This Response examines Professor Stadler’s argument that “the copyright grant be reformulated to consist of no more than an exclusive right to distribute works publicly.” He agrees that “copyright law ought to be visualized as a doctrine of unfair competition,” but offers an alternative conception of “implementing this ideal.” Balganesh writes, “Since copyright is about generating incentives for creation, we might want to connect [a competitive] nexus requirement to copyright’s instrumental purpose through a test of foreseeability. Given that liability for infringement is premised on a showing of copying, such a test would place the burden on the plaintiff to show that the defendant’s copying was in a market and of a form reasonably foreseeable when the work was created.”
Volume 156 2008 Response