I am super excited to have the privilege of running the London Marathon in 2025.

My sister Rebecca was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018. She was as brave as anyone could be, but her battle was short-lived; Becky passed away just weeks after her diagnosis. Her story is typical, pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal because it is diagnosed too late. 

But we can change this story. 

Pancreatic Cancer UK is pioneering efforts to develop earlier detection methods, aiming to give others the fighting chance that Becky deserved. On April 27, 2025, I will run the London Marathon to support this vital work. Your contribution can drive significant advancements—each pound (or dollar) raised brings us closer to a future where no more lives are stolen by this devastating disease.

Please join me on this journey and donate in Rebecca’s memory as a step towards changing the future of thousands. To donate and for updates go to https://2025tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/matthew-sag

Call For Papers

Roundtable

Emory Law is proud to host the third annual Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence. The Roundtable will take place on April 11-12, 2024 at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is designed to be a forum for the discussion of current legal scholarship on AI, covering a range of methodologies, topics, perspectives, and legal intersections.

Format  
Participation at the Roundtable will be limited and invitation-only. Participants are expected to read all the papers in advance and be prepared to offer substantive comments. We will try to accommodate a limited number of Zoom-based participants, but in person attendance is strongly preferred.

Applications to present, comment, or participate
We invite applications to participate, to comment, and/or to present from academics working on any topic relating to legal issues in AI. To request to present, you need to submit a substantially complete draft paper. Microsoft word format is strongly preferred for these purposes, but you can submit a pdf version for broader distribution. The deadline for submission is February 23, 2024, and decisions on participation will be made shortly thereafter, ideally, by March 4, 2024. If selected, final manuscripts are due April 1, 2024, to permit all participants an opportunity to read the papers prior to the conference.

To apply to participate, comment, or present, please fill out the google form:(https://forms.gle/Ubv2maLWfMK5tbPs8).

What to expect from the Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence
The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence is a forum for the discussion of current legal scholarship on AI, spanning a range of methodologies, topics, perspectives, and legal intersections. Authors who present at the Roundtable will be selected from a competitive application process, and commentators are assigned based on their expertise. Participants will have an opportunity to provide direct feedback in paper sessions and will have access to draft papers but will be asked not to post papers publicly or share without author permission. Robust sessions involve energetic feedback from other paper authors, commentators, and participants. Our goal is to ensure all authors have the full participation of all workshop participants in each author’s session.

Essential logistics
The Roundtable will be held in person on the Emory campus in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference will begin on Thursday morning and run until 1PM on Friday. You can expect to be at the Atlanta airport by 1:45 PM, in time for a 2:30 PM flight or later on Friday. We will pay for your reasonable (economy) travel and accommodation expenses within the U.S. At the roundtable you will be well fed and caffeinated.

Organizers
Matthew Sag, Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science at Emory University Law School ([email protected])
Charlotte Tschider, Associate Professor at Loyola Law Chicago ([email protected])

Emory Law’s Commitment to AI
Emory University recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) is a transformative technology that is already reshaping almost every aspect of our lives. Through its AI.Humanity initiative, Emory is building capacity in key areas of AI research and policy, including health care, medical research, business, law, and the humanities.

Call For Papers

Emory Law is proud to host the second annual Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence. The Roundtable will take place on March 30-31, 2023 at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  

The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is designed to be a forum for the discussion of current legal scholarship on AI, covering a range of methodologies, topics, perspectives, and legal intersections.  

Format 

Between eight to ten papers will be chosen for discussion for Roundtable, with each paper allocated about an hour in total. Each paper will be introduced briefly by a designated commentator (5-10 minutes), with authors allowed an even briefer chance to respond (0-4 minutes), before general discussion and feedback from participants.   

Participation at the Roundtable will be limited and invitation-only. Participants are expected to read all the papers in advance and be prepared to offer substantive comments.  

Topics 

We invite applications to participate, to comment, and/or to present from academics working on any topic relating to legal issues in AI.  

Applications to present, comment, or participate 

Submissions to present can either be in the form of long abstract or a draft paper, the latter is preferred. Microsoft word format is preferred.  

The deadline for submission is February 10, 2023, and decisions on participation will be made shortly thereafter, ideally, by February 17, 2023. If selected, full papers are due March 1, 2023, to permit all participants an opportunity to read paper prior to the conference. Final submitted papers must be in substantially complete form. 

If you would like to make an early submission and request an early decision (because you need to plan for the semester), please do so.  

To apply to participate, comment, or present, please fill out the google form:­­­­­­­ https://forms.gle/7d71U5XUzp57pC7M8).  

