Raymond Shih Ray Ku

Case Western Reserve University | CWRU · Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts

Modern copyright law is based upon a theory: increase copyright protection and you increase the number of creative works available to society. This theory has been the driving force behind an economic vision that has expanded, beyond all recognition, the original law created by the Statute of Anne. And with this expansion, we are told that the cost...

In 2007, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression (CCD) with the goal of creating an environment that encourages individuals and social groups to create, distribute, and have access to diverse cultural expression from their own cultural and from cultures around the world. With...

This essay explores the relationship between copyright and free speech by critically evaluating the proposition that conflicts between the two can be eliminated because the Framers intended both to be engines for free expression. My purpose is not to set forth a comprehensive theory of copyright and free speech, but is more modest. This essay argue...

This is the transcript of a Mock Congressional Hearing regarding the NSA wiretapping controversy. The panel featured Ruth Wedgewood and David Cole testifying before a Senate Committee. The debate and discussion highlighted concerns touching on privacy, FISA, and the Fourth Amendment.

Much more is at stake in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v. Grokster than the standard for secondary liability under copyright. Ultimately, the Supreme Court must decide whether judges should interpret intellectual property in defense of the existing market structure and to prevent the current paradigm from shifting. This becomes clear when one recogni...

In this essay, Professor Ku places the current legal controversy surrounding Internet file sharing into historical and theoretical context, and sets forth a framework for courts to promote progress when interpreting copyright and the Constitution in response to new technologies of dissemination. This essay builds upon his existing scholarship, in w...

To determine whether the public sharing of music over networks like Napster should be considered copyright infringement, we must first conclude that digital works should be entitled to copyright protection. Professor Ku argues against copyright protection for digital works because the economics of digital technology undercut prior assumptions about...

What a government of limited powers needs, at the beginning and forever, is some means of satisfying the people that it has taken all steps humanly possible to stay within its powers. That is the condition of its legitimacy, and its legitimacy, in the long run, is the condition of its life. Our whole political system rests on the distinction betwee...