Copyright holders have deployed a wide range of enforcement strategies this past decade. In an in... more Copyright holders have deployed a wide range of enforcement strategies this past decade. In an initial, punitive stage, content industries targeted individual copyright infringers by way of an extensive settlement demand campaign and obtained statutory damage awards in a few high profile file-sharing lawsuits. Recently however, copyright holders drastically reversed course, abandoning punitive measures in favor of a " copyright information approach " that enlists Internet service providers into sending copyright infringement notifications to subscribers. Commentators have welcomed this shift towards copyright alert systems as providing a more balanced approach to copyright enforcement that might improve copyright law's normative acceptance. Copyright industries are optimistic that the new copyright alert system will increase copyright awareness and decrease copyright infringing behavior. This Article shows that the optimism with copyright law's recent developments is misplaced. Based on social science research and insights from an empirical study conducted for this Article, we argue that architects of the copyright alert system have underestimated the robustness of social norms and have failed to anticipate the negative reactions to a copyright information system, in particular as relating to privacy harms.
In the past decade, the entertainment industry has waged a very successful legal campaign against... more In the past decade, the entertainment industry has waged a very successful legal campaign against online copyright infringements. In a series of high-profile decisions, content industries have persuaded courts to accept expansive interpretations of contributory enforcement, to create novel doctrines of copyright infringement, and to apply broad interpretations of statutory damage provisions. Many private file sharers, technology companies, university administrators, and Internet service providers have felt the reach of this litigation effort. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: even as the copyright industry has ramped up the level of deterrence, online copyright infringements continue unabated.
Copyright enforcement is riddled with false positives. A false positive occurs when enforcement a... more Copyright enforcement is riddled with false positives. A false positive occurs when enforcement actions are taken against uses that are not actual infringements. Far from benign occurrences, copyright false positives inflict significant social harm in the form of increased litigation and transaction costs, distortions of licensing markets through rent-seeking behavior, increased piracy due to diminished public adherence with copyright law, and the systemic erosion of free speech rights and the public domain.
Conventional understanding in legal reform communities is that time and resources are best direct... more Conventional understanding in legal reform communities is that time and resources are best directed toward legal disputes that have the highest chance of success and that litigation is to be avoided if it is likely to establish or strengthen unfavorable precedent. Contrary to this accepted wisdom, this Essay analyzes the strategic decisions of litigation entrepreneurs who pursue litigation with the awareness that losing the case can provide substantial benefits. Unfavorable litigation outcomes can be uniquely salient and powerful in highlighting the misfortunes of individuals under prevailing law, while presenting a broader narrative about the current failure of the legal status quo. The resulting public backlash may slow down legislative trends and can even prompt legislative initiatives that reverse the unfavorable judicial decisions or induce broader reform.
This Article advances a proposal that brings to life valuable lawsuits that litigation costs curr... more This Article advances a proposal that brings to life valuable lawsuits that litigation costs currently discourage. Our proposal converts claims with negative expected values into positive expected value claims by implementing a novel system involving flexible conditional multipliers. Our proposal has two components. First, under the proposed system a plaintiff is allowed to select a damage multiplier that determines the amount of damages the plaintiff will receive if the litigation is successful. Second, courts select cases for litigation randomly with a probability inverse to the multiplier the plaintiff selected.
This Article examines the symbiotic relationship between copyright law and technology. I describe... more This Article examines the symbiotic relationship between copyright law and technology. I describe how an environment characterized by rapid technological change creates two conditions that determine the direction and evolution of copyright law: legal delay and legal uncertainty. I explain how uncertainty over the application of existing copyright law to newly emerging technology catalyzes the actions of copyright owners and users. I argue that uncertainty and delay (1) have an enabling effect on anticopyright sentiments, (2) lead to a greater reliance on self-help efforts by content providers and users, and (3) induce legislative involvement in copyright law. In the final Part of this Article, I consider how the framework of technological uncertainty and delay helps to explain a number of emerging issues in copyright law. I conclude by providing normative proposals for copyright reform. These proposals relate to the choice between standards and rules, as well as the role of courts, legislators, and administrative agencies in the development of copyright law.
