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Sandeen, Sharon K. --- "The Third Party Problem: Assessing the Protection of Information Through Tort Law" [2009] ELECD 519; in Brauneis, F. Robert (ed), "Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works

Editor(s): Brauneis, F. Robert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441835

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: The Third Party Problem: Assessing the Protection of Information Through Tort Law

Author(s): Sandeen, Sharon K.

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

9. The third party problem: assessing
the protection of information through
tort law
Sharon K. Sandeen*

INTRODUCTION
A lot of attention has been paid to the question whether intellectual property
(patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets) and other forms of infor-
mation are property and should be treated as such.1 To many owners and
creators of information, the characterization of information as property
provides the moral and legal imperative for its protection.2 However, property
law has its limits.3 Although characterizing information as property may

* Professor of Law, Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota,
U.S.A. © 2008 Sharon K. Sandeen. The author wishes to thank Professor Robert
Brauneis of The George Washington University Law School for inviting her to
contribute to this book. She is also thankful for the research assistance of Karly Kauf,
Rachel Knudson, and Emily Sipiorski. Finally, the author is forever indebted to
Beverly Rubens Gordon for first teaching her about torts. Hopefully, she did her
masterful instruction justice.
1 See for example, Lemley, Mark A. (2005), `Property, Intellectual Property,
and Free Riding', 83 Texas L. Rev. 1031; Mossoff, Adam (2003), `What is Property?
Putting the Pieces Back Together', 45 Ariz. L. Rev. 371; Lessig, Lawrence (2002), `The
Architecture of Innovation', 51 Duke L.J. 1783; Kieff, F. Scott (2001), `Property Rights
and Property Rules for Commercializing Inventions', 85 Minn. L. Rev. 697; Radin,
Margaret Jane (1996), `Property Evolving in Cyberspace', 15 J.L. & Com. 509; and
Brennan, Timothy J. (1993), `Copyright, ...