Note: Live Long and Prosper: How the Persistent and Increasing Popularity of Fan Fiction Requires a New Solution in Copyright Law
By Brittany Johnson. Full text here. For decades, fans have written stories that extend the plotlines of popular films, novels, and television shows in a practice known as fan fiction. But with the advent of the Internet, the popularity of this practice has grown exponentially as these stories are easily posted online and accessible for free.…
Continue ReadingNote: The Shoe Doesn’t Fit: General Jurisdiction Should Follow Corporate Structure
By Seungwon Chung. Full text here. Increasingly, corporations are moving away from a centralized corporate structure toward decentralization and fragmentation of corporate functions. At the same time, the corporate general jurisdiction doctrine functions anachronistically—assuming that corporations exist solely as centralized structures. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman reflects this assumption. By drawing…
Continue ReadingNote: Hard Choices: Where To Draw the Line on Limiting Selection in the Selective Reduction of Multifetal Pregnancies
By Mary A. Scott. Full text here. In the last few years, a growing number of states have enacted or proposed laws that limit a woman’s right to have an abortion when her reasons for seeking the abortion are based on a specific characteristic of the fetus, most notably sex or the presence of a genetic…
Continue ReadingNote: Incorporating Cost into the Return of Incidental Findings Calculus: Defining a Responsible Default for Genetics and Genomics Researchers
By Emily Scholtes. Full text here. The debate over returning incidental findings has been a hot topic in medical and legal circles for many years and is described as “one of the thorniest current challenges.” Currently, no federal or state laws regulate the disclosure of these findings. Although many agree that ethical duties arise in returning…
Continue ReadingNote: Haute off the Press: Refashioning Copyright Law To Protect American Fashion Designs from the Economic Threat of 3D Printing
By Anna M. Luczkow. Full text here. Though invented in the early 1980s, three-dimensional (3D) printing recently became a topic of discussion when advancements in the field revealed the technology’s ability to transform industries and revolutionize consumer capabilities. In the past few years, society witnessed everything from 3D-printed prosthetic limbs to children’s toys. While many scholars…
Continue ReadingNote: Rejecting Tax Exceptionalism: Bringing Temporary Treasury Regulations Back in Line with the APA
By Eleanor D. Wood. Full text here. The Treasury Department has broad general rulemaking power and has historically used this power to create new regulations promulgated under APA notice-and-comment procedures. However, out of supposed necessity in the 1980s, the Treasury began increasingly using temporary regulations, which follow no such promulgation procedure, yet are binding on taxpayers…
Continue ReadingNote: Same-Sex Marriage and Disestablishing Parentage: Reconceptualizing Legal Parenthood Through Surrogacy
By Michael S. DePrince. Full text here. Parenthood is easily determined when a heterosexual married couple conceives a child through sexual reproduction. The common law marital presumption of parenthood holds that when a child is born into a marriage, the woman, having given birth, is presumed the child’s mother; likewise, the woman’s husband, by virtue of marriage…
Continue ReadingNote: Striking Before the Well Goes Dry: Exploring If and How the United States Ban on Crude Oil Exports Should Be Lifted To Exploit the American Oil Boom
By Sam Andre. Full text here. President Gerald Ford championed the adoption of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) in 1975 to promote American energy independence through the limiting of American crude oil exports. Through this law and related regulatory provisions, the federal government successfully shielded American energy interests from crises similar to the 1973…
Continue ReadingNote: A Merry-Go-Round of Metal and Manipulation: Toward a New Framework for Commodity Exchange Self-Regulation
By Samuel D. Posnick. Full text here. The 2013 revelation of Goldman Sachs’ unsavory aluminum warehousing practices led to public uproar and political backlash. In November 2014, Congress released a damning report detailing Wall Street’s involvement in numerous commodities markets and finding rampant manipulation. As a result, the Federal Reserve is reexamining its regulation of financial…
Continue ReadingNote: Remodeling “Model Aircraft”: Why Restrictive Language That Grounded the Unmanned Industry Should Cease To Govern It
By Maxwell Mensinger. Full text here. The notion of a “next frontier” is in perpetual flux. Our understanding thereof shifts towards those concepts with the potential for change and growth. A century ago, with the development of commercial flight, airspace seemed to qualify as the next frontier. Today, drone technology has revitalized this same interest in…
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