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Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

Life Is Plastic, It's Fantastic

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:48 AM PDT

Rebecca Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center, has published Make Me Walk, Make Me Talk, Do Whatever You Please: Barbie and Exceptions, in Intellectual Property at the Edge (Rochelle Dreyfuss & Jane Ginsburg eds., 2013). Here is the abstract.

Barbie represents an aspiration to an ideal and also a never-ending mutability. Barbie is the perfect woman, and she is also grotesque, plasticized hyperreality, presenting a femininity exaggerated to the point of caricature. Barbie's marketplace success, combined with (and likely related to) her overlapping and contradictory meanings, also allow her to embody some key exceptions to copyright and trademark law. Though Mattel's lawsuits were not responsible for the initial recognition of those exceptions, they illuminate key principles and contrasts in American law. Mattel attempted to use both copyright and trademark to control the meaning of Barbie, reflecting a trend towards such overlapping claims. In order to ensure that their combined scope is no greater than the sum of their parts, both trademark and copyright defenses ought to be considered together.
The Barbie cases highlight the problem that overlaps between the two regimes can challenge the very idea of IP boundaries, unless robust defenses exist against overclaiming. Download the full text of the essay from SSRN at the link. 

Law and Society Association: Early Information About the 2014 Annual Meeting

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:42 AM PDT

From the Law and Society Association:

We are excited to announce early information about the Law and Society Association 2014 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, May 29 – June 1.  We have many changes and new features this year, including:
 ·       Earlier deadlines
·       New submission software
·       New "Salon" sessions
·       New process for Author Meets Reader sessions
·       CRN session protocols
 2014 is also the 50th Anniversary of the Law and Society Association!  Many special events are planned, and we believe this will be an exceptional conference.
 All current and future information about the Annual Meeting will be located at http://www.lawandsociety.org/minneapolis2014/Minneapolis2014.html, so bookmark and visit often!  We will update the information as it becomes available.
 Now is the time to start thinking about your paper or session submission so you will be ready by the new deadline. Details about all the new features will appear in the Call for Papers in August.
 

Assessing Lynn White's Arguments Forty Years On

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:25 AM PDT

John Copeland Nagle, Notre Dame Law School, has published What Hath Lynn White Wrought? at 2 Fare Forward 44 (2012). Here is the abstract.

Lynn White's 1967 article on "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" famously blamed Christianity for modern environmental problems. White's historical analysis viewed Christianity for cultivating a dismissive view toward nature and for embracing technology in a way that resulted in unchecked pollution and extinctions. Since White wrote his article, Christian scholars have accepted the challenge that White's diagnosis presented. Other nations, perhaps most notably China, have experienced crippling environmental destruction even in the absence of a legacy of Christian thought. More positively, White's thesis has encouraged a generation of scholars to explore the positive aspects of Christian thought for environmental policy. 
Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

A New Book On Comparative Law

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:21 AM PDT

Vivian Grosswald Curran, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, has published Book Review: Gilles Cuniberti, Grands Systèmes De Droit Contemporains (2d ed., L.G.D.J., 2011) at 61 American Journal of Comparative Law (2013). Here is the abstract.

Professor Cuniberti's book instructs and engages. He has successfully rendered the pluralism of law through a wealth of information about governments, cultures, religions and judicial systems.
Download the full text of the review from SSRN at the link. 

Starring Fnu Lnu

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:17 AM PDT

When the criminal justice system uses an acronym to refer to a defendant, sometimes not everyone gets the memo. The New York Times' Benjamin Weiser explains further, noting that at least one playwright used one acronym (Fnu Lnu for "first name unknown, last name unknown) as the inspiration for a work).
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