business

Freedom to contract at the end of the nineteenth century

By in the Spring of 2012

In Kermit Hall’s words, the nineteenth century saw the “triumph of contract” over property, tort, and equity, as the law came “to ratify those forms of inequality that the market system produces.” (196-97) The early twentieth century continued this–at least until the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal forced the court to reconsider.

Contract law in the antebellum 19th century

By in the Spring of 2012

The common law before the nineteenth century required contracts to be fair and reasonable: a “sound price warrants a sound commodity.” But by mid-century, William Wetmore Story’s famous treatise on contracts recognized that this basic understanding had radically altered. Contracts now required only “mutual assent of the parties” and “valuable consideration.”

Reforming government regulations: Stephen Breyer’s technocratic solutions

By in the Spring of 2012

In Breaking the Vicious Circle, Justice Stephen Breyer tackles the problem of regulation and risk in the American context: “Justice Breyer identifies several systemic problems that plague the regulatory process in the United States. He discusses how public (mis)perceptions, congressional (over)reaction, and technical (un)certainty create a “vicious circle” that increasingly undermines the legitimacy of the regulatory process.”

Revisiting copyright claims against Westlaw and LexisNexis: Does selling access to court-filed attorney briefs violate copyright law?

By on

Edward L. White, a Oklahoma City, Okla., lawyer, and Kenneth Elan, claim WestLaw and LexisNexis have engaged in “unabashed wholesale copying of thousands of copyright-protected works created by, and owned by, the attorneys and law firms who authored them”–namely publicly filed briefs, motions and other legal documents.

Protecting vested interests in the face of new technology: the case of the Charles River Bridge

By in the Spring of 2012

New developments and new approaches had permitted a new corporation to build a new bridge at a lower cost–and to make it free within a few years of its opening, while still turning a profit for its investors. But in doing so, the profit-making potential of the old bridge was destroyed (although investors had already made back their initial investment multiple times over).

But hadn’t the old company taken a risk initially? Didn’t its investors deserve to reap their new profits because they had taken the risk initially? Wouldn’t setting a precedent that their state-granted monopoly could be limited later actually inhibit future investment?

Privacy and the silo/filter/echo problem

By in the Spring of 2011

The push for “privacy” that demands an ability to allow us to restrict who sees what–enabled, for example, by new tools in Facebook and Google+–also creates and reinforces silos (filter bubbles, echo chambers) that prevent our exposure to different ideas. But this move highlights potential conflicts between a number of rights: freedom of association and freedom of speech and the press (both from the First Amendment) and rights to privacy (from the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments). What is this conflict? Is it real? How can we (begin) to resolve it?

On “The Role of Technology in Human Affairs”

By in the Spring of 2011

In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler discusses his vision of the role of technology in historical change. He rejects an overly deterministic vision of technology (which he connects with Lewis Mumford and Marshall McLuhan), but also rejects a view of technology as immaterial to a society’s direction.

The tech transfer process: buffering science from commercialism

By in the Spring of 2011

Technology transfer offices at universities are key players in the process of putting technology to work. They facilitate the sometimes difficult translation of academic discoveries into private, saleable technology. The offices also serve as a buffer between the demands of private enterprise and the Mertonian ideals of the academic “ivory tower,” and the technology transfer process reflects this.