prior probability

Have you ever downloaded copyrighted content from the Internet or shared your Netflix password with a friend? We sure have! In our next class, we will debate the law and ethics of copyright infringement and discuss how the law attempts to balance “fair use” (or sharing) with property rights in the domain of copyrights. In particular, we will focus on two cases: The Sony Betamax Case (decided in the mid-1980s) as well as Metallica v. Napster (decided in the early 2000s). In summary, before Sean Parker discovered Facebook, he had co-founded a company called Napster in 1999, a peer-to-peer file-sharing website that allowed users to share MP3 music files with each other. Napster became an instant success; according to Wikipedia, “verified Napster use peaked with 26.4 million users worldwide in February 2001.” The rock group Metallica, however, wasted no time in filing a federal lawsuit for copyright infringement against Napster, and the courts eventually issued an injunction shutting down the website … But did the court make the correct decision, and on what legal grounds did the court issue this draconian remedy, i.e. the injunction shutting down Napster?

We have been attending the 12th Annual International Conference on Contracts (KCON XII) at Southwestern Law School in downtown Los Angeles this weekend (fun!). One of our favorite talks at the conference was by Nathan Oman, a law professor at the College of William & Mary, who presented his new book The Dignity of Commerce: Markets and the Moral Foundations of Contract Law (U Chicago Press, 2017). In summary, Professor Oman argues that the main purpose of the law of contracts is to promote commerce and well-functioning markets. Moreover, he claims that markets are morally desirable in and of themselves. Why? Because markets not only promote economic efficiency (i.e. the allocation of assets to their highest valued uses); markets also facilitate social cooperation and communal harmony. Specifically, markets enable people to serve the needs of others and cooperate in mutually beneficial ways even in the absence of political, religious, or ideological agreement. (This last point–the ability of markets to meet human needs and bring diverse and self-interested actors together–deserves more attention in the legal academy.) 

We know that a promise to do something illegal (like cooking and distributing meth) is not legally enforceable, but what moral status does such an illegal promise have? We address this question in our work in progress on Immoral Promises, which we are presenting this morning at Southwestern Law School in downtown Los Angeles.