LibriVox Forum

Doing recordings of classic law review articles would be cool. If anyone is interested, I can come up with a list (I am a law professor.)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s "The Path of the Law" would be a good place to start.

We'd need source(s) that is/are clearly PD. Gutenberg.org, actual scans of the journal articles, etc.

Path of the Law is on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2373
9800 words or thereabouts, which would fit into about an hour's recording for a nonfiction collection...

I've poked around in law review articles before but the problem is that I don't know enough about law to recognize which ones are truly of interest and which ones are random trivia. Or if they are trivia, at least interesting trivia (I have one bookmarked that's from the late teens/early 20s about whether flying your plane over property is trespassing, for example.)

Colleen

If there is someone who is willing to take the project on as a coordinator, I can provide a list of articles as well as PDF scans of the original from Hein-Online. The scans of the articles are behind a paywall, but the articles themselves are in the public domain.

I put out an informal poll of law profs on twitter for the most significant or interesting pre-1923 articles. I'll report the list here.

How about more landmark and/or recent judicial opinions (speaking as a retired lawyer and judge)?

jhturner wrote: ↑July 13th, 2020, 9:54 am How about more landmark and/or recent judicial opinions (speaking as a retired lawyer and judge)?

Then we run into copyright issues. Landmark opinions? Sure, if they're 1924 or earlier.

Then I'm a bit confused, I guess. There is an existing compilation of Supreme Court decisions on Librivox issued as recently as 2018 (Supreme Cases from 1803-2018). In addition, the government edicts doctrine holds that a judge cannot hold a copyright on work performed as a judge, nor can a reporter copyright supreme court opinions. If we are reading from the court's official text, what is copyrighted?

I'm not a copyright lawyer.

Are "law review articles" the actual, verbatim court decisions?

Law review articles would need to be pre 1924. Court decisions are PD as far as I know. We’ve definitely done post 1924 ones.

Even if we limited ourselves to the decisions published before 1925, there are so many fascinating cases that could be presented.

It would be nice if we could develop a theme to be covered in 6 to 10 cases (depending on the issues at hand, of course.)

My own interest, to tell the truth, is in notable dissenting opinions. Justice John Marshall Harlan comes to mind.

Well, this specific thread is about law review articles rather than court decisions.

TriciaG wrote: ↑July 13th, 2020, 5:51 pm Well, this specific thread is about law review articles rather than court decisions.

Objection sustained.

Actually, the appropriate objection would have been a motion to strike as nonresponsive. I apologize for intruding. Best of luck with your project.

jhturner wrote: ↑July 14th, 2020, 11:09 am Actually, the appropriate objection would have been a motion to strike as nonresponsive. I apologize for intruding. Best of luck with your project.

Awww, we're just talking. I do like your idea. We should make another thread soon to discuss its possibilities.