For non-lawyers unacquainted with ALI, it\u2019s an organization established in 1923 that issues what are known as \u201cRestatements\u201d that summarize common law principles such as contract or tort laws.\u00a0 Accordingly, Restatements can assist law students, lawyers, judges or other professionals about various legal concepts as a helpful handy reference.<\/p>\n
As Senator Tillis and Representatives Cline, Deutch, Roby and Rouda correctly point out in their December 3 letter, however, the ALI has joined too many other organizations such as the American Bar Association (ABA) in undertaking a more left-leaning political and ideological mission in recent years.\u00a0 None other than Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cogently highlighted that concern, as the letter notes:<\/p>\n
The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was the most frequent author of opinions citing ALI publications in nine opinions, wrote that \u2018modern\u2019 Restatements \u201care of questionable value, and must be used with caution.\u2019\u00a0 He added that, \u2018[o]ver time, the Restatements\u2019 authors have abandoned the mission of describing the law, and have chosen instead to set forth their aspirations for what the law ought to be.\u2019\u00a0 In his dissent in Kansas v. Nebraska<\/em>, Justice Scalia stated that newer Restatements \u2018should be given no weight whatever as to the current state of the law, and no more weight regarding what the law ought to be than the recommendation of any respected lawyer or scholar.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nTheir letter notes that Justice Scalia was not alone.\u00a0 Rather, \u201cmany states have also begun to repudiate the more recent and controversial Restatement projects,\u201d and the U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the ABA\u2019s own IP Law section and numerous judges and academics have expressed similar concerns.<\/p>\n
And as it relates to copyrights, the letter wisely emphasizes that the ALI\u2019s latest effort is particularly inappropriate:<\/p>\n
Traditionally, Restatements have focused almost exclusively on areas of common law because judicial rulings across different jurisdictions may vary and ALI\u2019s interpretations are predisposed to assembly, analysis, and summaries.\u00a0 By contrast, laws created through federal statute, including federal copyright law, are ill-suited for treatment in a Restatement because the law is clearly articulated by Congress in both the statute and the legislative history\u2026\u00a0 Throughout its almost 100 years of history, the ALI has never<\/em> chosen to draft a Restatement of an area of law that is almost exclusively federal statutory law \u2013 until now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe letter concludes by expressing concern that the ALI may seek to issue similar questionable Restatements on such areas as patent law, and by emphasizing that copyright law is and remains within Congress\u2019s authority, rendering the sort of action attempted by ALI inappropriate and potentially damaging.<\/p>\n
For that important wisdom and initiative, Senator Tillis and Representatives Cline, Deutch, Roby and Rouda deserve our respect and praise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In rare but refreshing bipartisan good news out of Congress, Senator Thom Tillis (R \u2013 North Carolina) and Representatives Ben Cline (R – Virginia), Theodore Deutch (D – Florida), Martha Roby (R – Alabama) and Harley Rouda (D \u2013 California) have just taken a firm stand protecting property rights \u2013 copyrights specifically \u2013 and merit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5089,5090,3983,2871,2872],"class_list":["post-25463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-ali","tag-american-law-institute","tag-copyright","tag-intellectual-property","tag-ip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25463"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25470,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25463\/revisions\/25470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}