Legal claims based upon private property rights are increasingly infringing upon interests in freedom of speech and the free dissemination of information. This essay examines both “real” property claims and intellectual property rights that affect free speech and urges that courts, legislatures, and others carefully scrutinize new attempts to impute trespass liability and commodify information.

Fair use doctrine in copyright law is widely known as a difficult and unpredictable area of legal doctrine. Recently, the “transformative use” doctrine has emerged as a dominant approach to fair use determinations. Some courts are even viewing as transformative appropriations that do not alter the original work in any way, but that simply use it in a different functional context from its original creator. This article examines and critiques this novel “transformative purpose” approach to fair use and suggests that the approach may create even more indeterminacy in an already confused fair use landscape.

In recent years, privatization has touched nearly every area of public life. Increased privatization efforts have posed increasing problems for public access to governmental records when a governmental function has been privatized. Records long open to public inspection now are being created, maintained, and controlled by private businesses often at odds with the very purpose of public records laws. The authors examine this problem and offer possible solutions to the problems caused by this increasing trend.

Although universities long neglected copyright claims in faculty teaching and research materials, the thought of potential revenues from Internet distance education has recently made the issue salient. This article analyzes the extent to which universities may claim ownership in faculty works through the work for hire doctrine of copyright law. It also explores whether there is continued vitality in a “teacher exception” to the work for hire doctrine.

As more and more governments movefrom paper records to computerized information, public records laws have not always kept pace. Journalists and others seeking access to computerized government information have a significant interest in obtaining computerized information in the most useful format, which is often a computerized form rather than a paper printout. This article examines the law on access to computerized format as it has developed in state and federal courts and legislatures.Journalists representing large and small media outlets have begun using government information and computers to monitor the activities of officials. The power of computerized databases to examine large masses of information and reveal interesting patterns is something reporters around the country are discovering. For example, the Skagit Valley (Washington) Herald (circulation 20,000) tracked county phone bills using Paradox 3.5 software and discovered that county officials were using county cellular phones for personal useto the tune of $12,000 for the first months of 1992.' The resulting story was probably responsible for at least one official losing a re-election bid. Reporters at the Hartford Courant assembled newspaper clips and police records from a series of murders to produce a computer analysis of possible patterns behind the crimes. The analysis led the state to form a task force to investigate further?The St. Louis Post Dispatch used computer databases to document voter fraud in East St. Louis, Illinois? The paper discovered by matching voter registration records with Missouri death certificates that some of the dead voters still had enough life in them to show up at the polls. A St.Petersburg Times investigation revealedwith the help of computer databaseshow criminals were abusing the Florida sealed records law by convincing judges to hide the criminals' court records, including repeat sex offenses?At least one newsmagazine is also using computerized government records to produce stories of national import. U.S. News & World Report used two million records to "document a whopping 31 percent increase in campaign contributions from health-care interests to key congressmen in 1992. The reason: influence buying before congressional debate of national healthcare r e f~r m . "~ Despite significant strides in the use of computerized government records, both by journalists and others, numerous obstacles remain. One area J&MC Quarterly