This Article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tor... more This Article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tort awards. We provide four contributions to the literature. First, we present a general, formal model on durable and non-durable precaution technology that focuses on memory costs. Second, because liability exposure creates interference, we argue that tort law perpetuates the expansion of awards. Third, because plaintiffs do not consider the social costs of interference effects, private litigation induces socially excessive suits. Fourth, while new harm-reducing technologies likely increase accident rates, such technologies also raise the ratio of trial costs to harm, leaving undetermined the overall effect of new technologies on the rate of litigation.
Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold i... more Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold important information from the public. This Essay identifies, to the contrary, problematic issues involving the availability of information on non-representative settlements. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented in this Essay demonstrates that, despite the widespread use of nondisclosure agreements, information on settlements is distributed both inside and outside legal communities, reaching actors through various channels including the oral culture in legal communities, specialized reporters, professional interest organizations, and media coverage. Moreover, information on private settlement agreements circulates more widely if the agreed compensation in a given settlement exceeds the expected value of the claim at trial. For example, professional organizations highlight novel settlements that are strategically important to lawyers, and special interest groups bring attention to extravagant settlements that are most likely to induce legislative action.
The selective availability of information on outlier settlements increases the potential impact of settlement agreements. For instance, in tort disputes, individual settlement concessions make it harder for similarly situated defendants to deflect forthcoming claims. Ambitious trial lawyers will use prior settlements as minimum bargaining thresholds. Plaintiffs in future cases become more demanding and more reluctant to accept settlements below what others have agreed to in prior, analogous settlements. Moreover, due to their noncoercive nature, settlements may frame the normative outlook on particular claims or disputes. Consequently, settlement trends may become normative benchmarks to judges and juries that seek to reinforce such valuations in settlement conferences or trials. The settlement dynamics identified in this Essay provide a novel inroad for possible research on the evolution of remedies and damages in various areas of law.
In the past decade the entertainment industry has waged a legally very successful campaign agains... more In the past decade the entertainment industry has waged a legally very successful campaign against online copyright infringements. In a series of high profile decisions, content industries persuaded courts to accept expansive interpretations of contributory enforcement, to create novel doctrines of copyright infringement, and to apply broad interpretations of statutory damage provisions. Many private file-sharers, technology companies, university administrators and Internet service providers have felt the reach of this litigation effort. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: even as the copyright industry has ramped up the level of deterrence, online copyright infringements continue unabated.
Why has the legal battle against file-sharers been so ineffective? The most straightforward explanation is that infringers are not deterred, either because the probability of getting caught remains remote or because the sanctions are not sufficiently salient. If that is the case, the expansive statutory damage award remedies in recent decisions such as Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset and Sony BMG v. Tenebaum, carry renewed promise for the entertainment industry.
In this Article we claim that this deterrence-based approach will prove futile and even counterproductive to the goals of copyright holders. We argue that copyright law faces conditions similar to Prohibition and other historical episodes of enforcement failure. When infringements are widespread, effective deterrence cannot be attained without raising enforcement to levels that undermine the support for the underlying rules. As a result, enforcement has the inadvertent effect of moving behavior in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. In the context of copyright law, enforcement has increased the gap between the social and legal perceptions of copyright law. Because file sharers, as a group, perceive copyright litigation as excessive, this inadvertently strengthens opposition to the legally protected interests of copyright law.
To further our understanding of the interplay between enforcement and public attitudes, we conduct two empirical studies on norms and copyright law. The results confirm that copyright enforcement is a double-edged sword. While stringent sanctions have a modest deterrent effect on file-sharing behavior, they increase anti-copyright sentiments among frequent offenders. This raises a spectacular challenge for copyright enforcement-the more copyright owners push to step up sanctions for copyright infringements; the more the public resents the protected rights. Consequently, stepping up sanctions tends to increase - rather than decrease - the rate and frequency of infringing activities. Our key results suggest therefore, that more stringent copyright enforcement will further erode respect for copyrights and may prove counterproductive to copyright owners.
