Protecting Hospital Ratings with Copyright Law

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Notes

¹President Herbert Hoover, Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, 74 Cong. Rec. 35 (Dec. 2, 1930).

²Although Mr. Smith and his son are fictional characters, their plight is not unique, as preventable medical errors are the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. See Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System 26 (Linda T. Kohn et al. eds., 2000).

³ See W.E. Patton III, Quantity of Information and Information Display Type as Predictors of Consumer Choice of Product Brands, 15 J. Consumer Aff. 92 (1981).

⁴John M. Church, A Market Solution to Green Marketing: Some Lessons from the Economics of Information, 79 Minn. L. Rev. 245, 273 (1994).

⁵Ronald E. Taylor, A Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel, 39 J. Adver. Res. 7, 15 (1999).

⁶Mark Penn & E. Kinney Zalesne, New Info Shoppers, Wall St. J.: Microtrends, Jan. 8, 2009, available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123144483005365353.html (last visited Feb. 9, 2010).

⁷ Kaiser Family Foundation & Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Americans as Health Care Consumers: The Role of Quality Information 12 (1996).

⁸Lindy Washburn, Many in N.J. Are Medical Error Victims: Survey Finds Support for Fuller Reports, N.J. Rec., Mar. 6, 2008, at A03.

⁹Penn & Zalesne, supra note 6.

¹⁰Daniel R. Longo & Kevin D. Everett, Health Care Consumer Reports: An Evaluation of Consumer Perspectives, 47 J. Health Care Fin. 65, 68 (2003).

¹¹Marjan Faber et al., Public Reporting in Health Care: How Do Consumers Use Quality-of-Care Information?, 47 Med. Care 1 (2009).

¹²Scott Allen, A Very Busy Weekend at Brigham and Women's, Boston Globe, Feb. 3, 2004, at C4.

¹³ Kaiser Family Foundation, supra note 7, at 11.

¹⁴ See M. William Salganik, He Got Hospital Off Critical List, Baltimore Sun, Aug. 1, 2006, at 1D; see also Dean Olson, St. John's Heart Center Recognized for Service, Springfield St. J. Reg., Sept. 23, 2003, at 7.

¹⁵Penn & Zalesne, supra note 6.

¹⁶Phil Mulkins, Web Site Helps with Car Maintenance, Tulsa World, Mar. 15, 2009, at E5.

¹⁷Wallace E. Huffman et al., Who Do Consumers Trust for Information: The Case of Genetically Modified Foods?, 86 Am. J. Agric. Econ. 1222, 1225 (2004).

¹⁸ Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., Consumer and Physician Readiness for a Retail Healthcare Market: Changing the Basis of Competition 9 (Gary Ahlquist et al. eds., 2007).

¹⁹Linda Coburn, Differences Abound in Ratings of Hospital Services, San Fernando Valley Bus. J., Nov. 26, 2007, at S10.

²⁰Lisa M. Schwartz et al., The Role of Numeracy in Understanding the Benefit of Screening Mammography, 127 Ann. Intern. Med. 966, 966 (1997).

²¹Ellen Peters et al., Bringing Meaning to Numbers: The Impact of Evaluative Categories on Decisions, 15 J. Experimental Psychol. 213, 225 (2009).

²²Faber et al., supra note 11.

²³Schwartz et al., supra note 20.

²⁴Peters et al., supra note 21, at 213.

²⁵ U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8.

²⁶ The Federalist No. 42 (James Madison).

²⁷Washingtonian Pub. Co. v. Pearson, 306 U.S. 30, 36 (1939).

²⁸347 U.S. 201, 219 (1954).

²⁹William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, An Economic Analysis of Copyright Law, 18 J. Legal Stud. 325, 328 (1989).

³⁰ See generally Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).

³¹ Id. at 345.

³² Id. at 348.

³³ Id. at 349.

³⁴ Id.

³⁵ Id.

³⁶Hoehling v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 618 F.2d 972 (2d Cir. 1980); Int'l News Serv. v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).

³⁷New York Mercantile Exch., Inc. v. Intercont'l Exch., Inc., 497 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 2007); Miracle Blade, LLC v. Ebrands Commerce Group, LLC, 207 F. Supp. 2d 1136, 1150-51 (D. Nev. 2002).

³⁸CCC Info. Serv., Inc. v. Maclean Hunter Market Reports, Inc., 44 F.3d 61 (2d Cir. 1994).

³⁹ Id. at 67.

⁴⁰ Id.

⁴¹ Id.

⁴²CDN Inc. v. Kapes, 197 F.3d 1256 (9th Cir. 1999).

⁴³ Id. at 1260.

⁴⁴ Id.

⁴⁵ Id.

⁴⁶Am. Dental Ass'n v. Delta Dental Plans Ass'n, 126 F.3d 977 (7th Cir. 1997).

⁴⁷ Id. at 979.

⁴⁸ Id.

⁴⁹Health Grades, Inc. v. Robert Wood Johnson Univ. Hosp., Inc., 634 F. Supp. 2d 1226 (D. Colo. 2009).

