This is an elective course on how property law is adapting to the digital world. Types of property to be considered will include:
We will discuss how these types of property are defined, the rights of their owners, and the kinds of transactions that are possible in them. The focus will be on United States law, with some comparative discussion of different approaches taken by other jurisdictions.
Students who complete this course will be able to:
For more information about previous iterations of this course, consult my courses webpage.
This course is intended primarily for law students. Although there are no formal prerequisites, you should be familiar with the property law of at least one jurisdiction. The course will begin with an accelerated review of some essential concepts of United States property law.
Non-law students with a particular interest in the subject matter and willingness to do substantial extra work are welcome to take the course. My permission is required to enroll. I will grant it freely, but I want to talk to you first to make sure the course is a good fit for your interests and you have appropriate expectations about what the course requires. I am happy to refer you to resources that can give you a grounding in property law, but you will need to do outside readings to fill yourself in on the relevant background.
Please see the course policies document for information about inclusion; names, titles and pronouns; the history of the site where the course takes place; academic integrity; unauthorized collaboration policy; accessibility and accommodations for disabilities; class recordings; professionalism; and health and safety.
This syllabus is at http://james.grimmelmann.net/courses/digitalproperty2026S.
Email: james.grimmelmann@cornell.edu
Office: Bloomberg 370
My office hours are whenever I’m free during the workday. You can sign up for a slot at https://jtlg.me/meet. When I’m on campus, we can meet in person in my office; when I’m not, there’s a Zoom link on Canvas. (Please use my personal Zoom room, not the class Zoom.) If none of the available times work for you, send me an email.
It’s also always fine just to swing by to see if I’m free. If I have headphones on, just catch my eye. If my office door is open, come on in. If it’s closed, it’s closed for a reason (usually a call or a meeting)—send me an email!
The course assistant is Michelle du Plessis. Her office hours and contact information are posted on Canvas.
The required readings will mostly be taken from a draft casebook, Digital Property:
I highly, highly recommend two newsletters that frequently deal with the legal aspects of financial technology. Both are free, and both are written by people who understand how the systems actually fit together and who have a true gift for making complicated things not just comprehensible but actively funny.
Unfortunately, there are very few sources that cover digital property in a systematic way. (That’s why this course exists and why I’m writing a casebook.) You may find some of the following to be useful background readings, especially if you have not previously taken a course in Anglo-American property law. Be warned, however, that they cover only a subset of what this course does; they deal mostly with tangible property, and much less with intangibles and information.
Our class sessions will be devoted almost entirely to discussing the assigned cases and articles. Even more so than in a standard law-school class, it is essential to work through the ideas yourself. Some of what the readings say will be unintuitive; some of it will be wrong.
Attendance in class is required. Especially in view of the other significant demands on your time, I will be understanding about conflicts and flexible in working with you to make alternative arrangements as needed. That said, consistent unexcused absences are not okay, and may lead to a reduced grade or exclusion from the course (after reasonable written warning).
Please arrive promptly. I promise that we will end on time, but that means we must start on time. Bring the readings with you, either on your computer or in hard copy.
This is a hybrid course. If you are joining by Zoom, please remember to turn on your camera and to mute your microphone except when you are speaking. It is possible that due to weather or childcare problems I may sometimes need to switch the entire class to Zoom for a day; I will do my best to give you as much advance notice as I can when this is the case.
Questions are always welcome, even when we are discussing something else. Occasionally I will ask you to hold a question because we are about to answer it in a few minutes when discussing another case, but otherwise I will do my best to answer all questions immediately. If something is unclear to you, it is probably unclear to your classmates—and sometimes it is unclear to me, too.
Your work for this class will consist of the following:
First, do the assigned readings and participate in class discussions.
Second, there will be a take-home midterm writing assignment. You will have roughly two weeks to complete it. The tentative dates are March 9 to March 23. The assignment will consist of a single question placing you in a professional role (e.g., advising a client on how to obtain legal recourse for the theft of digital assets) and require you to provide appropriate analysis. This midterm is meant to simulate a real-world professional context, so you will be allowed to use any research tools or sources you want, including generative AI.
Third, there will be a two-hour in-class final exam, tentatively scheduled for 12:00 to 2:00 on Monday, May 11. The exam will probably be administered using the Law School’s exam-taking software, which will allow you access to written materials (such as the course readings) but not the Internet. It will consist of a mixture of short-answer and issue-spotting essay questions. The exam is meant to ensure that you have learned the basic principles and doctrines taught in the course and can apply them to novel fact patterns.
Your grades will be determined as follows:
I may adjust grades up or down by one third of a grade (e.g. B+ to A-) for consistently good or poor class participation. I consider good class participation to be anything that helps your fellow students learn, and poor participation to be anything that obstructs their learning.
The final course grades will conform to Cornell Law School’s grading curve, which require that all courses be curved to a mean grade of 3.35., i.e. very close to B+.
The course will meet in a hybrid format. We will meet in person in Bloomberg 81 at Cornell Tech and by Zoom for the Ithaca section. If you are in the Cornell Tech section and are quarantining or traveling or have another good reason to join remotely and have confirmed with me in advance, it is okay to join the Zoom directly.
We will usually meet Mondays and Wednesdays 1:25 to 2:25.
Please note that we follow the university calendar, not the law-school calendar.
The first day of class is January 21, and the last day of class is May 4. We will not meet on:
The following is an evolving schedule of topics and readings. Readings in the past are what we actually did. Readings one week or less in the future are locked and will not change. Readings further ahead are subject to change without notice.