Trespass law is commonly presented as a relatively straightforward doctrine that protects landown... more Trespass law is commonly presented as a relatively straightforward doctrine that protects landowners against intrusions by opportunistic trespassers. Though widely supported in academic commentary and scholarship, this conventional viewpoint of trespass law lacks empirical and analytical grounding. In fact, the interests involved in trespass disputes often extend beyond the interests of a private landowner, affecting broad societal interests such as the free flow of information, public safety and health, and similar considerations.
This Essay attempts to align these observations with a doctrine more attuned to reality. To that end, it develops a new doctrinal framework for determining the limits of a property owner’s right to exclude. Adopting the doctrine of fair use from copyright law, the Essay introduces the concept of “fair trespass” to property law doctrine. When deciding trespass disputes, courts should evaluate the following factors: (1) the nature and character of the trespass; (2) the nature of the protected property; (3) the amount and substantiality of the trespass; and (4) the impact of the trespass on the owner’s property interest.
The main advantages of this proposal are twofold. First, this novel doctrine more carefully weighs the interests of society in access against the interests of property owners in exclusion. Second, by replacing the existing patchwork of ad hoc situations where courts excuse trespassory acts, this proposal provides a more coherent and consistent context in which to adjudicate trespass conflicts. By developing a balancing test to assess trespass claims, the proposed doctrine seeks to protect the rights of property owners on the basis of a more explicit and predictable framework, while at the same time safe-guarding the societal interests in access.
Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold i... more Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold important information from the public. This Essay identifies, to the contrary, problematic issues involving the availability of information on non-representative settlements. The theoretical ...
+ Professor of Law, Ghent University and Olin Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Polic... more + Professor of Law, Ghent University and Olin Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy, Yale Law School; LL.M, 2003, Yale Law School; Ph.D., 2003, Ghent University; MA, 2001, Hamburg University; JD, 1999, Ghent University. For comments and discussion I ...
This Article discusses the dynamics of shared political accountability and provides a supply- and... more This Article discusses the dynamics of shared political accountability and provides a supply- and demand-side analysis of disaster management. Because multiple levels of government share political accountability in national scale disasters, disaster management is subject to a collective action problem. Introducing the concept of horizontal political externalities, this Article explains the shortcomings of disaster management in terms of asymmetric political accountability costs for ex ante preparedness and ex post relief. In the presence of shared accountability, investments in prevention and relief by one government actor confer positive externalities upon other government actors by reducing the overall chance of being held responsible in ensuing disasters. In contrast, ex post disaster relief involves negative externalities when action by one agency makes other agencies or representatives look worse. Because positive externalities are undersupplied and negative externalities are oversupplied, political externalities distort disaster management policy. When political accountability is shared, no single actor bears the full brunt of accountability. In addition, uncertainty and finger pointing reduce the total sum of political accountability. The different effects of ex ante and ex post disaster management on political accountability may shed light on events before and after Hurricane Katrina. I provide suggestions for further avenues of empirical and theoretical research on this new positive political theory of horizontal political externalities and political accountability losses.
Copyright holders have deployed a wide range of enforcement strategies this past decade. In an in... more Copyright holders have deployed a wide range of enforcement strategies this past decade. In an initial, punitive stage, content industries targeted individual copyright infringers by way of an extensive settlement demand campaign and obtained statutory damage awards in a few high profile file-sharing lawsuits. Recently however, copyright holders drastically reversed course, abandoning punitive measures in favor of a " copyright information approach " that enlists Internet service providers into sending copyright infringement notifications to subscribers. Commentators have welcomed this shift towards copyright alert systems as providing a more balanced approach to copyright enforcement that might improve copyright law's normative acceptance. Copyright industries are optimistic that the new copyright alert system will increase copyright awareness and decrease copyright infringing behavior. This Article shows that the optimism with copyright law's recent developments is misplaced. Based on social science research and insights from an empirical study conducted for this Article, we argue that architects of the copyright alert system have underestimated the robustness of social norms and have failed to anticipate the negative reactions to a copyright information system, in particular as relating to privacy harms.
