Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
Introduction In June of 2022 a man called Blake Lemoine told reporters at The Washington Post that he thought the computer system he worked with was sentient.[i] By itself, that does not seem strange. The Post is one of the United States’ finest newspapers and its reporters are used to hearing from people who […]
James Boyle My new book, The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood, will be published by MIT Press on Oct 22 2024 under a Creative Commons License. MIT is allowing me to post preprint excerpts. The book is a labor of (mainly) love — together with the familiar accompanying authorial side-dishes: excited discovery, frustration, writing […]
James Boyle, Oct 25th, 2021 There are a few useful phrases that allow one instantly to classify a statement. For example, if any piece of popular health advice contains the word “toxins,” you can probably disregard it. Other than, “avoid ingesting them.” Another such heuristic is that if someone tells you “I just read something […]
Jennifer Jenkins and I have just published the 2021 edition of our free, Creative Commons licensed, Intellectual Property textbook. Open Intellectual Property Casebook by James Boyle & Jennifer Jenkins Free Download 8”x10” Paperback Edition: $35.00 This free textbook is an introduction to intellectual property law, the set of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations […]
I will probably never be published in a law review ever again after writing this. I find myself curiously untroubled by the thought.
I teach at Duke University, an institution I love. The reverse may not be true however, at least after my most recent paper (with Jennifer Jenkins) — Mark of the Devil: The University as Brand Bully. (forthcoming in the Fordham Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law Journal). The paper is about the university most frequently accused […]
The Economist was kind enough to ask me to write an article commemorating the 50th anniversary of Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. ““THE ONLY way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed.” This ominous sentence comes not from China’s one-child policy but from one […]
It is done! We are delighted to announce the publication of our new comic book — Theft: A History of Music, a graphic novel laying out a 2000 year long history of music from Plato to rap. The comic is by James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins and the late Keith Aoki. It is available for purchase […]
I am posting here a draft of a chapter for Ruth Okediji’s forthcoming book on the possibilities of international intellectual property reform. In my case, the article recounts the lessons I learned from being part of the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property in the UK. “In the five months we have had to compile the […]
Ever been utterly frustrated, made furious, by an Apple upgrade that made things worse? This post is for you. (With apologies to Randall Munroe.)