Copyright (c) 2010 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello Recent documents in Juliet M Moringiello en-us Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:30:36 PST 3600 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/30 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/30 Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:57:14 PST In May, 2009, the American Law Institute ("ALI") approved its Principles of the Law of Software Contracts ("Principles"). The attempt to codify, or at least unify, the law of software contracts has a long and contentious history, the roots of which can be found in the attempt to add an Article 2B to the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") in the mid-1990s. Article 2B became the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ("UCITA") when the ALI withdrew from the project in 1999, and UCITA became the law in only two states, Virginia and Maryland. UCITA became a dirty word, with several states enacting "bomb shelter" provisions to ensure that UCITA would never enter those states by way of a choice of law clause. Although the Principles were conceived, in part, as a counterweight to UCITA, the latter was dead in the water by the time the Principles project became active. Nevertheless, the Principles project proceeded apace. This Article examines the results of that decision.The proponents of efforts to formulate a body of law for software contracts tend to insist that such a body of law is necessary because software transfers, as transfers of copies of information, are different from transfers of goods, and these differences make the common law of contracts and Article 2 of the UCC inappropriate bodies of law to govern software contracts. The ALI Principles constitute the latest attempt at such unification, and in this article, we argue that there is little in the Principles that addresses any unique characteristics of software. Neither one of us was involved in the Article 2B/UCITA project, so we approach this problem by looking at the law as it existed at the time the Principles project started instead of looking at the law at the time Article 2B was conceived. Juliet M. Moringiello Contracts http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/29 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/29 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:23:19 PST Juliet M. Moringiello Contracts http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/28 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/28 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:18:49 PST Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/27 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/27 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:58:05 PST This is an article about how disputes over virtual world items, such as virtual money, Second Life islands, and even sex beds, can inform property law generally. Rights in these virtual world items, like rights in software and many other intangible assets, are transferred by standard-form agreements that are often designated as licenses. For many readers, virtual worlds need no definition; it has been hard to read a major newspaper in the past several years without encountering an article about virtual worlds. In the past several years, Second Life and other virtual worlds were featured in numerous articles in major American newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.Virtual worlds have captured the attention of legal and other scholars. The legal literature tends to focus on the application of real world laws to the virtual environment. Some have discussed how our property laws should apply in virtual worlds; others have questioned whether virtual worlds need their own governance institutions. In this article, I will take another approach. Rather than asking whether real world laws can or should apply to virtual worlds, I will discuss the ways in which the study of virtual worlds can contribute to real world law. Specifically, I will explain what the study of virtual world assets can do for property law.In this paper, I argue that virtual world assets are significant because they graphically illustrate the different rights that persons can hold in an intangible asset. Once we see that intangible assets encompass the very same rights that are embodied in tangible assets, we can understand that the law should not permit the unfettered customization of property rights in intangible assets by standard form agreements, just as the law does not permit the unlimited customization of property rights in tangible assets and real property. My thesis is that a study of virtual world assets can help us understand why the numerus clausus principle should be more rigorously applied to rights in intangible assets and that the numerus clausus can, in turn, assist us interpreting the standard-form agreements that convey rights in these assets. Juliet M. Moringiello Property Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/26 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/26 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:20:36 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Bankruptcy http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/25 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/25 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:43:14 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/24 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/24 Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:04:23 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/23 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/23 Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:29:22 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/22 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/22 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:47:29 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/21 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/21 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:45:12 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/20 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/20 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:43:09 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/19 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/19 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:35:20 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/18 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/18 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:34:17 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/17 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/17 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:32:32 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/16 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/16 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:31:19 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Commercial Law http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/15 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/15 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:55:23 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Bankruptcy http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/14 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/14 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:54:11 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Bankruptcy http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/13 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/13 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:52:57 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Bankruptcy http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/12 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/12 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:51:55 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Bankruptcy http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/11 http://works.bepress.com/juliet_moringiello/11 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:50:36 PDT Juliet M. Moringiello Contracts