Apropos preemption... Looks like Wallace is going to end up in the Supreme Court with that.
------ In addition to statutory preemption, preemption under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution must be examined. Even if a particular cause of action survives a 301 preemption analysis...it still may be preempted if it "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." O'Rourke, supra note 62, at 534; see also Maureen A. O'Rourke, Fencing Cyberspace: Drawing Borders in a Virtual World, 82 Minn. L. Rev. 609, 694 (1998) [hereinafter O'Rourke, Fencing Cyberspace]; Cohen, supra note 11, at 23. For the fundamental statement of Supremacy Clause copyright preemption, see Goldstein v. California, 412 U.S. 546, 559 (1973). In Goldstein, the Court distinguished three types of situations: (1) areas in which federal law mandated protection; (2) areas in which federal law mandated no protection; and (3) areas in which federal law was silent. See id. Only in the last category of cases was state law free to operate: "Where the need for free and unrestricted distribution of a writing is thought to be required by the national interest, the Copyright Clause and the Commerce Clause would allow Congress to eschew all protection. In such cases, a conflict would develop if a State attempted to protect that which Congress intended to be free from restraint or to free that which Congress had protected." Id. ------ "to free that which Congress had protected" develops a conflict, Supremes said. Uhmm. regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss