Home / Faculty & Staff / Timothy K. Armstrong
Timothy K. Armstrong

Contact Information

Education

  • BA, University of Texas at Austin
  • MPAff., University of Texas at Austin
  • JD, University of Texas at Austin
  • LLM, Harvard Law School

Links

Areas of Interest

  • Computer and Internet Law
  • Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks, Copyright)

Timothy K. Armstrong
Associate Professor of Law


Professor Armstrong earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from The University of Texas at Austin and his law degree, with high honors, from the University of Texas School of Law. There he was Managing Editor of the Texas International Law Journal and a member of the Chancellors honorary society. He served for one year as a law clerk to Senior Circuit Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Armstrong practiced with the law firm of Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White in Washington, D.C. He earned a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School.

During his career in private practice, Professor Armstrong specialized in Supreme Court and appellate litigation and was an active member of the firm's pro bono committee. During the Monica Lewinsky investigation in 1998, he defended the Office of the President of the United States in executive and attorney-client privilege litigation arising from the Independent Counsel's issuance of grand jury subpoenas to attorneys in the White House Counsel's Office. Professor Armstrong's other primary areas of experience in practice included administrative law, antitrust law and trade regulatory issues, labor arbitration, and government contract disputes. He also represented indigent death row inmates in Virginia and Georgia in state and federal habeas corpus proceedings, and participated in several Supreme Court cases on behalf of organizations serving persons with disabilities.

Before joining the College of Law faculty, Professor Armstrong worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. In that capacity, he served as Assistant Director of the Berkman Center's Clinical Program in Cyberlaw and co-taught the course "Internet & Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control," at the Harvard Extension School.

Professor Armstrong is the co-author, along with Professor William McGeveran of the University of Minnesota Law School and Professor Derek Bambauer of Wayne State University Law School, of Info/Law, a weblog focusing on legal issues arising from the domain of high technology and the Internet. His research interests include copyright and other intellectual property law, digital rights management and other legal issues arising from networked communications technologies, licensing and other issues surrounding free and open-source software, and statutory interpretation.

Publications

Courses

  • Comparative & International Law
  • Copyright
  • Introduction to Intellectual Property
  • International Intellectual Property

November 2011

Tim’s article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in The Supreme Court 2010 Term: Leading Cases, 125 Harv. L. Rev. 281 (2011).

 

October 2011

Tim, chair of this year’s non-tenure-track committee, attended the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) recruiting conference in Washington, D.C., on October 14 & 15.

Summer 2011

The Board of Trustees approved Tim’s tenure and promotion to Professor of Law, effective September 1, 2011.  Congratulations to Tim on this well-deserved promotion!

Two of Tim’s articles were cited:

May 2011

Tim’s article, Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public, 47 Harv. J. on Legis. 359 (2010), was cited in David McGowan, The Tory Anarchism of F/OSS Licensing, 78 U. Chi. L. Rev. 207 (2011).

April 2011

Tim presented a work-in-progress, Everyone's an Archivist: Rights, Roles, and Access to Knowledge in a Digital Age, at the 2011 Intellectual Property Scholars Roundtable at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa.

Several of Tim’s articles were cited:

March 2011

Tim’s article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Priti Trivedi, Writing the Wrong: What the E-Book Industry Can Learn from Digital Music's Mistakes with DRM, 18 J.L. & Pol'y 925 (2010), and Caitlin J. Akins, Conversion of Digital Property: Protecting Consumers in the Age of Technology, 23 Loy. Consumer L. Rev.215 (2010).

February 2011

Tim’s essay,Crowdsourcing and Open Access: Collaborative Techniques for Disseminating Legal Materials and Scholarship, 26 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 591 (2010),is now in print.

Tim’s article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Jeffrey A. Pojanowski, Reason And Reasonableness In Review Of Agency Decisions, 104 Nw. U. L. Rev. 799 (2010).

January 2011

Tim’s article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Wendy Seltzer, The Imperfect Is The Enemy Of The Good: Anticircumvention Versus Open User Innovation, 25 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 909 (2010).

