An Empirical Study of Law Journal Copyright Practices

This article presents an empirical study of the copyright practices of American law journals in relation to copyright ownership and fair use, based on a 24-question survey. It concludes that many American law journals have adopted copyright policies that are inconsistent with the expectations of legal scholars and the scope of copyright protection. Specifically, many law journals have adopted copyright policies that effectively preclude open-access publishing, and unnecessarily limit the fair use of copyrighted works. In addition, it appears that some law journals may not understand their own copyright policies. This article proposes the creation of a Code of Copyright Best Practices for Law Journals in order to encourage both open-access publishing and fair use.

Keywords: copyright, legal scholarship, empirical legal studies

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Frye, Brian L. and Ryan, Christopher and Runge, Franklin, An Empirical Study of Law Journal Copyright Practices (April 20, 2016). 16 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 207, 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2767875 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2767875