Trinko and Re-Grounding the Refusal to Deal Doctrine

Article published in the University of Pittsburgh Law Review

Created Facts and the Flawed Ontology of Copyright Law

It is black letter doctrine that facts are not copyrightable: facts are discovered, not created—so they will always lack the originality needed for copyright protection. As straightforward as this reasoning seems, it is fundamentally flawed. Using the “social facts” theory of philosopher John Searle, this Article explores a variety of “created facts” cases—designation systems, systematic evaluations, and privately written laws—in which original expression from private individuals is adopted by social convention and generates facts in our social reality. In the course of this discussion, the paper places facts in their historical and philosophical context, explores how courts conflate facts with expressions of fact, and explains the difference between social facts created by expression and the “facts” of literature and fiction. Having established that the copyrighted works discussed in these cases produce facts, the question arises whether copyright\u27s merger doctrine eliminates the copyright protection—a result that is both seemingly harsh and seemingly necessary. This Article proposes a recalibration of the merger doctrine to acknowledge that “created facts” are a unique situation in which the incentive of copyright is needed not just to generate the expression, but also needed to generate the facts. Reprinted by permission of the publisher

What Can Antitrust Contribute to the Network Neutrality Debate?

Over the course of the last year, policymakers have begun to consider whether antitrust can play a constructive role in the network neutrality debate. A review of both the theory and the practice of antitrust suggests that it does have something to contribute. As an initial matter, antitrust underscores that standardization and interoperability are not always beneficial and provides a framework for determining the optimal level of standardization. In addition, the economic literature and legal doctrine on vertical exclusion reveal how compelling network neutrality could reduce static efficiency and show how mandating network neutrality could impair dynamic efficiency by deterring investment in alternative last-mile technologies. As such, network neutrality is better suited to the ex post, case-by-case approach associated with the rule of reason than the ex ante, categorical approach associated with per se illegality and regulation. To say that the substantive principles of antitrust offer insights that can inform the debate is not to say that antitrust courts represent the ideal institutional locus for enforcing a network neutrality mandate. Lingering questions about courts’ institutional competence to supervise access regimes suggest that to the extent that antitrust enforcement authorities wish to take a more active role with respect to network neutrality, they would be better served by focusing their efforts on disclosure and consumer education rather than attempting to use antitrust to impose access requirements on network owners