BACKGROUND

Joseph P. Liu is a Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, where he writes and teaches in the areas of copyright, trademark, property, and internet law. His main area of academic research is on the impact of digital technology on copyright law and markets, with a particular focus on how digital technology is changing the way individuals interact with copyrighted works.

Professor Liu has published extensively on copyright law issues in many law journals, including the Michigan Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and Indiana Law Journal. He has lectured extensively in the U.S. and in Asia, at institutions such as Harvard, Columbia, U.C. Berkeley, Georgetown, M.I.T., and Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is the co-author (with Professor Alfred Yen) of the casebook, Copyright Law: Essential Cases and Materials (West 2008). 

Prior to joining the Boston College Law School faculty in 2001, Professor Liu was an Assistant Professor at U.C. Hastings College of Law (2000-01) and a Climenko Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School (1997-98). Professor Liu previously practiced in Boston at Foley Hoag & Eliot, where he specialized in intellectual property litigation, securities litigation, and white collar criminal defense. He also served for several years as Vice President and General Counsel to BuyerZone.com, a venture-backed, business-to-business internet start-up company. He has consulted on a number of cases involving copyright law and digital technology.

Professor Liu clerked for the Honorable Levin H. Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1994-95). He received his B.A. in Physics and Philosophy in 1989 from Yale University, and his J.D. in 1994 from Columbia Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review. He also earned an L.L.M. from Harvard University in 1999.

EDUCATION
B.A., Yale University; J.D., Columbia University; L.L.M., Harvard University.

Work in Progress:

"The New Public Domain"

Presentations:

"Third-Party and Copyright ISP Liability in the U.S.: Recent Developments," Tsinghua University Law School, Beijing, China (June 28, 2011)

"Sports Merchandising, Publicity Rights, and the Missing Role of the Sports Fan," Legal Perspectives on the NCAA, Boston College Law School (October 15, 2010) (co-organizer)

"Saving Journalism from Itself? Hot News, Copyright Fair Use and News Aggregation," Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities, Harvard Law School (April 9, 2010)

"Book Banned or Infringement Averted? Reflections on the J.D. Salinger/60 Years Copyright Case," Arts Entertainment & Sports Law Committee, Boston Bar Association (October 31, 2009)

"The Mechanical License and the Origins of Regulatory Copyright," Conference on the 100th Anniversary of the 1909 Copyright Act, Santa Clara University School of Law (April 30, 2009)

"Publicity, Privacy, and Intellectual Property Meet the First Amendment," Boston College Law School (April 3, 2009) (conference co-organizer)

"Third-Party Copyright in the United States," International Conference on Opportunities and Challenges for Intellectual Property, Taipei, Taiwan (December 20, 2008)

"Fair Use and Fan Fiction: The Harry Potter Decision and More," Intellectual Property Law Committee, Boston Bar Association (November 14, 2008)

“Two-Factor Fair Use?,” Fair Use: Incredibly Shrinking or Extraordinarily Expanding?, Columbia Law School (February 8, 2008)

“Issues and Controversies in Copyright Law: Digital Rights Management and the DMCA,” MCLE IP Conference, Boston, MA (June 13, 2007) (keynote address)

“Trademark Dilution and the TDRA,” AIPLA Spring Meeting, Boston, MA (May 11, 2007)

“Consumer Protection: Inside Copyright Law or Outside?,” Copyright, DRM Technologies, and Consumer Protection, U.C. Berkeley Boalt Hall (March 10, 2007)

“The Copyright Treaties and Digital Rights Management,” Law Technology & Arts Symposium, Case Western Reserve Law School (November 10, 2006)

“Copyright and Breathing Space,” Constitutional Challenges to Copyright, Columbia Law School (October 27, 2006

“The Legal Framework Surrounding Digital Rights Management Technologies,” IASTED Conference on Law and Technology, MIT (October 9, 2006)

“Copyright and Consumer Enabling Technologies,” Chicago IP Colloquium (February 21, 2006)

“Google Book Search,” Boston Bar Association, Committees on Intellectual Property and Art Law (Jan. 27, 2006)

“Bowdlerization, Copyright, and Consumer Theory”, Faculty Workshop, St. John’s University Law School (October 3, 2005)

Activities:
Member of the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Intellectual Property Law in 2009. Provided pro bono consulting to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, California. Successfully represented an MIT graduate student in negotiations with Microsoft over publication of an academic encryption research paper.

Promotions: Promoted to full professor in 2009.

Appointments:
Appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. for 2011-13.

Appointed Research Fellow for the Institute for International Intellectual Property at Peking University for 2009-2011.

Appointed Summer Research Scholar for 2008-2011. Appointed visiting professor at Boston University School of Law for Fall 2004.

COURSES

Fall 2011: Property
Spring 2012: Intellectual Property Survey; Trademark and Unfair Competition Law

• With Alfred C. Yen. Copyright Law: Essential Cases and Materials. St.Paul, MN: Thomson/West, 2008.

• "Enabling Copyright Consumers." Berkeley Technology Law Journal 22 (2007): 1099-1118. 

• "Copyright and Breathing Space." Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 30 (2007): 429-451. 

• With Stacey L. Dogan. "Copyright Law and Subject Matter Specificity: The Case of Computer Software." New York University Annual Survey of American Law 61: no.2 (2005): 203-236. 

• "Regulatory Copyright." North Carolina Law Review 83, no. 1 (December 2004): 87-166. 

• "Copyright Law's Theory of the Consumer." Boston College Law Review 44, no.2 (March 2003): 397-438. 

• "The DMCA and the Regulation of Scientific Research." Berkeley Technology Law Journal 18: no.2 (Spring 2003) (Symposium: The Law & Technology of Digital Rights Management): 501-537. 

• "Copyright and Time: A Proposal." Michigan Law Review 101 (November 2002): 409-481. 

• "Owning Digital Copies: Copyright Law and the Incidents of Copy Ownership." William and Mary Law Review 42 (April 2001): 1245-1368. 

• "Legitimacy and Authority in Internet Coordination." Indiana Law Journal 74 (Spring 1999): 587-626. 

• "Federal Jury Instructions and the Consequences of a Successful Insanity Defense." Columbia Law Review 93 (June 1993) 1223-1248.