
At a glance...
 Professor Law School
yen@bc.edu
Office Location Law School EW422
617.552.4395
Personal Website
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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
forthcoming new casebook on copyright (co-authored with Professor Joseph Liu)
entitled “Copyright: Essential Cases and Materials,” which will be 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.
EDUCATION
B.S.,
M.S., Stanford University; J.D., Harvard University.
RECENT
ACTIVITIES
Work in
Progress: "Copyright Law, Essential Cases and Materials." West
Publishing. "Beneficial Illegality and Copyright." 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
Other:
Recipient of the Faculty of the Year Award from the Boston College Business and
Law Society in April 2006.
COURSES
Spring ’08:
On leave Fall
'08: Torts, Advising the Business Planner Spring
'09: Copyright
PUBLICATIONS
- "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.
- "Unhelpful." Iowa Law Review 81
(July 1996): 1573-1583.
- "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 Publi
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.
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