Creative Commons
Blogs I Follow
Category Archives: Law
Should we repeal the Infield Fly Rule?
Believe it or not, the infield fly rule in baseball has generated extensive scholarly commentary over the years, beginning with William S. Stevens’ 1975 paper “The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule.” The most recent contributions to this … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Rules, Sports
Leave a comment
Dropping the “the” from Facebook (Lesson 14)
“In fact, the only thing that really bothered [Sean Parker] about the site was the ‘the’ in the name. It wasn’t necessary. He hated unnecessary things.” –Excerpt from Chapter 22 of Accidental Billionaires. In “The Social Network” (the movie version … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Web/Tech
Leave a comment
Review of “Contract as Promise”
Law professor Charles Fried published a little book called “Contract as Promise” in 1981. (It’s now in its second edition and is required reading in many contracts law courses.) His thesis, simply stated, is that promises are self-imposed moral obligations. … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Philosophy
1 Comment
The Law of Agency (Lesson 13)
Because of the ubiquity of principal-agent relationships in the business world, we will spend an entire lecture on the law of agency in our next class (3/21). Although we have been focusing mostly on the founding of Facebook this semester, … Continue reading
Posted in Law
Leave a comment
“thefacebook LLC” and first-movers (Lessons 11 & 12)
“Tyler … knew all about the business concept of ‘first-mover advantage’ … For certain industries, it wasn’t about the quality of product or even corporate strategy. It was about who got there first.” –Ben Mezrich, Accidental Billionaires (Ch. 20) In … Continue reading
Posted in Law
Leave a comment
“Spotlight”
Here is our review: Although this film is ostensibly about a team of journalists at the Boston Globe who exposed corruption at the highest levels of Boston’s Catholic Church, it’s also about the law and about lawyers. Interestingly, lawyers are … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Law
Leave a comment
Game theory: the way forward? (part 3 of 3)
In our previous two posts, we identified a blind spot in the work of John Rawls and Bob Nozick: the problem of betrayal–what game theorists call “defection.” In brief, Rawls’s original agreement might embody timeless principles of justice, and Nozick’s … Continue reading
Posted in Cooperation, Game Theory, Law, Philosophy
Leave a comment
Rawls vs. Nozick (part 2 of 3)
In our previous post, we identified a weakness in Rawls’s theory of justice: the possibility of betrayal once the veil of ignorance is lifted. Now, let’s turn to Robert Nozick’s classic tome Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), a book Nozick … Continue reading
Posted in Cooperation, Game Theory, Law, Philosophy
Leave a comment
A critique of Rawls and Nozick and a new way forward (part 1 of 3)
For the next three posts, we are going to offer a critique of John Rawls’ theory of justice (part 1), followed by a critique of Robert Nozick’s theory of the pre-political state (part 2), and then offer our own alternative … Continue reading
Posted in Cooperation, Game Theory, Law, Philosophy
1 Comment
Metallica v. Napster (Lesson 10)
“Napster was the ultimate geek banner, a battle that had been fought by hackers on the biggest stage of all. Ultimately, the hackers had lost, but … it was still the biggest hack in history.” –Ben Mezrich, Accidental Billionaires (Ch. … Continue reading
Posted in Law
Leave a comment
prior probability 