What to expect from the Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence  

The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence is a forum for the discussion of current legal scholarship on AI, spanning a range of methodologies, topics, perspectives, and legal intersections. Authors who present at the Roundtable will be selected from a competitive application process, and commentators are assigned based on their expertise.  

Participants will have an opportunity to provide direct feedback in paper sessions and will have access to draft papers but will be asked not to post papers publicly or share without author permission. Robust sessions involve energetic feedback from other paper authors, commentors, and participants. Our goal is to ensure all authors have the full participation of all workshop participants in each author’s session. 

Essential logistics 

The Roundtable will be held in person on the Emory campus in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference will begin on Thursday morning and run until 1PM on Friday. You can expect to be at the Atlanta airport by 1:30PM, in time for a 2:10PM flight or later on Friday.   

Organizers 

Matthew Sag, Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science at Emory University Law School ([email protected]) 

Charlotte Tschider, Assistant Professor at Loyola Law Chicago (guest co-convenor)  

Emory Law’s Commitment to AI 

Emory University recognizes that artificial intelligence (AI) is a transformative technology that is already reshaping almost every aspect of our lives. Through its AI.Humanity initiative, Emory is building capacity in key areas of AI research and policy, including health care, medical research, business, law, and the humanities.  

Emory Law is aggressively recruiting experts in law and AI who will impact policy and regulatory debates, advise researchers on pathways for ethical and legal AI development, and train the next generation of lawyers.  

Emory Law has long had deep expertise in IP with patent law experts Prof. Margo Bagley and Prof. Tim Holbrook, and in Law & Technology generally thanks to Professor of Practice Nicole Morris, a recognized leader at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship and intellectual property. Professor Matthew Sag joined Emory Law in July 2022 as the school’s first hire under the AI.Humanity initiative. Sag is an internationally recognized expert on copyright law and empirical legal studies. He is particularly well known for his pathbreaking work on the legality of using copyrighted works as inputs in machine learning processes, a vital issue in AI. Emory Law’s second AI.Humanity hire, Associate Professor Ifeoma Ajunwa will join Emory Law in the 2023 academic year. Ajunwa’s research interests are at the intersection of law and technology with a particular focus on the ethical governance of workplace technologies.  Ajunwa’s forthcoming book, “The Quantified Worker,” examines the role of technology in the workplace and its effects on management practices as moderated by employment law. Emory Law expects to hire two additional AI researchers this year who will add to our expertise in the legal and policy implications of algorithmic decision-making and in data privacy law.  

As part of its commitment to leadership in the field of law and AI, Emory Law is now the permanent home of the Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence, convened by Prof. Matthew Sag. 

Loyola University of Chicago is proud to present the first annual Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence. The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence will take place online on March 18, 2022.

The Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence is designed to be a forum for the discussion of current legal scholarship on AI, covering a range of methodologies, topics, perspectives, and legal intersections.

Between four and eight papers will be chosen for discussion for this inaugural roundtable, with each paper allocated up to an hour for discussion. Each paper will be introduced briefly by a designated commentator (3-8 minutes), with authors allowed an even briefer chance to respond (0-4 minutes), before general discussion.  

The Roundtable will be held Friday, March 18, 2022 beginning at 10:00AM Central Time to accommodate participants on the West Coast until 5:00 PM Central Time.

Participation at the Roundtable will be limited and invitation-only and participants are expected to have read the papers of other participants in advance and be prepared to offer substantive comments.

We invite applications to participate, to comment, and/or to present from academics working on any topic relating to legal issues in artificial intelligence including:

• • Competition/Antitrust
  • Consumer protection/regulatory law
  • Contract law
  • Corporations law
  • Criminal justice
  • Cybersecurity
  • Data privacy
  • Discrimination
  • Health law
  • Intellectual property
  • Tort law

To present, submissions must be substantially complete drafts in Microsoft word format. The deadline for submission is Friday, February 11, 2021 and decisions on participation will be made shortly thereafter, ideally, by February 18, 2022.

We anticipate this Legal Scholars Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence will bring together a diverse intellectual community, and we plan to sustain that community with a series of in-person and online conferences in the coming years. We invite you to be part of this inaugural event!

To apply to participate, comment, or present, please fill out the google form (https://forms.gle/yhXANrTAWHcJciHk9). Those wishing to present should also email their papers to [email protected]. A subject line of “Legal Scholars AI 2022” would be helpful.  

The Roundtable will be convened by Loyola Chicago Professors, Matthew Sag and Charlotte Tschider. Matthew is a leading expert on the copyright implications of text data mining in the machine learning and AI context. Charlotte’s scholarship focuses on the implications of information privacy, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence for the global health care industry. For further information about the Roundtable, please email either: Matthew Sag ([email protected]) or Charlotte Tschider ([email protected]).

