{"id":61043,"date":"2019-09-13T14:28:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T18:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/?post_type=profile&p=61043"},"modified":"2026-04-24T12:23:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:23:50","slug":"jessica-silbey","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/profile\/jessica-silbey\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Silbey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Silbey<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0teaches and writes in the areas of intellectual property and technology law, constitutional law, and law and the humanities.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to a law degree, she has a PhD in comparative literature and draws on her studies of literature and film to better account for law\u2019s force and limitations. In 2018, she was a\u00a0<\/span>Guggenheim Fellow<\/span>\u00a0and completed a book supported by that fellowship with the title\u00a0<\/span>Against Progress: Intellectual Property and Fundamental Values in the Internet Age<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Stanford University Press, 2022). In\u00a0Against Progress<\/em>, Professor Silbey considers intellectual property debates in law and culture as a bellwether of changing social justice needs in the 21st century. The book argues that intellectual property law is becoming a central framework through which to discuss essential socio-political issues, extending ancient debates over our most cherished constitutional values, refiguring the substance of \u201cprogress\u201d in terms that demonstrate the urgency of art and science to social justice today.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Professor Silbey\u2019s previous book,\u00a0<\/span>The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Stanford University Press, 2015), altered the national conversation about creativity and invention. Based on a qualitative empirical analysis of interviews with authors, artists, inventors and lawyers, the book challenges the traditional notion of intellectual property as merely creating financial incentives necessary to spur innovation. Professor Silbey continues her qualitative empirical study of intellectual property in research on digital photography and human-centered design.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to her research on intellectual property, Professor Silbey writes and speaks about the use of film as a legal tool (body cams, surveillance video, medical imaging), the representations of law in popular culture (courtroom dramas, reality television), and constitutional law. She is the co-editor of several books, including Reason in Law<\/em> (10th<\/sup> ed.) (with Tom Burke and Lief Carter, 2026), Law and Popular Culture: A Course Book<\/em>\u00a0(Vandeplas 2020) (with Michael Asimow),\u00a0Trial Films on Trial<\/em>\u00a0(University of Alabama Press, 2019) (with Austin Sarat and Martha Umphrey) and\u00a0Law and Justice on the Small Screen<\/em>\u00a0(Bloomsbury, 2012) (with Peter Robson). She is an affiliate fellow at Yale\u2019s Information Society Project and was a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She was previously chair of the Association of American Law School\u2019s (AALS) national Section on Intellectual Property and served on the AALS Presidential Conference Film Committee from 2012-2020. She was co-chair of the New England Chapter for the Copyright Society of the United States from 2015 through 2018. Before joining Boston University School of Law, Professor Silbey was a faculty member at Northeastern University School of Law where she was the faculty director of the Center for Law, Innovation, and Creativity, an affiliate professor in English, and Core Faculty at Northeastern\u2019s NuLab for Maps, Texts, and Networks.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Professor Silbey served as a law clerk to Judge Robert E. Keeton of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and Judge Levin Campbell of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Before becoming a law professor, she practiced law in the disputes department of the Boston office of Foley Hoag LLP focusing on intellectual property, bankruptcy, and reproductive rights. Professor Silbey was elected to the American Law Institute in 2021.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5438,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/61043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5438"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/61043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124789,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/61043\/revisions\/124789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}