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Ben
Depoorter

Max Radin Distinguished Professor

  • Office 317-333
  • Email Address depoorter@uchastings.edu
  • Telephone (415) 565-4675
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  • Follow Me on LinkedIn
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Biography

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.

Expertise

  • Intellectual Property
  • Property Law

Education

  1. Yale Law School 2011

    J.S.D., Law

  2. Yale Law School 2003

    LL.M., Law

  3. Ghent University 2003

    Ph.D., Economics

  4. University of Hamburg 1999

    M.A., Law and Economics

  5. Ghent University, School of Law 1998

    J.D., Economic Law

Accomplishments

  1. Appointed Distinguished Professor 2018

  2. Graduation Speaker 2016, 2017

    U.C. Berkeley Law, P.LL.M Program

  3. Sunderland Chair

    Awarded by University of California, Hastings College of the Law

  4. Inaugural Roger Traynor Research Chair 2012

    Awarded by UC Hastings College of the Law.

  5. Roger Traynor Scholarship Prize 2011

    Awarded by UC Hastings College of the Law.

  6. Oscar Cox Scholarship 2003

    Awarded by Yale Law School.

  7. National Science Grant 2004

    Awarded by Belgium's Federal Institute for Science.

  8. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics & Public Policy 2003

    Awarded by Yale Law School

  9. Belgian American Educational Foundation

    Study grant for research in the United States

Selected Scholarship

  1. Copyright Enforcement in the Digital Age: When the Remedy is the Wrong 2019

    UCLA Law Review

  2. If You Build It, They Will Come: The Promises and Pitfalls of a Copyright Small Claims Process 2019

    Berkeley Technology Law Journal

  3. The Moral-Hazard Effect of Liquidated Damages: An Experiment on Contract Remedies 2017

    Journal of Institutional & Theoretical Economics

  4. Judge-Made Law and the Common Law Process 2017

    The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics

  5. Copyright Alert Enforcement: Six Strikes and Privacy Harms 2015

    Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts

  6. Using Fee Shifting to Promote Fair Use and Fair Licensing 2014

    California Law Review

  7. The Upside of Losing 2013

    Columbia Law Review

  8. Technology and Uncertainty: The Shaping Effect on Copyright Law 2009

    University of Pennsylvania Law Review

Courses

  1. Advanced Copyright Seminar
  2. IP Concentration Seminar
  3. Property
  4. Copyright

Links

  1. Personal Web Site
  2. Law Review Articles on SSRN
  3. Publications

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