October 9, 2015
John Barrett
Professor John Q. Barrett recently gave lectures that reviewed U.S. Supreme Court decisions and developments from last Term and previewed some cases and possible developments in the newly-started Term. On October 5th (“First Monday”), he lectured at the Federal Bar Association’s EDNY chapter, at the U.S. Courthouse in Central Islip, New York. On September 11th, he lectured at The New York State Judicial Institute in White Plains, New York, for video broadcast to Judges and court personnel across New York State. And on July 29th, he lectured at the Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center in East Hills, New York.
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October 9, 2015
![Sovern Two[2]](https://stjlawfaculty.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/sovern-two2.jpg?w=214&h=300)
NBC.com’s “Consumer Man,” Herb Weisbaum, quoted Professor Jeff Sovern in the story FTC Sues Diet Pill Maker For Trying To Silence Unhappy Customers. Weisbaum wrote:
With the Internet, companies risk the possibility of getting a bad review that isn’t justified. But the solution isn’t to limit speech, rather to encourage more speech, said Jeff Sovern, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law in New York City.
“I think consumers are smart enough to realize that just because one or two people say they’re unhappy doesn’t mean the company is a bad company or selling a bad product,” he said. “And if the company is selling good products, presumably other consumers will say so on these sites and that will outweigh the ones who are unfairly maligning the company.”
Professor Sovern noted that for the free market to work as intended, people need to be able to warn others about bad products or services. Otherwise, how will other consumers know which products to avoid?
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October 7, 2015
Professor Eva Subotnik will be presenting her work-in-progress,
Artistic Control After Death, at the inaugural Texas A&M IP
Eva Subotnik
Scholars Roundtable in Fort Worth this Friday and Saturday, October 9-10. The Roundtable brings together intellectual property and technology law scholars, providing them with an annual forum for sharing research and peer networking. In addition to the usual work-in-progress presentations, this interdisciplinary Roundtable will feature substantial commentary offered by veteran commentators and extended Q&A sessions. Information about the Roundtable is available here:
The abstract to Professor Subotnik’s article follows:
To what extent should authors be able to control what happens to their literary, artistic, and musical creations after they die? Looked at through the lens of general succession law trends, there is some evidence to suggest that strong control is warranted. The weakening of the Rule Against Perpetuities, the rise of the honorary trust, and the availability of conditional bequests all portray a tightening grip of the dead hand. And yet, an unconstrained ability of the dead to determine future uses of works of art,music, and literature seems fundamentally troubling. This article situates the instructions given by authors with respect to literary and artistic works within the types of instructions given by decedents with respect to other bequests. In particular, it considers whether the use of a fiduciary duty to ensure artistic control is an appropriate and enforceable maneuver. Weighing in favor ofsuch enforcement, arguably, are the natural and personhood rights of author-testators as well as the possible up-front incentive effects on them. Weighing against, arguably, are the natural and personhood rights of others as well as the possible long-term effects on cultural development. In balancing these competing interests, this article considers, among other things, the demands of both federal copyright policy and state trust and right of publicity laws. In the end, it argues that authorial instructions must yield to the needs of the development of culture. Such a view requires that some living person(s) be in a position to make decisions about the uses of literary and artistic works.
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October 7, 2015
Professor Christine Lazaro was quoted in two articles in Financial Advisor (“FA”) Magazine this month discussing the FINRA 
arbitration process. The magazine’s cover article, “Resolving Client Disputes,” discusses the securities arbitration process at length. Professor Lazaro commented on the similarities between arbitration and court litigation:
“As cases get bigger, arbitration begins to look a lot like the litigation process,” says Christine Lazaro, director of the Securities Arbitration Clinic at St. John’s University’s School of Law. “There aren’t as many of the traditional benefits that arbitration generally offers in terms of reduced costs and timeliness. Cases are taking a fairly long time, and they’re going to be expensive.”
The second article, “FINRA Streamlines Arbitration Process Online,” touches on the mandatory nature of the FINRA arbitration process. In commenting on the perceptions of the parties to FINRA arbitration, Professor Lazaro observed: “It really depends on whether you win or you lose….If you’re on the losing end, the process feels pretty unfair.”
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October 2, 2015
Professor Keith Sharfman will deliver the Fall 2015 Distinguished Lecture at the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law School on 
Wednesday, October 7. The title of his lecture is “Religious Arbitration in Bankruptcy.” Former speakers have included Professor Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas, acclaimed First Amendment lawyer Nathan Lewin, and noted Orthodox rabbi and writer Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik.
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October 2, 2015
Professor Eva Subotnik will join Professors Jay Dougherty and Jennifer Rothman, both of Loyola
Eva Subotnik
Law School, Los Angeles, today, October 2, for a panel discussion at Columbia Law School’s symposium (information is available here) addressing instances in which concern for the manageability of “the work” augurs a determination that the claimant is not an “author” in the first place. Professor Subotnik will present a talk entitled “The Author Was Not An Author,” forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, in which she will look at the early copyright precedents that considered the role of photographer and photographic subject as a way to think about recent disputes over micro-contributions to a work. Specifically, in Burrow-Giles v. Sarony, the author Oscar Wilde was deemed the photographic subject, and not the author—or even co-author—of his celebrated photographic portrait. Sole authorship was reserved for the photographer, Napoleon Sarony. But cases that followed in the wake of Burrow-Giles did touch upon the possibility of authorial contributions by photographic subjects. Judicial discomfort with that possibility, and presumably the need for line drawing, made these claims unsuccessful. Against that backdrop, it is perhaps easier to contextualize the Ninth Circuit’s recent opinion in Garcia v. Google, in which the en banc court determined that an actress was not likely to succeed on a claim that she owned a copyright interest in her own acting performance in a film.
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October 2, 2015
Professor Rosemary Salomone presented a paper on September 28 on “Europe’s Multilingualism Agenda: Educational
Rosemary Salomone
Quality, Globalization, and Linguistic Justice” at a meeting on “The European, International, Intercultural and Pluri-Linguistic Component of Quality in Education: A ‘Generational’ Right to Education” sponsored by the Faculty of Law at the University of Trento in Italy.
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October 2, 2015
Professor Jeff Sovern delivered a guest lecture in Columbia Law School’s class on Comparative Consumer Law and Contracts on September 30. ![Sovern Two[2]](https://stjlawfaculty.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/sovern-two2.jpg?w=107&h=150)
He spoke about arbitration and debt collection.
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![Sovern Two[2]](https://stjlawfaculty.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/sovern-two2.jpg)
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