In the past decade, the entertainment industry has waged a very successful legal campaign against... more In the past decade, the entertainment industry has waged a very successful legal campaign against online copyright infringements. In a series of high-profile decisions, content industries have persuaded courts to accept expansive interpretations of contributory enforcement, to create novel doctrines of copyright infringement, and to apply broad interpretations of statutory damage provisions. Many private file sharers, technology companies, university administrators, and Internet service providers have felt the reach of this litigation effort. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: even as the copyright industry has ramped up the level of deterrence, online copyright infringements continue unabated.
Copyright enforcement is riddled with false positives. A false positive occurs when enforcement a... more Copyright enforcement is riddled with false positives. A false positive occurs when enforcement actions are taken against uses that are not actual infringements. Far from benign occurrences, copyright false positives inflict significant social harm in the form of increased litigation and transaction costs, distortions of licensing markets through rent-seeking behavior, increased piracy due to diminished public adherence with copyright law, and the systemic erosion of free speech rights and the public domain.
Conventional understanding in legal reform communities is that time and resources are best direct... more Conventional understanding in legal reform communities is that time and resources are best directed toward legal disputes that have the highest chance of success and that litigation is to be avoided if it is likely to establish or strengthen unfavorable precedent. Contrary to this accepted wisdom, this Essay analyzes the strategic decisions of litigation entrepreneurs who pursue litigation with the awareness that losing the case can provide substantial benefits. Unfavorable litigation outcomes can be uniquely salient and powerful in highlighting the misfortunes of individuals under prevailing law, while presenting a broader narrative about the current failure of the legal status quo. The resulting public backlash may slow down legislative trends and can even prompt legislative initiatives that reverse the unfavorable judicial decisions or induce broader reform.
This Article advances a proposal that brings to life valuable lawsuits that litigation costs curr... more This Article advances a proposal that brings to life valuable lawsuits that litigation costs currently discourage. Our proposal converts claims with negative expected values into positive expected value claims by implementing a novel system involving flexible conditional multipliers. Our proposal has two components. First, under the proposed system a plaintiff is allowed to select a damage multiplier that determines the amount of damages the plaintiff will receive if the litigation is successful. Second, courts select cases for litigation randomly with a probability inverse to the multiplier the plaintiff selected.
This Article examines the symbiotic relationship between copyright law and technology. I describe... more This Article examines the symbiotic relationship between copyright law and technology. I describe how an environment characterized by rapid technological change creates two conditions that determine the direction and evolution of copyright law: legal delay and legal uncertainty. I explain how uncertainty over the application of existing copyright law to newly emerging technology catalyzes the actions of copyright owners and users. I argue that uncertainty and delay (1) have an enabling effect on anticopyright sentiments, (2) lead to a greater reliance on self-help efforts by content providers and users, and (3) induce legislative involvement in copyright law. In the final Part of this Article, I consider how the framework of technological uncertainty and delay helps to explain a number of emerging issues in copyright law. I conclude by providing normative proposals for copyright reform. These proposals relate to the choice between standards and rules, as well as the role of courts, legislators, and administrative agencies in the development of copyright law.
This Article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tor... more This Article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tort awards. We provide four contributions to the literature. First, we present a general, formal model on durable and non-durable precaution technology that focuses on memory costs. Second, because liability exposure creates interference, we argue that tort law perpetuates the expansion of awards. Third, because plaintiffs do not consider the social costs of interference effects, private litigation induces socially excessive suits. Fourth, while new harm-reducing technologies likely increase accident rates, such technologies also raise the ratio of trial costs to harm, leaving undetermined the overall effect of new technologies on the rate of litigation.
Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold i... more Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold important information from the public. This Essay identifies, to the contrary, problematic issues involving the availability of information on non-representative settlements. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented in this Essay demonstrates that, despite the widespread use of nondisclosure agreements, information on settlements is distributed both inside and outside legal communities, reaching actors through various channels including the oral culture in legal communities, specialized reporters, professional interest organizations, and media coverage. Moreover, information on private settlement agreements circulates more widely if the agreed compensation in a given settlement exceeds the expected value of the claim at trial. For example, professional organizations highlight novel settlements that are strategically important to lawyers, and special interest groups bring attention to extravagant settlements that are most likely to induce legislative action.
