Congratulations, Mary!  It’s very well deserved.

Michael writes about IP, with an emphasis on patents and trade secrets.  He joined the Villanova faculty this year after a stint at the West Virginia University College of Law, and before starting his teaching career practiced law for a number of years in Palo Alto.

He has been a regular guest-blogger at Prawfsblawg, and I suspect that he will continue to appear there from time to time. 

Welcome, Michael!

Brett Frischmann has moved to Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University.

Rob Heverly has moved to Albany Law School

and Josh Sarnoff has moved to DePaul University College of Law.

May the blogging continue.

Jacqui Lipton, at Case Western Reserve, who also blogs at The Faculty Lounge,

Bruce Boyden, at Marquette, who also blogs at the Marquette Law School Faculty Blog, and

Rob Heverly, current visiting at Michigan State and previously at the University of East Anglia, who has been guest-blogging at The Faculty Lounge and who blogged previously at his own Displacement of Concepts.

Welcome to Jacqui, Bruce, and Rob!

Let the wild rumpus start.

Bonus video: Trailer for “Where the Wild Things Are”

Mike Carroll, now on the faculty at American University Washington College of Law, who also blogs on his own at Carrollogos.  Mike is a copyright and internet law scholar and one of the founders of Creative Commons.

Randy Picker, at the University of Chicago Law School, who also posts from time to time at the University of Chicago Faculty Blog.  Randy writes about intellectual property and antitrust policy.

Josh Sarnoff, Mike’s colleague at American University, who recently started blogging at InherentlySarnoff.  Josh specializes in patent law.

We’ve already got quite the range of subjects and perspectives on the blog, and the range just got broader.  Welcome to Mike, Randy, and Josh!

The Legal Scholarship Blog, co-produced with the University of Washington School of Law, keeps up with law-related calls for papers, conferences, and workshops across all disciplines.  You can find it at http://legalscholarshipblog.com/  To have an event or CFP added to the blog, email them at legalscholarshipblog|at|gmail.com.

The IP and IT Conferences blog offers the same kind of functionality but is limited, not surprisingly, to academic programs in intellectual property law and its sometimes distant relatives — cyberlaw, privacy law, art law, biotech law, sports and entertainment law, etc. Like the Legal Scholarship Blog, it concentrates on American law schools, but from time to time you will find information about programs at Canadian schools (more information about programs up north would be welcome) and even about programs in Europe, Central and South America, and Asia (especially if US law faculty are participating).  You can find it at http://madisonian.net/conferences/.  To have an event or CFP added to the blog, email — me.

The adapted, “literal video” version:

ETA: Live rowdy awesome eff bomb dropping feminist rockstar version of this doofy song here.

From the publisher’s website:

Metaphors, moral panics, folk devils, Jack Valenti, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Kenyes, predictable irrationality, and free market fundamentalism are a few of the topics covered in this lively, unflinching examination of the Copyright Wars: the pitched battles over new technology, business models, and most of all, consumers. In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars , William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive legal regime that has strayed far from its modest, but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian government program–not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite “magic of the market.”

The way we have come to talk about copyright–metaphoric language demonizing everyone involved–has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions.
A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.

You can read a little pre-publication commentary here.

As many remember, for a long time Ann blogged on IP and information law at Sivacracy.  That blog shut down recently as its proprietor, Siva Vaidhyanathan, shifted his focus to The Googlization of Everything, at The Institute for the Future of the Book. 

Of  course, Ann will remain one of the leading voices at Feminist Law Professors.

Welcome, Ann!