James D. A. Boyle

James Boyle (born 1959 ) is a Scottish intellectual property scholar. He is the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina. He is most prominently known for advocating looser copyright policies in the United States and worldwide.

Teaching and activism Boyle graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1980 and subsequently studied at Harvard Law School where he earned both his LL.M (1981) and S.J.D. (1986). He joined Duke University School of Law in July 2000. Prior to Duke, Boyle previously taught at American University, Yale, Harvard, Boston University, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

In 2002, he was one of the founding board members of Creative Commons, and held the position of Chairman of the Board in 2009, after which he stepped down.

In 2006, he earned the Duke Bar Association Distinguished Teaching Award. Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and Construction of the Information Society as well as a novel published under a Creative Commons license, The Shakespeare Chronicles.

Boyle is also the author of two graphic novels Bound by Law and Theft: A History of Music It was also published under a non-commercial CC BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license.

He also wrote "The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain," a 2003 article in which he compared the expansion of intellectual property rights to the historical enclosure of commonly held land and argued for greater recognition of the importance of the public domain.

Boyle also contributed a column to the Financial Times New Technology Policy Forum.

In 2011, Boyle was one of five experts consulted for the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth, a comprehensive analysis of the United Kingdom's intellectual property system that made suggestions for data-driven reform of the system.

Awards He has been the recipient of multiple awards including the Pioneer Award, Duke Bar Association Distinguished Teaching Award, and the World Technology Network Award.

Donald McGannon Award (communications) and the American Society of Information Science and Technology Award's book of the year.

Selected publications Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and Construction of the Information Society, Harvard University Press 1997, The Public Domain (ed), Winter/Spring 2003 edition of Law and Contemporary Problems (vol 66, ##1–2), Duke University School of Law Bound by Law? Tales from the Public Domain , Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain 2006, Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 (ed, with Lawrence Lessig), Spring 2007 edition of Law and Contemporary Problems (vol 70, #2), Duke University School of Law Cultural Environmentalism and Beyond The Shakespeare Chronicles: A Novel, Lulu Press 2006, Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, Yale University Press 2008, Theft: A History of Music, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2017, The Unperson Of 2023 The Line: AI & The Future of Personhood, MIT Press 2024,