Re: "hot news" myth

From: Dan L. Burk <BURKDANL[_at_]shu.edu>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 16:45:08 -0400

On 6/3/97, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Feist dealt with federal IP policy in compiled facts.
> > >
> > > No -- Feist dealt with the extent of Congressional power provided by
> > > the Copyright Clause of the Constitution.
> >
> > Is this different?
>
> Very. One (dealt with in Feist) deals with the power of Congress to
> enact a copyright law. The other is much broader and deals with, among
> other things, the power of a state to enact a law, and the power of
> the federal government to enact non-copyright laws.

In practice, my sense is that these are *not* different -- the preemption cases have very much tended to treat the IP statutes as congruent with and embodying the constitutional balance of vertical power between state and federal IP laws. My personal feeling is that there is a residuum of constitutional power that is *not* embodied in the statute, but the cases from Sears/Compco on give almost no hint of that.

---

Dan L. Burk
Seton Hall Unversity
burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu

---

Received on Wed Jun 04 1997 - 20:50:04 GMT