Magna Carta, that great cornerstone of American liberty, has been in the news lately. Put up for sale by three-time U.S. Presidential candidate Ross Perot in December 2007, the 1297 version of Magna Carta displayed in the National Archives was sold to financier David Rubenstein for $21.3 million. While its sale demonstrates the cash value of the…

This is the third of three studies of copyright and sound recordings commissioned by the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) in support of the congressionally mandated study of the state of audio preservation in the United States. All three studies have focused on how laws pertaining to sound recordings made before 1972 affect…

Blackstone's Commentaries stated that the common law imposed a duty on parents to provide for the maintenance, protection, and education of their children, and of these, the duty to provide an education was "of far the greatest importance." Early on American courts cited Blackstone for the proposition of the common law duty of parents…

Offers an elementary two-legal-jurisdiction analysis using conventional economic assumptions, exploring how and why a distinctive body of legal doctrine comes into being. Asserts that elementary economic theory offers the simplified answer that the legal doctrine will take the shape it does because it is efficient for the group that adopts it. (EV)

Asks what questions would help understand the relationship between culture and legal systems. Argues that one approach is to examine problems or disputes common to various legal traditions. Proposes using the issue of human rights in the Basic Law of Germany as a case study. (CFR)

Discusses the concept of law, presenting philosophical bases and historic antecedents. Reviews research studies which illustrate the connections of law to family structure as well as different family and legal issues, including inheritance, marriage contracts and common law, visitation rights, filial responsibility, and child support enforcement.…

Images of heretics burning at the stake or of traitors being drawn, hanged, and quartered for disloyalty to the king seem well removed from twenty-first century America. Yet the laws that defined these offenses--which included heresy and blasphemy, sedition and treason--were at the heart of some of the most significant debates defining the shape…

This article draws on the suggestion that modern technology is "autonomous" in that our social control mechanisms are unable to control technology and instead merely adapt society to integrate new technologies. In this article, I suggest that common law judges tend systematically to support the integration of novel technologies into…

Ambiguities in Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976 dealing with the assertion of federal preemption are discussed. Some consequences of the law for the major media are addressed, and it is suggested that the ambiguities be resolved with unification rather than in the hands of individual states. (LBH)

Although statutes, not common law, have become the dominant source of law in the United States, the time and intellectual energy most law schools devote to legislation and interpretation is inadequate. Teachers of evidence courses are uniquely positioned to change this through creative instructional use of the Federal Rules of Evidence. (MSE)

The academic common law may soon vanish, not as a result of court action but due to the American Association of University Professors's declining role in defending the common law of academic employment. The profession is challenged to maintain its independence from external control by reconsidering its own common law. (Author/MLW)