BACKGROUND

Alfred C. Yen is a Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, Law School Fund Scholar, and Director of the Emerging Enterprises and Business Law Program. He is a nationally known scholar who has published numerous articles about copyright law, the Internet, Asian-American legal issues, and law teaching. His recent works include "Third Party Liability After Grokster," which appeared in the Minnesota Law Review and a new casebook on copyright (co-authored with Professor Joseph Liu) entitled “Copyright: Essential Cases and Materials,” which was published by West Publishing in 2008.

Professor Yen has also held many positions of leadership within legal education and the broader practicing bar. He presently serves as Chair of the AALS Professional Development Committee and recently completed a terms on the Board of Editors for the Journal of Legal Education and the Board of Governors for the Society of American Law Teachers. In 2001, the American Law Institute elected him to membership in the Institute. Additionally, Professor Yen has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Art Law and its Section on Minority Groups. He organized the first, fifth, and tenth Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty, all of which were held at Boston College Law School. In 1992, Professor Yen wrote and filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of 12 copyright scholars in the case of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music Publishing Co. He also joined another group of copyright scholars to file an amicus brief in the case of A&M Records. Inc. v. Napster, Inc. during the summer of 2000.

Professor Yen is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School. Before joining the faculty in 1987, he practiced law in Los Angeles for four years at the firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Hampton.

B.S., M.S., Stanford University; J.D., Harvard University.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Works in Progress:

"A Preliminary First Amendment Analysis of Legislation Treating News Aggregation as Copyright Infringement," forthcoming in the VAND. J. OF ENT. AND TECH. LAW (2010) (invited symposium contribution).

"Beneficial Illegality and Copyright."

"Early NCAA Athletic Scholarship Commitments."

Appointments:

Hosier Distinguished Scholar, DePaul Law School (November 2007).

Inaugural Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Drexel Law School (2007-08).

Chair, Association of American Law Schools Committee on Professional Development (2008).

Chair of the Planning Committee and session moderator, Association of American Law Schools Workshop on Intellectual Property, Vancouver, BC, in June 2006.

Presentations:

“Beneficial Illegality and Copyright” presented at DePaul Law School, Nov. 6, 2007.

“Beneficial Illegality and Copyright” presented at Drexel Law School, March 17, 2008.

“Third Party Copyright Liability” presented at Drexel Law School, March 18, 2008.

Remarks about the history of the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty, U. Denver College of Law, April 24, 2008.

Faculty colloquium presentation at University of Arizona in March 2010 on "The Dynamic Construction of the Consumer in Trademark."

Other:

Serving on the AALS Membership Review Committee.

Senior faculty commentator at the Michigan State Junior IP Scholars Conference.

COURSES

Fall 2010: Torts
Spring 2011: Copyright; Sports Law

PUBLICATIONS 

• "Torts and the Construction of Inducement and Contributory Liability in Amazon and Visa." Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 32 (2009) 513-530.
• "A First Amendment Perspective on the Construction of Third Party Copyright Liability." Boston College Law Review 50 (2009): 1481-1501.
• With Joseph P. Liu. Copyright Law: Essential Cases and Materials.  St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West, 2008.
• "Commercial Speech Jurisprudence and Copyright in Commercial Information Works." South Carolina Law Review 58 (2007): 665-682.
• "Third-Party Copyright Liability After Grokster." Minnesota Law Review  91 (2006): 184-240.
• "Sony, Tort Doctrines, and the Puzzle of Peer-To-Peer." Case Western Reserve Law Review 55, no.4 (Summer 2005): 815-865.
• "What Federal Gun Control Can Teach Us About the DMCA's Anti-Trafficking Provisions." Wisconsin Law Review 2003, no.4: 649-698.
• "Eldred, The First Amendment, and Aggressive Copyright Claims." Houston Law Review 40, no.3 (2003) (Considering Copyright: Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law Symposium): 673-695.
• "Western Frontier or Feudal Society? Metaphors and Perceptions of Cyberspace." Berkeley Technology Law Journal 17 (December 2002): 1207-1263.
• "A Personal Injury Law Perspective on Copyright in an Internet Age." Hastings Law Journal 52 (April 2001): 929-938.
• "A Preliminary Economic Analysis of Napster: Internet Technology, Copyright Liability, and the Possibility of Coasean Bargaining." University of Dayton Law Review 26 (Winter 2001) (Symposium: Copyright's Balance in an Internet World): 248-277.
• "Internet Service Provider Liability for Subscriber Copyright Infringement, Enterprise Liability, and the First Amendment." Georgetown Law Journal 88 (June 2000): 1833-1893.
• "Praising with Faint Damnation -- The Troubling Rehabilitation of Korematsu." Boston College Law Review 40 (December 1998)-Boston College Third World Law Journal 19 (Fall 1998) [joint symposium issue, The Long Shadow of Korematsu]: 1-7.
• "The Danger of Bootstrap Formalism in Copyright." Journal of Intellectual Property Law 5 (Spring 1998): 453-465.
• "Copyright Opinions and Aesthetic Theory." Southern California Law Review 71 (January 1998): 247-302.
• "Foreword: Making Us Possible." Asian Law Journal 4 (May 1997, "Symposium in Honor of Neil Gotanda,"): 1-5.
• "Unhelpful." Iowa Law Review 81 (July 1996): 1573-1583.
• "Entrepreneurship, Copyright, and Personal Home Pages." Oregon Law Review 75 (Spring 1996): 331-337.
• "A Statistical Analysis of Asian Americans and the Affirmative Action Hiring of Law School Faculty." Asian Law Journal 3 (May 1996): 39-54.
• "Advice for the Beginning Legal Scholar." Loyola Law Review 38 (1992): 95-99.
• "Interdisciplinary Future of Copyright Theory." Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 10 (1992): 423-437. [Also appears in The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, edited by Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.]
• "The Legacy of Feist: The Consequences of a Weak Connection Between Copyright and the Economics of Public Goods." Ohio State Law Journal 52 (1991): 1343-1378.
• "When Authors Won't Sell: Parody, Fair Use, and Efficiency in Copyright Law." University of Colorado Law Review 62 (1991): 79-108.
• "The Art and Craft of Teaching - Art Resting on Craft." Saint Louis University Public Law Review 10 (1991): 241-245.
• "Restoring the Natural Law: Copyright as Labor and Possession." Ohio State Law Journal 51 (1990): 517-557.
• "A First Amendment Perspective on the Idea/Expression Dichotomy and Copyright in a Work's 'Total Concept and Feel'." Emory Law Journal 38 (Spring 1989): 393-436.
• "It's Not That Simple: An Unnecessary Elimination of Strict Liability and Presumed Damages in Libel Law." Review of A Chilling Effect, by Lois G. Forer. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 23 (Summer 1988): 593-610.
• "Judicial Review of the Zoning of Adult Entertainment: A Search for the Purposeful Suppression of Protected Speech." Pepperdine Law Review 12 (March 1985): 651-678.