Lewis & Clark Law Student Wins Grammy Foundation National Competition

Third-year Lewis & Clark Law student Rebecca Pollack won the Grammy Foundation’s Entertainment Law Initiative (ELI) 20^th annual writing competition. Pollack received a $10,000 scholarship and attended the 60^th Annual Grammy Awards. She was also honored at the January 26 annual ELI event in New York City.

The national ELI competition, open to law students enrolled in an accredited ABA law school, challenges students to research and write a 3,000-word paper on a compelling legal issue facing the music industry. Law students must also provide a proposed solution to the problem they present in their essays.

Pollack’s paper is titled “Innovation Or Exploitation: Is It Time To Update The DMCA Safe Harbors?” The paper addresses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act § 512 Safe Harbors and the current discussion between copyright holders and online service providers regarding whether the safe harbors are effective or need to be updated.

She determined that “one of the overarching issues with the safe harbors is the stringent definition of a ‘standard technical measure,’” and provided a potential solution to this issue.

A lifelong musician, Pollack was “excited about the idea of submitting an essay to a competition specifically targeted at addressing the intersection between the music industry and the law.” She says she chose her topic because she’s been a musician for the majority of her life and thinks that “how technological advancements impact the music industry is extremely important and also just really fascinating.”

“Seeing how the law impacts and interacts with the music industry and handles this constant evolution, and how it could improve, is one of the main reasons I went to law school,” Pollack said.

She worked with Lewis & Clark Law professor of copyright and intellectual property Lydia Loren on her capstone paper, which was modified for the writing competition. “I consulted with Professor Loren primarily on my capstone paper, but she was extremely helpful when determining which portion of my paper would be best for the essay - both in topic and what could handle the length cut.”

Pollack graduated with an honors business degree from the University of Puget Sound and attended the school on a music scholarship. She is pursuing a JD and an intellectual property certificate from the law school. She is the managing editor for the Animal Law Review and author of the Animal Law CITES Review.