The American Law Institute has announced plans to produce a Restatement of Copyright. (Announcement here, including the names of the Reporter (NYU’s Chris Sprigman) and Associate Reporters (Lydia Loren, from Lewis & Clark; Tony Reese, from UC Irvine; and Molly Van Houweling, from UC Berkeley).
In light of global concerns about the role of IP law in the production of, distribution of, and access to innovative things and creative works, I hope that the team of Reporters will take an inclusive view of their subject. Copyright is not an end in itself, and even for lawyers and policymakers working with and for the producers of creative stuff, often copyright is only one of several important legal and cultural institutions that they need to understand and use. A “Restatement of Copyright” can make a terrific contribution by putting copyright explicitly in its broader contexts.
[A longtime reader wrote recently to ask: Is the blog still alive? And it is.]