December 2010

Two of Tim’s articles were cited:

 

November 2010

Several of Tim’s articles were cited:

  • Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), in The Supreme Court, 2009 Term: Leading Cases: III. Federal Statutes And Regulations: E. Review Of Administrative Action, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 380(2010), and Sheri Wardwell, Communications Decency Act Provides No Safe Harbor Against Antifraud Liability for Hyperlinks to Third-Party Content Under the Securities and Exchange Act, 6 Wash. J.L. Tech. & Arts 49 (2010);
  • Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), in Gideon Parchomovsky & Philip J. Weiser, Beyond Fair Use, 96 Cornell L. Rev. 91 (2010); Saif M. Khan, Copyright, Data Protection, and Privacy with Digital Rights Management and Trusted Systems: Negotiating a Compromise Between Proprietors and Users, 5  J.L. & Pol'y for Info. Soc'y 603 (2010); and George Jiang, Rain or Shine: Fair and Other Non-Infringing Uses in the Context of Cloud Computing, 36 J. Legis. 395 (2010);
  • Fair Circumvention, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 1 (2008), in Rebecca Tushnet, I Put You There: User-Generated Content and Anticircumvention, 12 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 889 (2010); and
  • Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public, 47 Harv. J. on Legis. 359 (2010), in Lydia Pallas Loren, Copyright USA—A Collection: The Surging Influence Of Copyright Law In American Life: Renegotiating The Copyright Deal In The Shadow Of The "Inalienable" Right To Terminate, 62 Fla. L. Rev. 1329 (2010).

Summer 2010

Tim’s article, Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public, 47 Harv. J. on Legis. 359 (2010), is now in print.

Tim’s article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Bradley Hamburger, Digital Video Recorders, Advertisement Avoidance, and Fair Use, 23 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 567 (2010).

June 2010

Tim attended the Cincinnati Intellectual Property Law Association’s 2nd annual meeting, Open Source & Security Squared – Dispelling the Myths, at the NKU METS Center on May 17, 2010. His article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Anthony Gostanian, How the FDA Can Overturn Wyeth v. Levine, 36 Am. J.L. & Med. 248 (2010); and in Scott Bomkamp, Beyond Chemicals: The Lessons that Toxic Substance Regulatory Reform can Learn from Nanotechnology, 85 Ind. L.J. Supplement 24 (2010).

May 2010

Tim's article, Fair Circumvention, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 1 (2008), was cited in Kevin L. Smith, Copyright Renewal for Libraries: Seven Steps Toward a User-Friendly Law, 10 Portal: Libraries and the Academy 5 (2010); and Rafal Kasprowski, Perspectives on DRM: Between Digital Rights Management and Digital Restrictions Management, 36 Bull. of the Am. Soc. for Info. Sci. & Tech., 49 (2010).

April 2010

Several of Tim’s articles were cited:

March 2010

Tim’s essay, Crowdsourcing and Open Access: Collaborative Techniques for Disseminating Legal Materials and Scholarship, was accepted for publication in 26 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. ____ (2010). He presented Everyone's an Archivist: Rights, Roles, and Access to Knowledge in a Digital Age at Indiana-Bloomington as part of the College’s Scholar Exchange Program.

Februrary 2010

Tim attended the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans and spoke at the Section on Law and Computers Program on Law and Wikis.

December 2009

Tim’s article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Derek E. Bambauer, Cybersieves, 59 Duke L.J. 377 (2009).

November 2009

Tim’s article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Nathan Alexander Sales & Jonathan H. Adler, The Rest Is Silence: Chevron Deference, Agency Jurisdiction, and Statutory Silences, 2009 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1497.

October 2009

Tim was promoted to Associate Professor of Law. His article, Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public, was accepted for publication in the Harvard Journal on Legislation.

