). This is a day to commemorate the development of freedom of information (FOI) laws and to take stock of the work still to be done to strengthen open government and transparency around the world. On this day, we […]
Bertin Martens, ‘Why the Scope of EU Copyright Protection should be Reduced to Realize the Innovation Benefits of Generative AI’
ABSTRACT Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models have stirred controversy about copyright protection for AI training inputs and model outputs. The European Union’s AI Act require model developers to be transparent about their use of training inputs. Art 4 of the EU Copyright Directive allows free text and data mining of these media inputs unless copyright […]