The selective availability of information on outlier settlements increases the potential impact of settlement agreements. For instance, in tort disputes, individual settlement concessions make it harder for similarly situated defendants to deflect forthcoming claims. Ambitious trial lawyers will use prior settlements as minimum bargaining thresholds. Plaintiffs in future cases become more demanding and more reluctant to accept settlements below what others have agreed to in prior, analogous settlements. Moreover, due to their noncoercive nature, settlements may frame the normative outlook on particular claims or disputes. Consequently, settlement trends may become normative benchmarks to judges and juries that seek to reinforce such valuations in settlement conferences or trials. The settlement dynamics identified in this Essay provide a novel inroad for possible research on the evolution of remedies and damages in various areas of law.
In the past decade the entertainment industry has waged a legally very successful campaign agains... more In the past decade the entertainment industry has waged a legally very successful campaign against online copyright infringements. In a series of high profile decisions, content industries persuaded courts to accept expansive interpretations of contributory enforcement, to create novel doctrines of copyright infringement, and to apply broad interpretations of statutory damage provisions. Many private file-sharers, technology companies, university administrators and Internet service providers have felt the reach of this litigation effort. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: even as the copyright industry has ramped up the level of deterrence, online copyright infringements continue unabated.
Why has the legal battle against file-sharers been so ineffective? The most straightforward explanation is that infringers are not deterred, either because the probability of getting caught remains remote or because the sanctions are not sufficiently salient. If that is the case, the expansive statutory damage award remedies in recent decisions such as Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset and Sony BMG v. Tenebaum, carry renewed promise for the entertainment industry.
In this Article we claim that this deterrence-based approach will prove futile and even counterproductive to the goals of copyright holders. We argue that copyright law faces conditions similar to Prohibition and other historical episodes of enforcement failure. When infringements are widespread, effective deterrence cannot be attained without raising enforcement to levels that undermine the support for the underlying rules. As a result, enforcement has the inadvertent effect of moving behavior in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. In the context of copyright law, enforcement has increased the gap between the social and legal perceptions of copyright law. Because file sharers, as a group, perceive copyright litigation as excessive, this inadvertently strengthens opposition to the legally protected interests of copyright law.
To further our understanding of the interplay between enforcement and public attitudes, we conduct two empirical studies on norms and copyright law. The results confirm that copyright enforcement is a double-edged sword. While stringent sanctions have a modest deterrent effect on file-sharing behavior, they increase anti-copyright sentiments among frequent offenders. This raises a spectacular challenge for copyright enforcement-the more copyright owners push to step up sanctions for copyright infringements; the more the public resents the protected rights. Consequently, stepping up sanctions tends to increase - rather than decrease - the rate and frequency of infringing activities. Our key results suggest therefore, that more stringent copyright enforcement will further erode respect for copyrights and may prove counterproductive to copyright owners.
Trespass law is commonly presented as a relatively straightforward doctrine that protects landown... more Trespass law is commonly presented as a relatively straightforward doctrine that protects landowners against intrusions by opportunistic trespassers. Though widely supported in academic commentary and scholarship, this conventional viewpoint of trespass law lacks empirical and analytical grounding. In fact, the interests involved in trespass disputes often extend beyond the interests of a private landowner, affecting broad societal interests such as the free flow of information, public safety and health, and similar considerations.
This Essay attempts to align these observations with a doctrine more attuned to reality. To that end, it develops a new doctrinal framework for determining the limits of a property owner’s right to exclude. Adopting the doctrine of fair use from copyright law, the Essay introduces the concept of “fair trespass” to property law doctrine. When deciding trespass disputes, courts should evaluate the following factors: (1) the nature and character of the trespass; (2) the nature of the protected property; (3) the amount and substantiality of the trespass; and (4) the impact of the trespass on the owner’s property interest.
The main advantages of this proposal are twofold. First, this novel doctrine more carefully weighs the interests of society in access against the interests of property owners in exclusion. Second, by replacing the existing patchwork of ad hoc situations where courts excuse trespassory acts, this proposal provides a more coherent and consistent context in which to adjudicate trespass conflicts. By developing a balancing test to assess trespass claims, the proposed doctrine seeks to protect the rights of property owners on the basis of a more explicit and predictable framework, while at the same time safe-guarding the societal interests in access.
Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold i... more Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold important information from the public. This Essay identifies, to the contrary, problematic issues involving the availability of information on non-representative settlements. The theoretical ...
+ Professor of Law, Ghent University and Olin Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Polic... more + Professor of Law, Ghent University and Olin Research Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy, Yale Law School; LL.M, 2003, Yale Law School; Ph.D., 2003, Ghent University; MA, 2001, Hamburg University; JD, 1999, Ghent University. For comments and discussion I ...
This Article discusses the dynamics of shared political accountability and provides a supply- and... more This Article discusses the dynamics of shared political accountability and provides a supply- and demand-side analysis of disaster management. Because multiple levels of government share political accountability in national scale disasters, disaster management is subject to a collective action problem. Introducing the concept of horizontal political externalities, this Article explains the shortcomings of disaster management in terms of asymmetric political accountability costs for ex ante preparedness and ex post relief. In the presence of shared accountability, investments in prevention and relief by one government actor confer positive externalities upon other government actors by reducing the overall chance of being held responsible in ensuing disasters. In contrast, ex post disaster relief involves negative externalities when action by one agency makes other agencies or representatives look worse. Because positive externalities are undersupplied and negative externalities are oversupplied, political externalities distort disaster management policy. When political accountability is shared, no single actor bears the full brunt of accountability. In addition, uncertainty and finger pointing reduce the total sum of political accountability. The different effects of ex ante and ex post disaster management on political accountability may shed light on events before and after Hurricane Katrina. I provide suggestions for further avenues of empirical and theoretical research on this new positive political theory of horizontal political externalities and political accountability losses.
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The selective availability of information on outlier settlements increases the potential impact of settlement agreements. For instance, in tort disputes, individual settlement concessions make it harder for similarly situated defendants to deflect forthcoming claims. Ambitious trial lawyers will use prior settlements as minimum bargaining thresholds. Plaintiffs in future cases become more demanding and more reluctant to accept settlements below what others have agreed to in prior, analogous settlements. Moreover, due to their noncoercive nature, settlements may frame the normative outlook on particular claims or disputes. Consequently, settlement trends may become normative benchmarks to judges and juries that seek to reinforce such valuations in settlement conferences or trials. The settlement dynamics identified in this Essay provide a novel inroad for possible research on the evolution of remedies and damages in various areas of law.
Why has the legal battle against file-sharers been so ineffective? The most straightforward explanation is that infringers are not deterred, either because the probability of getting caught remains remote or because the sanctions are not sufficiently salient. If that is the case, the expansive statutory damage award remedies in recent decisions such as Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset and Sony BMG v. Tenebaum, carry renewed promise for the entertainment industry.
In this Article we claim that this deterrence-based approach will prove futile and even counterproductive to the goals of copyright holders. We argue that copyright law faces conditions similar to Prohibition and other historical episodes of enforcement failure. When infringements are widespread, effective deterrence cannot be attained without raising enforcement to levels that undermine the support for the underlying rules. As a result, enforcement has the inadvertent effect of moving behavior in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. In the context of copyright law, enforcement has increased the gap between the social and legal perceptions of copyright law. Because file sharers, as a group, perceive copyright litigation as excessive, this inadvertently strengthens opposition to the legally protected interests of copyright law.
To further our understanding of the interplay between enforcement and public attitudes, we conduct two empirical studies on norms and copyright law. The results confirm that copyright enforcement is a double-edged sword. While stringent sanctions have a modest deterrent effect on file-sharing behavior, they increase anti-copyright sentiments among frequent offenders. This raises a spectacular challenge for copyright enforcement-the more copyright owners push to step up sanctions for copyright infringements; the more the public resents the protected rights. Consequently, stepping up sanctions tends to increase - rather than decrease - the rate and frequency of infringing activities. Our key results suggest therefore, that more stringent copyright enforcement will further erode respect for copyrights and may prove counterproductive to copyright owners.
