From sequels and spin-offs to physical merchandise, copyright and trademark law together give a creative work’s owner exclusive control over a range of derivative products. This Article argues that, under the right conditions, that control can tilt artistic investment away from standalone works and toward the ones that are most likely to generate future derivatives. It explores this phenomenon...
Big Data Prosecution and Brady
As helpful as new forms of centralized data collection might be for investigators, there remains a critical open issue: the systems were not designed to identify the exculpatory and impeaching material prosecutors are required to disclose under Brady v. Maryland. This Article is the first to examine the design flaw at the core of the intelligence-driven prosecution model – a flaw that creates a...
Brief Thoughts on Fair Use and Third-Party Harm: Another Reappraisal of Patrick Cariou v. Richard Prince
The critical literature on copyright law’s fair use rule is enormous, with much of the recent spilling of ink bemoaning the overuse of transformativeness as a decisive factor in the case law. Many courts now consider whether a secondary user has added value to a work by including new insights or new aesthetics to be critical in resolving fair use disputes, even if the amount taken from the...
Episode 5.1: Criminalizing Survival: Homelessness and the Law
This episode is the first of a two part series examining the complexity of addressing homelessness. In Los Angeles in particular, as the voters were passing measures for significantly increasing the amount of money available to address homelessness and help people find housing, the city continued to enforce ordinances that violated the civil rights of people who did not have a home. In this...
Evaluating a Proposed Presidential Reform: Tolling Statutes of Limitations
This article evaluates such an idea insofar as it could potentially constitute a bill of attainder, be applied retroactively, or violate a president’s constitutional rights. Ultimately, the article concludes that the bill would pass judicial scrutiny, whether it could be used in the way Nadler envisioned—namely going after the Oval Office’s current occupant—is a matter of timing, not...
Keeping Speech Cheap: The Progressive Case for a Free Internet: In Response to Can Speech Be Progressive? by Louis Michael Seidman
Abstract In “Can Free Speech Be Progressive?,” Louis Michael Seidman claims that cheap speech, like that found on Twitter, is not really cheap, and is not helpful to progressives—because it relies too heavily on capital. In the era of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter, it seems that Seidman is wrong about cheap speech. Cheap speech exists, and it is associated with a number of progressive successes...
Sanctuary Campuses: The University’s Role in Protecting Undocumented Students From Changing Immigration Policies
This Comment explains how President Trump’s changes to immigration enforcement and attempt to rescind DACA have affected undocumented students, and proposes that the student-university relationship both legally permits and morally obligates postsecondary institutions to adopt policies that protect and insulate undocumented students from the harmful effects of these changing policies.
Due Process, State Taxation of Trusts and the Myth of the Powerless Beneficiary: A Response to Bridget Crawford and Michelle Simon
This piece takes issue with Bridget Crawford and Michelle Simon’s argument in their article about the recent Supreme Court case North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kaestner Family Trust (argued May 16, 2019) (The Supreme Court, Due Process and State Income Taxation of Trusts (67 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 2 (2019)).