Center Articles

Art Beyond Copyright Introduction

In their introduction to the Winter 2024 edition of Grey Room, editors Amy Adler and Noam Elcott argue that the incentives of copyright protection are meaningless in the context of visual art where “authenticity” is the measure of value and copies are essentially worthless.

Canvas, Issue 11

This month we highlight news of recovery of stolen artifacts, trends in the art market, the instability of the crypto world, artistic freedom, and more.

Trademark Law and the Contingent Art Object

UCLA Law Professor Xiyin Tang discusses the nexus between contemporary art on the one hand, and branding and trademark law on the other — a connection increasingly strengthened by the transformation of contemporary art into a kind of luxury good where the artist becomes the brand.

Canvas, Issue 10

This month we highlight news of artistic freedom and the courts, the illicit antiques trade, trends in the art market, artificial intelligence in museums, and more.

Robbins Fellow Spotlight: Francesco D’Urso

The Robbins Collection welcomed Francesco D’Urso as a Research Fellow from September to November of 2023. D’Urso comes to the Robbins Collection from Italy, where he is a researcher at […]

Robbins Fellow Spotlight: Anna Floris

Anna Floris joined the Robbins Collection as a Research Fellow from July through August of 2023. Her research topic, “Interpreting Local Law in the Middle Ages: The Case of the […]

Olson v. California: Let the Statute Speak for Itself

LAW & POLICY NOTE (March 2024)

Olson v. California—a case pending before the Ninth Circuit en banc in which plaintiffs Uber and Postmates have alleged that AB 5, California’s worker classification statute that codifies the ABC test, violates their equal protection rights—should be an easy case to resolve against plaintiffs under settled equal protection doctrine. But a panel of the Ninth Circuit found otherwise, in an astounding decision holding that the district court erred in dismissing plaintiffs’ equal protection claim. Plaintiffs’ claim essentially centers on one provision of the law, California Labor Code § 2777, known as the “referral agency exemption” from the ABC test. They object because they are carved out of this exemption and argue there is no rational basis for doing so. In this Note, we point out a key rationale for the distinctions drawn in the referral agency exemption that is clear on the face of the statute but has not received attention: the exemption’s carve-out, which excludes services provided in certain high hazard industries like the ones in which plaintiffs operate, is rationally related to one of AB 5’s stated purposes, namely, to protect workers when they are injured on the job from the harm of misclassification. This presents a straightforward path for the en banc Court to affirm dismissal of plaintiffs’ equal protection claim.