This Essay attempts to align these observations with a doctrine more attuned to reality. To that end, it develops a new doctrinal framework for determining the limits of a property owner’s right to exclude. Adopting the doctrine of fair use from copyright law, the Essay introduces the concept of “fair trespass” to property law doctrine. When deciding trespass disputes, courts should evaluate the following factors: (1) the nature and character of the trespass; (2) the nature of the protected property; (3) the amount and substantiality of the trespass; and (4) the impact of the trespass on the owner’s property interest.
The main advantages of this proposal are twofold. First, this novel doctrine more carefully weighs the interests of society in access against the interests of property owners in exclusion. Second, by replacing the existing patchwork of ad hoc situations where courts excuse trespassory acts, this proposal provides a more coherent and consistent context in which to adjudicate trespass conflicts. By developing a balancing test to assess trespass claims, the proposed doctrine seeks to protect the rights of property owners on the basis of a more explicit and predictable framework, while at the same time safe-guarding the societal interests in access.
The selective availability of information on outlier settlements increases the potential impact of settlement agreements. For instance, in tort disputes, individual settlement concessions make it harder for similarly situated defendants to deflect forthcoming claims. Ambitious trial lawyers will use prior settlements as minimum bargaining thresholds. Plaintiffs in future cases become more demanding and more reluctant to accept settlements below what others have agreed to in prior, analogous settlements. Moreover, due to their noncoercive nature, settlements may frame the normative outlook on particular claims or disputes. Consequently, settlement trends may become normative benchmarks to judges and juries that seek to reinforce such valuations in settlement conferences or trials. The settlement dynamics identified in this Essay provide a novel inroad for possible research on the evolution of remedies and damages in various areas of law.
Why has the legal battle against file-sharers been so ineffective? The most straightforward explanation is that infringers are not deterred, either because the probability of getting caught remains remote or because the sanctions are not sufficiently salient. If that is the case, the expansive statutory damage award remedies in recent decisions such as Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset and Sony BMG v. Tenebaum, carry renewed promise for the entertainment industry.
In this Article we claim that this deterrence-based approach will prove futile and even counterproductive to the goals of copyright holders. We argue that copyright law faces conditions similar to Prohibition and other historical episodes of enforcement failure. When infringements are widespread, effective deterrence cannot be attained without raising enforcement to levels that undermine the support for the underlying rules. As a result, enforcement has the inadvertent effect of moving behavior in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. In the context of copyright law, enforcement has increased the gap between the social and legal perceptions of copyright law. Because file sharers, as a group, perceive copyright litigation as excessive, this inadvertently strengthens opposition to the legally protected interests of copyright law.
To further our understanding of the interplay between enforcement and public attitudes, we conduct two empirical studies on norms and copyright law. The results confirm that copyright enforcement is a double-edged sword. While stringent sanctions have a modest deterrent effect on file-sharing behavior, they increase anti-copyright sentiments among frequent offenders. This raises a spectacular challenge for copyright enforcement-the more copyright owners push to step up sanctions for copyright infringements; the more the public resents the protected rights. Consequently, stepping up sanctions tends to increase - rather than decrease - the rate and frequency of infringing activities. Our key results suggest therefore, that more stringent copyright enforcement will further erode respect for copyrights and may prove counterproductive to copyright owners.
This Essay attempts to align these observations with a doctrine more attuned to reality. To that end, it develops a new doctrinal framework for determining the limits of a property owner’s right to exclude. Adopting the doctrine of fair use from copyright law, the Essay introduces the concept of “fair trespass” to property law doctrine. When deciding trespass disputes, courts should evaluate the following factors: (1) the nature and character of the trespass; (2) the nature of the protected property; (3) the amount and substantiality of the trespass; and (4) the impact of the trespass on the owner’s property interest.
The main advantages of this proposal are twofold. First, this novel doctrine more carefully weighs the interests of society in access against the interests of property owners in exclusion. Second, by replacing the existing patchwork of ad hoc situations where courts excuse trespassory acts, this proposal provides a more coherent and consistent context in which to adjudicate trespass conflicts. By developing a balancing test to assess trespass claims, the proposed doctrine seeks to protect the rights of property owners on the basis of a more explicit and predictable framework, while at the same time safe-guarding the societal interests in access.