E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
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Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
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Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
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Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
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Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
This week SSRN removed from public view two of my papers with the following note in the comments attached to the files:
We have recently reviewed this submission to SSRN. Unfortunately, our staff erred when allowing the PDF to this submission to be viewed. It appears that you do not retain copyright to the paper, and the PDF has been removed from public view. Please provide us with the copyright holder's written permission to post. Alternatively, you may replace this version with a working paper or preprint version, if you so desire. Questions and/or written permissions may be emailed to support@ssrn.com, or call 1-877-SSRNHELP (877-777-6435 toll free) or 1-585-442-8170 outside the US.
Under the Copyright Act, of course, a copyright in a work belongs, unless transferred, to the author of the work. 17 U.S.C. s 201. It is far from clear how SSRN determines an author has not retained copyright in a posted paper. It is also not clear why SSRN, as a repository of scholarly works (and without having received a DMCA takedown notice), would have decided it makes sense to be in the business of removing papers unless the author can prove copyright ownership hasn't been assigned. Nonetheless, if SSRN wants to watch out for the interests of copyright owners there is surely a simple mechanism: a check box, upon submission, in which the author affirms the right to post the paper to SSRN. Random and unannounced takedowns curable only by written permission from non-existent assignees are not sensible from anybody's perspective.