Mary LaFrance

What’s the most important thing you are working on right now?

I’m co-authoring a short treatise on international intellectual property law with my Boyd colleague Professor Marketa Trimble and Professor Marshall Leaffer from Indiana University. International intellectual property law is an enormous subject, and I’m lucky to have such terrific co-authors. My chapters focus on copyright, neighbouring rights, database rights, and the right of publicity. Re-tooling all of our courses for remote teaching during the pandemic has taken up a lot of time that we would otherwise spend on research and writing, but it looks like we are on track to finish our manuscript in 2021. And even that won’t be the end, since we will have to update it regularly as the law continues to evolve. Each of my books is a lifetime commitment!

What have you read, listened to, or watched recently that has influenced you or your work?

I’m writing a new article on my favorite topic - joint authorship in copyright law - and one source I found particularly interesting was the book On the Line: The Creation of a Chorus Line, by Robert Viagas, Baayork Lee, and Thommie Walsh. The blockbuster musical A Chorus Line may have been the most collaborative Broadway show ever, incorporating the dancers’ own stories, language, and choreography. Yet they received no authorship credits, and had to fight to receive even the tiniest sliver of the profits. This was a turning point in Broadway history. Today, new contract mechanisms compensate performers for helping to develop a show for commercial production. The original cast members of Hamilton are wealthier today because of the Chorus Line dancers.