Two of Tim’s articles were cited:

Summer 2009

Tim posted Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public on SSRN. The article was featured on Larry Solum's Legal Theory Blog. Tim presented Crowdsourcing and Open Access v2.0: Harnessing the Power of Peer Production to Disseminate Historical Records and Legal Scholarship at the 2009 CALI Conference for Law School Computing at the University of Colorado Law School and An Introduction to Publication Agreements for Authors as part of the 13th Annual UC Faculty Summer Scholarship Series.

Several of Tim’s articles were cited:

June 2009

The Provost approved Tim’s promotion to Associate Professor, effective September 1, 2009. Tim presented You and the Law Reviews: Understanding What Publication Agreements Say About Rights in Your Work as part of the College's 13th Annual Summer Scholarship Series.

Tim participated on a panel discussion at Open Source and Security, a symposium at Northern Kentucky University sponsored in part by the Cincinnati Intellectual Property Law Association, and briefly presented his forthcoming article Shrinking the Commons: Termination of Copyright Licenses and Transfers for the Benefit of the Public. He led a discussion on careers in law for a group of senior Chemical Engineering students at the University of Cincinnati.

Two of Tim's articles were cited:

  • Fair Circumvention, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 1 (2008), in Matt Williams, Congress Should Amend the Copyright Act to Protect Transactional Watermarks, 23 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1367 (2008).
  • Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), in Kristen M. Cichocki, Unlocking the Future of Public Libraries: Digital Licensing that Preserves Access, 16 U. Balt. Intell. Prop. L.J. 29 (2008).

May 2009

Tim’s topic proposal, Crowdsourcing and Open Access: Collaborative Techniques for Disseminating Legal Materials and Scholarship, was accepted by the AALS Law and Computers Section for presentation at the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2010 in New Orleans.

April 2009

Tim hosted a faculty-student brownbag lunch on his article, Fair Circumvention, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 1 (2008).

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. L.J. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Ali Matin, Digital Rights Management (DRM) in Online Music Stores: DRM-Encumbered Music Downloads' inevitable Demise As a Result of the Negative Effects of Heavy-Handed Copyright Law, 28 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 265 (2008); and Steven J. Horowitz, Note, Designing the Public Domain, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 1489 (2009).

March 2009

Tim published Fair Circumvention, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 1 (2009). He presented Is Copyright Forever? The Termination of Assignments and Licenses for the Benefit of the Public, at Pittsburgh as part of the UC-Pittsburg Scholar Exchange Program and at Drake at the 2009 Intellectual Property Scholars Roundtable. (Tim hosted a workshop at the College lasy year by Anthony Infanti (Pittsburgh), Taxing Civil Riights Gains.)

Tim was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Cincinnati ArtWorks. Two of his articles were cited:

  • Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), in James A. Janaitis, Bankruptcy Collides with Antitrust: The Need for a Prohibition Against Using § 1110 Protections Collectively, 25 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 197 (2008).
  • Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (1006), in Maria Lilla Montagnani, A New Interface between Copyright Law and Technology: How User-generated Content Will Shape the Future of Online Distribution, 26 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 719 (2009).

December 2008

Tim's article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Abigail R. Moncrieff, Reincarnating the "Major Questions" Exception to Chevron Deference as a Doctrine of Noninterference (or Why Massachusetts v. EPA Got it Wrong), 60 Admin. L. Rev. 593 (2008).

November 2008

Tim's article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Robert L. Glicksman & Richard E. Levy, Ordering State-Federal Relations through Federal Preemption Doctrine: A Collective Action Perspective on Ceiling Preemption by Federal Environmental Regulation: The Case of Global Climate Change, 102 Nw. U.L. Rev. 579 (2008).

Summer 2008

The Provost has approved Tim's reappointment as Assistant Professor of Law for a term of three years.

Tim presented Crowd-Sourcing and Open Access at the CALI Conference on Transforming Legal Education at the University of Maryland School of Law. He completed the project discussed at the conference, involving the digitizing of a critical portion of the legislative history for the Copyright Act of 1976.

Tim presented Can Authors Shrink the Public Domain? as part of the 12th Annual UC Faculty Summer Scholarship Series.