#LegalScholarsAI

#LegalScholarsAI2022

I am thrilled to share the news that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a $165,000 grant to a team of legal experts, librarians, and scholars who will help humanities researchers and staff navigate complex legal questions in cutting-edge digital research. The team is led by UC Berkeley, but involves several other leading universities, including Loyola Law Chicago.

The NEH has agreed to support an Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities to help key stakeholders learn to better navigate legal issues in text data mining. Thanks to the NEH’s $165,000 grant,  a national team (identified below) from more than a dozen institutions and organizations will run a summer institute to teach humanities researchers, librarians, and research staff how to confidently navigate the major legal issues that arise in text data mining research. 

Our institute is aptly called Building Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining (Building LLTDM), and will run from June 23-26, 2020 in Berkeley, California

Rachael Samberg of UC Berkeley Library’s Office of Scholarly Communication Services was our fearless leader in the grant proposal, Rachael’s amazing leadership and dedication can’t be overstated! More details on the grant can be found in Rachael Samberg’s post. But to give you some idea of the significance of this grant, here are a few comments from team members:

Building LLTDM team member Matthew Sag, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and leading expert on copyright issues in the digital humanities, said he is “excited to have the chance to help the next generation of text data mining researchers open up new horizons in knowledge discovery. We have learned so much in the past ten years working on HathiTrust [a text-minable digital library] and related issues. I’m looking forward to sharing that knowledge and learning from others in the text data mining community.” 

Team member Brandon Butler, a copyright lawyer and library policy expert at the University of Virginia, said, “In my experience there’s a lot of interest in these research methods among graduate students and early-career scholars, a population that may not feel empowered to engage in “risky’ research. I’ve also seen that digital humanities practitioners have a strong commitment to equity, and they are working to build technical literacies outside the walls of elite institutions. Building legal literacies helps ease the burden of uncertainty and smooth the way toward wider, more equitable engagement with these research methods.”

Kyle K. Courtney of Harvard University serves as Copyright Advisor at Harvard Library’s Office for Scholarly Communication, and is also a Building LLTDM team member. Courtney added, “We are seeing more and more questions from scholars of all disciplines around these text data mining issues. The wealth of full-text online materials and new research tools provide scholars the opportunity to analyze large sets of data, but they also bring new challenges having to do with the use and sharing not only of the data but also of the technological tools researchers develop to study them. I am excited to join the Building LLTDM team and help clarify these issues and empower humanities scholars and librarians working in this field.”

Megan Senseney, Head of the Office of Digital Innovation and Stewardship at the University of Arizona Libraries reflected on the opportunities for ongoing library engagement that extends beyond the initial institute. Senseney said that, “Establishing a shared understanding of the legal landscape for TDM is vital to supporting research in the digital humanities and developing a new suite of library services in digital scholarship. I’m honored to work and learn alongside a team of legal experts, librarians, and researchers to create this institute, and I look forward to integrating these materials into instruction and outreach initiatives at our respective universities.”

Team Members

• Rachael G. Samberg (University of California, Berkeley) (Project Director)
• Scott Althaus (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
• David Bamman (University of California, Berkeley)
• Sara Benson (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
• Brandon Butler (University of Virginia)
• Beth Cate (Indiana University, Bloomington)
• Kyle K. Courtney (Harvard University)
• Maria Gould (California Digital Library)
• Cody Hennesy (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
• Eleanor Koehl (University of Michigan)
• Thomas Padilla (University of Nevada, Las Vegas; OCLC Research)
• Stacy Reardon (University of California, Berkeley)
• Matthew Sag (Loyola University Chicago)
• Brianna Schofield (Authors Alliance)
• Megan Senseney (University of Arizona)
• Glen Worthey (Stanford University)

I am very excited to announce that my open source Copyright Law textbook, Extended Readings on Copyright, was released to the public today. Full details at matthewsag.com/eroc.

I am attending a fascinating conference on Text Analysis and Law at Northwestern | Kellogg today, presenting some new work with Tonja Jacobi and Ted Underwood. Declining Linguistic Complexity in Supreme Court Oral Argument (presentation).

After teaching copyright law based on my own materials for several years now I have decided to release my reading materials under a creative commons license. You can find these materials on my website at https://matthewsag.com/eroc/.

These Extended Readings on Copyright can be used as a textbook or as individual modules to supplement a textbook. Unlike a regular textbook, I don’t pretend that every important issue in copyright is addressed in these materials. The modules are arranged in the order that I teach them, but most can be used in any sequence. You should consider the current offering as a Beta version. I will post additional modules and revise the existing ones on a continual basis, major revisions will be noted on this website.