Ben Depoorter

Bio

Professor Depoorter is the Max Radin Distinguished Professor University of California, Hastings College of the Law, EMLE coordinator at CASLE Ghent University, and Affiliate Scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet at Society. He is a frequent visiting professor at Berkeley Law, teaching in the LL.M.’s Professional Track.

Copyright law is one of his major areas of expertise, where Depoorter has investigated a variety of questions relating to enforcement of intellectual property law in the digital era, including whether and how fees-shifting can be used to align incentives between authors in way that promote creativity, how punitive approaches to copyright law adversely impact copyright social norms, and how automated enforcement measures create false positives.

Litigation theory is Depoorter’s other major area of expertise, where he has investigated the strategic pursuit of losing litigation by interest groups that seek to mobilize public and political support, examined the feedback effect of tort settlements on legal precedent, and described the shaping effect of legal uncertainty and court delay.

Recent publications include “When the Remedy is the Wrong: Statutory Damages in the Digital Age”, UCLA Law Review (2019); “The Upside of Losing”, “Fair Trespass”, Columbia Law Review (2014, 2011); “Using Fee Shifting to Promote Fair Use and Fair Licensing”, California Law Review (2015); “Copyright Backlash”, Southern California Law Review (2011); “Law in the Shadow Bargaining: The Feedback Effect of Civil Settlements”, Cornell Law Review (2010); “Technology & Uncertainty: The Shaping Effect on Copyright Law”, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2010), and “Liquidated Damages and Moral Hazard: An Experiment”, JITE (2016). His interdisciplinary work on anticommons property is widely cited in American law reviews and international peer-reviewed journals and was featured in a 2010 issue of the New Yorker.

Professor Ben Depoorter completed his studies at Yale Law School (2003, 2009) on a full scholarship from the BAEF. As an Oscar Cox and Olin Fellow at Yale, Depoorter served as an editor of the Yale J. Reg. He was a Santander Research Fellow at U.C. Berkeley and a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship.

Before becoming a law professor, Depoorter toured with his indierock band and released several LP records.

Education

• Yale Law School
  J.S.D., Law 2011

• Yale Law School
  LL.M., Law 2003

• Ghent University
  Ph.D., Economics 2003

• University of Hamburg
  M.A., Law and Economics 1999

• Ghent University, School of Law
  J.D., Economic Law 1998

Accomplishments

• Appointed Distinguished Professor
  2018

• Graduation Speaker
  U.C. Berkeley Law, P.LL.M Program 2016, 2017

• Sunderland Chair
  Awarded by University of California, Hastings College of the Law

• Inaugural Roger Traynor Research Chair
  Awarded by UC Law SF College of the Law. 2012

• Roger Traynor Scholarship Prize
  Awarded by UC Law SF College of the Law. 2011

• Oscar Cox Scholarship
  Awarded by Yale Law School. 2003

• National Science Grant
  Awarded by Belgium's Federal Institute for Science. 2004

• Olin Fellow in Law, Economics & Public Policy
  Awarded by Yale Law School 2003

• Belgian American Educational Foundation
  Study grant for research in the United States

Selected Scholarship

• Copyright Enforcement in the Digital Age: When the Remedy is the Wrong
  UCLA Law Review 2019

• If You Build It, They Will Come: The Promises and Pitfalls of a Copyright Small Claims Process
  Berkeley Technology Law Journal 2019

• The Moral-Hazard Effect of Liquidated Damages: An Experiment on Contract Remedies
  Journal of Institutional & Theoretical Economics 2017

• Judge-Made Law and the Common Law Process
  The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics 2017

• Copyright Alert Enforcement: Six Strikes and Privacy Harms
  Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts 2015

• Using Fee Shifting to Promote Fair Use and Fair Licensing
  California Law Review 2014

• The Upside of Losing
  Columbia Law Review 2013

• Technology and Uncertainty: The Shaping Effect on Copyright Law
  University of Pennsylvania Law Review 2009