FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

Peter Yu, assistant professor and director of the Intellectual Property and Communications Law Program.

Q: You recently came to MSU and have established the Intellectual Property and Communications Law Program at MSU-DCL College of Law. Why did you come to MSU-DCL?

A: Before joining MSU-DCL, I was the executive director of the Intellectual Property Law Program at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City. That program is considered one of the best in the country. For the past three years, the U.S. News & World Report has ranked the Cardozo program one of the top five intellectual property programs in the United States. While working there, I noticed a strong need for a global, interdisciplinary and student-oriented program that focuses on intellectual property and communications law. It happens that MSU-DCL was looking for a person to build a new intellectual property law program. So, we became a perfect match.

MSU provides an ideal environment for building this new program. The university is not only a leading research institution in the country, but also has a long and rich tradition of international engagement that is recognized around the world. The dean and my colleagues at the law college have been unbelievably supportive of my ideas. In addition, the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law is highly respected in the field, and the College of Communication Arts and Sciences boasts some of the most enviable academic offerings in the nation. I must admit that I’m also attracted to the green-and-white campus, which brings back a lot of my happy college memories. Having done my undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I am a Big Ten person at heart. So, coming here from New York City is like a prodigal son returning home.

Q: Why is there a need for an intellectual property and communications law program at a modern law school?

A: Intellectual property law was once considered the backwaters of the legal profession. These days, however, intellectual property has become increasingly important, and people consider it as something that directly affects their daily lives. Whether you are reading this interview, attending a rock concert, drinking a soda, or driving a car, intellectual property is somehow involved. With the advent of the Internet and development of new communications technologies, intellectual property has become even more important. Today, law students increasingly need a sophisticated understanding of intellectual property and communications law to become effective attorneys. The new program will help meet this need and allow MSU-DCL students to attain a competitive edge over graduates from other law schools.

Q: Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing is a big issue on college campuses. How do you see this issue shaking out in the years ahead?

A: Whoa! You don’t ask easy questions, do you? My crystal ball tells me it’s going to be very, very messy.

The biggest problem with the current peer-to-peer file-sharing debate is that people -- be they copyright holders or public domain activists -- tend to hold very extreme views. But copyright law is always about balance. While you need to generate incentives to induce authors to create and publishers to invest, you have to prevent the copyright system from taking away useful raw materials from future authors and consumers. You cannot go to either extreme. Unfortunately, supporters of either side of the debate are unwilling to compromise their position or work together to create a mutually beneficial solution. So, it will take a while before online piracy is finally reduced. The recording industry will keep on churning out new protective strategies -- legislation, lawsuits, encryption technologies, awareness programs, you name it. Yet, college students will continue to swap music files over the Internet. In fact, as we have learned from China, I’d not be surprised if file swappers eventually turn to proxy servers, offshore Web sites and encrypted peer-to-peer file-sharing systems to avoid detection.

Q: You were born and raised in Hong Kong. How do you think your background and upbringing would affect your outlook and the program you are building here?

A: Growing up in a different country allows me to be sensitive to differences among countries, peoples and cultures. My foreign experience also enables me to appreciate the strengths of the U.S. legal system while at the same time notice its weaknesses. A substantial portion of my research focuses on international intellectual property and communications law and the tension between developed and less developed countries. For example, my writings have covered such issues as the international intellectual property system, the harmonization process, the global digital divide, traditional knowledge and indigenous practices, and Internet censorship and development in China. I’m currently writing a book on how to reinvent U.S.-China intellectual property relations in the post-World Trade Organization era. When I started my career, I was fortunate to be involved in a number of media law projects in Eastern and Central Europe, in particular Russia. These experiences come in very handy when I have to develop academic exchanges and collaboration with foreign governments, international intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and research institutions around the world. I hope the new intellectual property and communications law program eventually will become the international focal point for promoting global, interdisciplinary understanding of intellectual property and communications law and for training the next generation of technology lawyers.

Copyright 2001 Michigan State University Division of University Relations.