In its essence, land law has to provide answers to two very difficult questions: who is entitled to use land, and how they are entitled to use it? Land law is therefore inherently difficult, but not impossibly so. It consists of an ordered and logical system, which aims to take the sting out of fierce disputes. This new introductory textbook reveals the system and also shows how it is possible to understand and criticize land law. The book is written in a student-friendly style and, in both its pages and companion web-site, makes use of helpful visual aids. The book places land law firmly within the wider context of property law. The introduction discusses a basic tension which runs throughout property law, and it shows how that tension is heightened where land is involved. The second part shows the response to this basic tension, setting out a basic structure which applies throughout property law, while noting how the special nature of land leads to the special features of land law. The third part of the book applies the basic structure to the individual topics making up land law courses, using the structure to reveal the conceptual coherence which lies behind the technical terms. The book is ideal reading for undergraduate law students seeking a rock-solid understanding of how land law works.
Shortlisted for the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2009 In its essence, property law has to provide answers to two very difficult questions: who is entitled to use property, and how are they entitled to use it? Property law is therefore inherently difficult, but not impossibly so. It consists of an ordered and logical system, which aims to take the sting out of fierce disputes. This book provides a new perspective on property law. By setting out an underlying structure, it allows the reader to understand the fundamental principles of this difficult subject. By providing detailed coverage of individual topics, it shows how those principles apply in practice and provides a comprehensive resource for anyone studying, teaching, researching or practising in property law. The book is written in an accessible style, with frequent summaries and, in both its pages and companion web-site it makes use of helpful visual aids. It is ideal reading for law students seeking a rock-solid understanding of how property law and land law work, and contains sufficient detail for use as a course book in: " Property Law " Land Law " Personal Property Law The book also provides detailed analysis of core topics in: " Equity & Trusts " Commercial Law " Unjust Enrichment & Restitution See the companion website for this book: www.hartpub.co.uk/companion/propertylaw.html.
This book takes a fresh look at the most dynamic area of American law today, comprising the fields of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrecy, publicity rights, and misappropriation. Topics range from copyright in private letters to defensive patenting of business methods, from moral rights in the visual arts to the banking of trademarks, from the impact of the court of patent appeals to the management of Mickey Mouse. The history and political science of intellectual property law, the challenge of digitization, the many statutes and judge-made doctrines, and the interplay with antitrust principles are all examined. The treatment is both positive (oriented toward understanding the law as it is) and normative (oriented to the reform of the law). Previous analyses have tended to overlook the paradox that expanding intellectual property rights can effectively reduce the amount of new intellectual property by raising the creators' input costs. Those analyses have also failed to integrate the fields of intellectual property law. They have failed as well to integrate intellectual property law with the law of physical property, overlooking the many economic and legal-doctrinal parallels. This book demonstrates the fundamental economic rationality of intellectual property law, but is sympathetic to critics who believe that in recent decades Congress and the courts have gone too far in the creation and protection of intellectual property rights. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. The Economic Theory of Property 2. How to Think about Copyright 3. A Formal Model of Copyright 4. Basic Copyright Doctrines 5. Copyright in Unpublished Works 6. Fair Use, Parody, and Burlesque 7. The Economics of Trademark Law 8. The Optimal Duration of Copyrights and Trademarks 9. The Legal Protection of Postmodern Art 10. Moral Rights and the Visual Artists Rights Act 11. The Economics of Patent Law 12. The Patent Court: A Statistical Evaluation 13. The Economics of Trade Secrecy Law 14. Antitrust and Intellectual Property 15. The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Law Conclusion Acknowledgments Index Reviews of this book: Chicago law professor William Landes and his polymath colleague Richard Posner have produced a fascinating new book...[The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law] is a broad-ranging analysis of how intellectual property should and does work...Shakespeare's copying from Plutarch, Microsoft's incentives to hide the source code for Windows, and Andy Warhol's right to copyright a Brillo pad box as art are all analyzed, as is the question of the status of the all-bran cereal called 'All-Bran.' --Nicholas Thompson, New York Sun Reviews of this book: Landes and Posner, each widely respected in the intersection of law and economics, investigate the right mix of protection and use of intellectual property (IP)...This volume provides a broad and coherent approach to the economics and law of IP. The economics is important, understandable, and valuable. --R. A. Miller, Choice Intellectual property is the most important public policy issue that most policymakers don't yet get. It is America's most important export, and affects an increasingly wide range of social and economic life. In this extraordinary work, two of America's leading scholars in the law and economics movement test the pretensions of intellectual property law against the rationality of economics. Their conclusions will surprise advocates from both sides of this increasingly contentious debate. Their analysis will help move the debate beyond the simplistic ideas that now tend to dominate. --Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School, author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World An image from modern mythology depicts the day that Einstein, pondering a blackboard covered with sophisticated calculations, came to the life-defining discovery: Time = $$. Landes and Posner, in the role of that mythological Einstein, reveal at every turn how perceptions of economic efficiency pervade legal doctrine. This is a fascinating and resourceful book. Every page reveals fresh, provocative, and surprising insights into the forces that shape law. --Pierre N. Leval, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit The most important book ever written on intellectual property. --William Patry, former copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee Given the immense and growing importance of intellectual property to modern economies, this book should be welcomed, even devoured, by readers who want to understand how the legal system affects the development, protection, use, and profitability of this peculiar form of property. The book is the first to view the whole landscape of the law of intellectual property from a functionalist (economic) perspective. Its examination of the principles and doctrines of patent law, copyright law, trade secret law, and trademark law is unique in scope, highly accessible, and altogether greatly rewarding. --Steven Shavell, Harvard Law School, author of Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law
Spurred by the advances in option theory that have been remaking financial and economic scholarship over the past thirty years, a revolution is taking shape in the way legal scholars conceptualize property and the way it is protected by the law. Ian Ayres's Optional Law explores how option theory is overthrowing many accepted wisdoms and producing tangible new tools for courts in deciding cases. Ayres identifies flaws in the current system and shows how option theory can radically expand and improve the ways that lawmakers structure legal entitlements. An option-based system, Ayres shows, gives parties the option to purchase—or the option to sell—the relevant legal entitlement. Choosing to exercise a legal option forces decisionmakers to reveal information about their own valuation of the entitlement. And, as with auctions, entitlements in option-based law naturally flow to those who value them the most. Seeing legal entitlements through this lens suggests a variety of new entitlement structures from which lawmakers might choose. Optional Law provides a theory for determining which structure is likely to be most effective in harnessing parties' private information. Proposing a practical approach to the foundational question of how to allocate and protect legal rights, Optional Law will be applauded by legal scholars and professionals who continue to seek new and better ways of fostering both equitable and efficient legal rules.
Can private law assume an ecological meaning? Can property and contract defend nature? Is tort law an adequate tool for paying environmental damages to future generations? This book explores potential resolutions to these questions, analyzing the evolution of legal thinking in relation to the topics of legal personality, property, contract and tort. In this forward thinking book, Mattei and Quarta suggest a list of basic principles upon which a new, ecological legal system could be based. Taking private law to represent an ally in the defence of our future, they offer a clear characterization of the fundamental legal institutions of common law and civil law, considering the challenges of the Anthropogenic era, technological tools of the Internet era, and the global rise of the commons. Summarizing the fundamental institutions of private law: property rights, legal personality, contract, and tort, the authors reveal the limits of these legal institutions in relation to historical international evolution and their regulation in the contexts of catastrophic ecological issues and technological developments. Engaging and thoughtful, this book will be interesting reading for legal scholars and academics of private law and, in particular, those wishing to understand the role of law when facing technological and ecological challenges.
Louisiana Property Law: The Civil Code, Cases, and Commentary is the first new case book in its field in more than a generation. Authored by three experienced scholars from Louisiana, this book presents classic and current cases in a rich contextual setting informed by contemporary property scholarship from the United States and abroad. After introducing the origins and sources of Louisiana property law, each chapter situates Louisiana property jurisprudence in its codal and doctrinal context. In addition to explaining the history, structure, and meaning of relevant provisions of the Louisiana Civil Code and ancillary statutes, the book introduces readers to property texts from mixed jurisdictions such as Québec, South Africa, and Scotland, and compares Louisiana and common law property institutions. In light of this comparative approach, the book will appeal to scholars interested in alternative regulatory models for the law of property. Specific topics include: Sources of Louisiana Property Law (Chapter 1); Ownership, Real Rights, and the Right to Exclude (Chapter 2); The Division of Things (Chapter 3); Classification of Things--Of Movables and Immovables, Corporeals and Incorporeals (Chapter 4); Voluntary Transfers of Ownership (Chapter 5); Accession (Chapter 6); Acquisition of Ownership through Occupancy (Chapter 7); Possession and the Possessory Action (Chapter 8); Acquisitive Prescription with Respect to Immovables (Chapter 9); Vindicating Ownership through Real Actions (Chapter 10); Co-Ownership (Chapter 11); Usufruct (Chapter 12); Natural and Legal Servitudes (Chapter 13); Conventional Predial Servitudes (Chapter 15); Limited Personal Servitudes--Habitation and Right of Use (Chapter 15); and Building Restrictions (Chapters 16).
Property law is concerned with a wider variety of rights, obligations and interests than most other areas of law, and can prove daunting to those studying the subject for the first time. Commonwealth Caribbean Property Law sets out in a clear and concise manner the central principles of the law of real property in the region, in order to guide students through this often complex core subject area. In this new edition, the book has been fully revised and updated to include important new case law from the various Caribbean jurisdictions and an expanded appendix of working documents. With comprehensive coverage of the main topics studied by undergraduates, such as Leases, Co-Ownership, Restrictive Covenants, Easements, Mortgages, and Land Sale, this textbook is essential reading for LLB students in Caribbean universities and students on CAPE Law courses. The extensive coverage of land law from a Caribbean perspective and analysis of the substantive laws of several jurisdictions will also make this text an invaluable reference tool for practitioners.
In a sophisticated defense of intellectual property, Merges draws on Kant, Locke, and Rawls to explain how IP rights are based on a solid ethical foundation and make sense for a just society. He also calls for appropriate boundaries: IP rights are real, but they come with real limits.
