Northwestern University Debaters Took Up Mauritz Kop's Article on AI, Intellectual Property and the Public Domain (2020)

What happens when a law review article becomes debate material? At Northwestern University in 2020, debaters took up Mauritz Kop's argument that autonomously machine-made works belong in an articulated public domain, and found that the question of who owns AI output divides a room like few others.

The motion: no one should own works made without human creative input

Kop's 2020 article in the Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal stakes out a clear position: when artificial intelligence generates works without meaningful human creative input, no one should own them. The law should avoid stretching authorship to cover such output and should route it into a commons by design, Res Publicae ex Machina, public property from the machine.

The proposition invites adversarial testing. Affirm it, and you must explain to investors why their generative AI pipelines produce unownable output. Oppose it, and you must explain what authorship means when nobody authored anything, and why locking up machine output serves the human creators copyright was invented for.

How the 2020 thought experiment became today's docket

Courts and copyright offices in several jurisdictions have addressed whether works involving generative AI contain enough human authorship for protection, while training data disputes ask the mirror-image question of what machines may learn from. The article's companion doctrine traveled too: the follow-up analysis appeared in a transatlantic volume, as covered in Public Property from the Machine published in Harmonizing Intellectual Property Law for a Trans-Atlantic Knowledge Economy.

That trajectory, from journal article to book chapter to debate material and live litigation theme, is what scholarly impact looks like in practice: arguments that other people find worth having. When students choose to attack and defend a thesis in structured debate, the ideas have left the journal and started doing work in the world.

Why debaters chose this article

Good debate material needs a position clear enough to attack and deep enough to survive the attack. The articulated-public-domain thesis offers both, because it rests on first principles: incentive theory, cultural diversity, the economics of exclusive rights, and the public's stake in what machines make. The full announcement traces the argument, links the article itself, and explains why this AI and IP debate has only sharpened since it was written.

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Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, AcademicsMauritz Kop25 september 2026AI and intellectual property, public domain, Northwestern University, debate, copyright

Mauritz Kop Judge at 6th Annual Junior Faculty Forum for Law and STEM at Stanford

On October 27, 2023, Stanford Law School hosted the 6th Annual Junior Faculty Forum for Law and STEM, a premier event organized and hosted by Professor Mark Lemley that convenes the next generation of leading legal scholars to present and refine their cutting-edge research. The forum, which rotates between Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University, provides a vital platform for interdisciplinary dialogue on the complex legal challenges posed by rapid scientific and technological advancement. Mauritz Kop, a recognized expert in technology law and governance, had the honor of serving as a judge and commentator, contributing to the rigorous intellectual exchange that defines the event.

The forum's mission is to foster the development of early-career academics by providing a supportive yet critical environment for them to receive feedback from senior scholars in their fields. Over two days, junior faculty presented works-in-progress on a diverse array of topics, from the metaverse and quantum computing to medical device regulation and genome governance, showcasing the breadth and depth of contemporary law and STEM scholarship.

The Call for Papers: Fostering Interdisciplinary Law & Technology Scholarship

The selection of presenters for the forum is a rigorous process, initiated by a formal Call for Papers issued by the organizing universities: Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford Law School. The call invites junior faculty from any discipline to submit papers on any topic related to the intersection of law and STEM. The goal is to promote interdisciplinary research that explores how developments in STEM are affecting law and vice versa, with a preference for papers that strongly integrate these two fields.

A Rich Tapestry of Emerging Legal Questions

The agenda for the 2023 forum was a testament to the pressing legal and ethical questions emerging from the frontiers of science and technology. The papers presented offered a glimpse into the future of legal scholarship and the complex societal issues that lawmakers, judges, and regulators will face in the coming years.

Among the thought-provoking works discussed were:

"Taxing the Metaverse" by Christine Kim (Cardozo School of Law): This paper tackles the novel challenge of how to apply principles of taxation to the burgeoning virtual economy. Kim argues that economic activity within the metaverse satisfies traditional definitions of income and that failing to tax it would create a new kind of tax haven. The paper explores how the metaverse could serve as a laboratory for modernizing the tax system, potentially overcoming the traditional realization requirement.
"Regulating Medical Device Innovation" by George Horvath (University of Akron School of Law): Horvath reframes the debate around medical device safety, moving beyond the narrow concept of "predicate creep" in the 510(k) clearance process to a broader analysis of "device creep." He makes the counterintuitive argument that properly structured safety regulations can stimulate, rather than stifle, innovation by building a more robust clinical knowledge base.
"Who Owns Children's DNA?" by Nila Bala (UC Davis School of Law): This article addresses the critical and underexplored issue of parental control over children's genetic information. Bala argues that parental consent is an insufficient safeguard against the collection and use of a child's DNA by law enforcement, particularly in the context of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. She proposes moving from a framework of parents-as-owners to parents-as-fiduciaries, drawing on property law principles to protect the child's long-term interests.
"Gene Stewards: Rethinking Genome Governance" by Shelly Simana (Stanford Law School): Simana confronts the exploitative practices of entities that collect and use human genetic material. She proposes a new statutory category of "Gene Stewards," which would impose quasi-fiduciary duties of loyalty and care on these powerful public and private entities, ensuring they act as responsible stewards of this sensitive information.

Reviewing "Privacy in the Quantum Age"

As part of his role, Mauritz Kop, alongside Professor Christopher Yoo of the University of Pennsylvania, served as a commentator for the paper "Privacy in the Quantum Age" by Anat Lior (Yale Law School). Lior's paper addresses the profound privacy implications of quantum computing, particularly its potential to break current encryption standards.

In his review, Kop commended Lior for her courage in tackling such a complex and deeply interdisciplinary subject. He emphasized the need for legal scholars entering this domain to achieve a high level of "quantum literacy" to engage credibly with both the technology's promise and its perils. He offered several pieces of constructive feedback aimed at strengthening the paper's impact and scholarly contribution.