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Jon M. Garon, What if DRM Fails?: Seeking Patronage in the iWasteland and the Virtual O, 2008 Mich. St. L. Rev. 103; and Christina M. Mulligan, Perfect Enforcement of Law: When to Limit and When to Use Technology, 14 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 13 (2008).

Tim's article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in James T. O'Reilly, Losing Deference in the FDA's Second Century: Judicial Review, Politics, and a Diminished Legacy of Expertise, 93 Cornell L. Rev. 939 (2008); Paul Horwitz, Three Faces of Deference, 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1061 (2008); William N. Eskridge, Jr., Vetogates, Chevron, Preemption, 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1441 (2008); and Thomas W. Merrill, Preemption and Institutional Choice,102 Nw. U. L. Rev. 727 (2008).

June 2008

Tim created the Early United States Statutes website, a repository where complete volumes of the Statutes at Large may be downloaded in multiple formats suitable for offline browsing. His blog, Info/Law, was named a Top-50 Law School Blog.

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Christina M. Mulligan, Perfect Enforcement of Law: When to Limit and When to Use Technology, 14 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 13 (2008).

May 2008

Tim's article, Fair Circumvention, was accepted for publication in the Brooklyn Law Review. He spoke on Professionalism and Intellectual Property, a panel discussion presented by the Cincinnati Intellectual Property Law Association.

Tim was quoted in Oregon Claims State Law Copyrighted, Washington Times, Apr. 19, 2008. The article was prompted by a legal dispute highlighted on his blog: Can States Copyright Their Statutes?

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Rob Frieden, Internet Packet Sniffing and its Impact on the Network Neutrality Debate and the Balance of Power Between Intellectual Property Creators and Consumers, 18 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 633 (2008).

April 2008

Tim's article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Edward T. Swaine, Taking Care of Treaties, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 331 (2008); Scott M. Sullivan, Rethinking Treaty Interpretation, 86 Tex. L. Rev. 777 (2008); and Abigail R. Moncrieff, Reincarnating the �Major Questions� Exception to Chevron Deference as a Doctrine of Non-Interference (Or Why Massachusetts v. EPA Got It Wrong (draft, Feb. 15, 2008).

March 2008

Tim posted Fair Circumvention on SSRN. He presented the article at:

Larry Solum featured the article on his Legal Theory Blog.

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Harry Surden, Structural Rights in Privacy, 60 SMU L. Rev. 1605 (2007); Robert C. Denicola, Access Controls, Rights Protection, and Circumvention: Interpreting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Preserve Noninfringing Use, 31 Colum. J.L. & Arts 209 (2008); and Doris E. Long, Messages from the Front: Hard Earned Lessons on Information Security from the IP Wars, 16 Mich. St. J. Int'l L. 71 (2007).

Februrary 2008

Tim's article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Jerome H. Reichman, Graeme B. Dinwoodie & Pamela Samuelson, A Reverse Notice and Takedown Regime to Enable Public Interest Uses of Technically Protected Copyrighted Works, 22 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 981 (2007).

November 2007

Tim presented Open Access in Law to the faculty as part of the College's Faculty Development Series.

October 2007

Tim's article, Chevron Deference and Agency Self-Interest, 13 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 203 (2004), was cited in Lisa Schultz Bressman, Deference and Democracy, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 761 (2007); and Katherine M. Krause, Issues of State Use of Social Security Insurance Beneficiary Funds for Reimbursement of Foster-Care Costs, 41 Fam. L.Q. 165 (2007).

Summer 2007

Two of Tim's articles were cited:

March 2007

Two of Tim's articles were cited:

February 2007

Tim attended the 4th Annual Intellectual Property and Communications Law and Policy Scholars Roundtable at Michigan State. His article, Digital Rights Management and the Process of Fair Use, 20 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 49 (2006), was cited in Peter K. Yu, Anticircumvention and Anti-anticircumvention, 84 Denver U. L. Rev. 13 (2006).

Please see Faculty News Archives for earlier issues.