The Recorded Music Industry and the Emergence of Online Music Distribution: Innovation in the Absence of Copyright (Reform)
Seth Ericsson · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1783 (2011) This Article attempts to pay homage to Justice Breyer’s seminal article, The Uneasy Case for Copyright, by exploring the effects of online music distribution (“OMD”), a phenomenon that may be seen as a relative approximation of a copyrightless environment, in order to gain... Read More
The Uneasy Case for Software Copyrights Revisited
Pamela Samuelson · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1746 (2011) Forty years ago, Justice Stephen Breyer expressed serious doubts about the economic soundness of extending copyright protection to computer programs in his seminal article, The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs. A decade later, Congress... Read More
The Changing Nature of Books and the Uneasy Case for Copyright
Niva Elkin-Koren · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1712 (2011) Back in the 1970s, Justice Stephen Breyer, then a law professor at Harvard Law School, questioned the economic justification for granting copyrights to publishers. In his seminal article, The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs,... Read More
Is Efficient Copyright a Reasonable Goal?
Stan J. Liebowitz · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1692 (2011) If we could create an economically efficient copyright law, would we want to do so? This Essay argues that society should not favor an economically efficient copyright law. As this Essay describes, a social welfare-maximizing copyright law amounts to an attempt to... Read More
A New Uneasy Case for Copyright
Michael Abramowicz · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1644 (2011) Until recently, virtually no attention has been paid to the possibility that copyright protection might inefficiently draw resources into creation and dissemination of copyrightable works. The empirical challenge that Justice Breyer observed in The Uneasy Case for Copyright assessing to what other uses... Read More
KEYNOTE: The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Look Back Across Four Decades
The Honorable Stephen G. Breyer · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1635 (2011) On November 4, 2010, The George Washington Law Review, the George Washington Law School Intellectual Property Law Program, and the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center presented a symposium celebrating and commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Justice Beryer’s seminal article, The... Read More
FOREWORD: The Uneasy Case for Copyright: Lessons of Approach and Attitude
Robert Brauneis · September 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1631 (2011) On November 4, 2010, The George Washington Law Review, the George Washington University Intellectual Property Law Program, and the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center brought together over a dozen leading law professors and economists for a symposium to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of... Read More
MSHA’s Pattern of Violations Authority: Reviving An Untapped Resource of Enforcement Power
Alexa E. Welzien · July 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1613 (2011) On April 5, 2010, a deadly combination of methane gas and coal dust ignited Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. The explosion instantly killed twenty-nine miners and became the deadliest mining disaster to occur in nearly forty years.... Read More
Defining Executive Deference in Treaty Interpretation Cases
Joshua Weiss · July 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1592 (2011) From establishing partnerships to setting international norms, treaties have always played an important role in managing U.S. relations abroad. Unsurprisingly, questions about who has interpretive power over treaties are not new. Beyond a vague notion that the Executive’s treaty interpretations receive some deference,... Read More
Judicial Deference to Retroactive Interpretative Treasury Regulations
Andrew Pruitt · July 2011 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1558 (2011) Can the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), by exercising its regulatory powers over the federal tax laws, reverse taxpayer-favorable court decisions? In a series of recent cases, most prominently Intermountain Insurance Service of Vail, LLC v. Commissioner (“Intermountain II”), the IRS has argued that... Read More