⁵⁰ Id. at 1234.

⁵¹17 U.S.C. § 102 (2006).

⁵² Feist, 499 U.S. at 347.

⁵³Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enter., 471 U.S. 539, 556 (1985).

⁵⁴New York Mercantile Exch., Inc. v. Intercont'l Exch., Inc., 389 F. Supp. 2d 527 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).

⁵⁵ Id. at 543.

⁵⁶ Id.

⁵⁷ New York Mercantile, 497 F.3d at 115.

⁵⁸ Id. at 120 (Hall, J., concurring in part).

⁵⁹ Id. at 120 n.5.

⁶⁰ Health Grades, 634 F. Supp. 2d at 1235 n.6.

⁶¹ Id.

⁶²William W. Fisher III, Property and Contract on the Internet, 73 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1203, 1233 (1998).

⁶³Roderick T. Long, The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights, 3 Formulations 10, 13 (1995).

⁶⁴Tom W. Bell, Intellectual Property, the Right to Health, and Human Rights, 2006 U. Ill. J.L. Tech. & Pol'y 63, 96 (panel transcript, conference proceedings).

⁶⁵ Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly 199 (2008).

⁶⁶C. Kuhne III, Forcing the Copyright Genie Back into the Bottle: Public Policy Implications of Copyright Extension Legislation, 33 Sw. U.L. Rev. 327, 338 (2004).

⁶⁷Eric Goldman, Republishing Third Party Ratings in Marketing Material Might Be Copyright/Trademark Infringement, at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/07/republishing_th.htm (last visited Feb. 9, 2010).

⁶⁸Michael Abramowicz, An Industrial Organization Approach to Copyright Law, 46 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 33, 105 (2004).

⁶⁹ See, e.g., Landes & Posner, supra note 29.

⁷⁰Tom W. Bell, Indelicate Imbalancing in Copyright and Patent Law, in Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age 9 (Adam D. Thierer & Clyde Wayne Crews eds., 2002).

⁷¹Kendall v. Winsor, 62 U.S. 322, 328 (1858).

⁷²Lydia Pallas Loren, Redefining the Market Failure Approach to Fair Use in an Era of Copyright Permission Systems, 5 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1, 24 (1997).

⁷³White-Smith Music Pub. Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 19 (1908) (Holmes, J., concurring).

⁷⁴Bell, supra note 70, at 1.

⁷⁵Landes & Posner, supra note 29, at 326. Note also that the accessibility of the Internet has further reduced the marginal cost of distribution to virtually nothing.

⁷⁶Wendy J. Gordon, An Inquiry into the Merits of Copyright: The Challenges of Consistency, Consent, and Encouragement Theory, 41 Stan. L. Rev. 1343, 1390 (1989).

⁷⁷David Whelan, Rating Your Doctor: It's Time to Stop Choosing on Prestige, Forbes, May 25, 2009, at 44.

⁷⁸ Health Grades' Profits Soar, Denver Bus. J., Oct. 28, 2009, available at http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/10/26/daily34.html (last visited Feb. 9, 2010).

⁷⁹ See Edward L. Hannan et al., Improving the Outcomes of Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in New York State, 271 J.A.M.A. 761 (1994); see also Eric D. Peterson et al., The Effects of New York's Bypass Surgery Provider Profiling on Access to Care and Patient Outcomes in the Elderly, 32 J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 993 (1998).

⁸⁰Douglas Sharrott, Provider-Specific Quality-of-Care Data: A Proposal for Limited Mandatory Disclosure, 58 Brook. L. Rev. 85, 91 (1992).

⁸¹Thomas L. Greaney, Competitive Reform in Health Care: The Vulnerable Revolution, 5 Yale J. on Reg. 179 (1988).

⁸²Abigail Tay, Assessing Competition in Hospital Care Markets: The Importance of Accounting for Quality Differentiation, 34 RAND. J. Econ. 786, 812 (2003).

⁸³Gautam Gowrisankaran & Robert J. Town, Competition, Payers, and Hospital Quality, 38 Health Serv. Res. 1403 (2003).

⁸⁴Daniel P. Kessler & Mark B. McClellan, Is Hospital Competition Socially Wasteful?, 115 Q. J. Econ. 577, 609 (2000).

⁸⁵Nazmi Sari, Do Competition and Managed Care Improve Quality?, 11 Health Econ. 571, 581 (2002).

⁸⁶Daniel P. Kessler & Jeffrey J. Geppert, The Effects of Competition on Variation in the Quality and Cost of Medical Care, 14 J. Econ. & Mgmt. Strategy 575, 587 (2005).

⁸⁷ U.S. Federal Trade Commission & Department of Justice, Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition 27 (2004).

⁸⁸ James C. Robinson, The Corporate Practice of Medicine: Competition and Innovation in Health Care 28 (1999).

⁸⁹CCC Information Serv. Inc. v. Maclean Hunter Market Reports, Inc., 516 U.S. 817 (1995) (denying certiorari).

⁹⁰ Compare CND, Inc., 197 F.3d at 1256 with New York Mercantile, 497 F.3d. at 109.