Hannibal Travis

Hannibal Travis teaches and conducts research in the fields of cyberlaw, intellectual property, antitrust, international and comparative law, and human rights.  He joined FIU after several years practicing intellectual property and Internet law at O’Melveny & Myers in San Francisco, California, and at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. He has also served as the Irving Cypen Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Florida, a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University, and a Visiting Fellow at Oxford.  He graduated summa cum laude in philosophy from Washington University, where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as a teaching assistant in philosophy classes taught at Harvard College and UC Berkeley.  After law school, he clerked for the Hon. Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr. at the United States District Court in Los Angeles, California.

Professor Travis is the author of Platform Neutrality Rights: AI Censors and the Future of Freedom (Routledge, forthcoming 2024), and Copyright Class Struggle: Creative Economies in a Social Media Age (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and the editor of Harmonizing Intellectual Property Law for a Trans-Atlantic Knowledge Economy (with Peter Mezei and Anett Pogácsás, Brill forthcoming 2024) and Cyberspace Law: Censorship and Regulation of the Internet (Routledge, 2013).  He has also published works on copyright law, intellectual property remedies, patent reform, the freedom of expression, antitrust law, and net neutrality, including articles in the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal, American University Law Review, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Miami Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Tulane Law Review, Villanova Law Review, and Yale Journal of Law and Technology.  He has contributed to symposia and edited volumes on the international and comparative law of copyright and performers’ rights, including a piece on software contracts and copyright that was selected by West Group as one of the best articles relating to intellectual property law that was published in 2010. An article of his on intellectual property remedies was selected by West Group as one of the best articles relating to intellectual property law that was published in 2019.  He co-directs the Intellectual Property Certificate Program.

Professor Travis has also published widely on genocide, cultural survival, and human rights. His work in this area has appeared in edited volumes from the University of Pennsylvania Press, Rutgers University Press, Routledge, Palgrave, Berghahn, and Bloomsbury; the international law journals of the Cornell, Washington University, and Brooklyn law schools; and specialty journals such as the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Middle East Quarterly, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (twice), and Genocide Studies International (three times).  He is the editor of The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies (Routledge, 2018), and the author of Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations: Exploring the Causes of Mass Killing Since 1945 (Routledge, 2012) and Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan (Carolina Academic Press, 2010). He has served as an editorial advisory board member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal and Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (the journal of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, continued via University of Toronto Press and the Zoryan Institute as Genocide Studies International), and on the book review panel of the Journal of Genocide Research. He has coached or co-coached FIU’s Jessup International Law Moot Court team, Lefkowitz Trademark Law Moot Court team, BMI Copyright Law Moot Court team, and Cyber 9/12 team. ​

Cyberlaw and Intellectual Property Publications:

• Platform Neutrality Rights: AI Censors and the Future of Freedom (Routledge, forthcoming 2024)
• Harmonizing Intellectual Property Law for a Trans-Atlantic Knowledge Economy (Peter Mezei, Hannibal Travis, and Anett Pogacsas eds., Brill forthcoming 2024)
• Copyright Class Struggle: Creative Economies in the Social Media Age (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
• The Freedom of Influencing, 77 Miami L. Rev. 388-487 (2023)
• Patents, The Private Property Ideal, and the Public Interest in a Seamless Global Public Health Regime, 31 Fed. Cir. Bar J. 1-40 (2022)
• Crypto Coin Offerings and the Freedom of Expression, 24 Chapman L. Rev. 401-485 (2021)
• Intelligent Entertainment: Analyzing the Algorithmic Generation and Regulation of Creative Works across Three Major Themes, 14 FIU L. Rev. 179-199 (2020)
• Enjoining the Cloud: Equity, Irreparability, and Remedies, 64 Villanova L. Rev. 393-457 (2019)
• Counter-IP Conspiracies: Patent Alienability and the Sherman Antitrust Act,  71 Miami L. Rev. 758-858 (2017)
• The Economics of Book Digitization and the Google Books Litigation, in Research Handbook on Electronic Commerce Law 117-137 (John Rothchild ed., Elgar 2016)
• Myths of the Internet as the Death of Old Media, 43 American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly J. 1-68 (2015)
• Patent Alienability and Its Discontents, 17 Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property Law 109-162 (2014)
• The “Monster” that Are Social Networking?, in Cyberspace Law: Censorship and Regulation of the Internet (Hannibal Travis ed., Routledge, 2013)
• Estimating the Economic Impact of Mass Digitization Projects on Copyright Holders: Evidence from the Google Book Search Litigation, 57 Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA 907 (2011) (peer-reviewed)
• The Principles of the Law of Software Contracts: At Odds with Copyright, Consumers, and European Law?, 84 Tulane Law Rev. 1557 (2010)
• The Future According to Google: Technology Policy from the Standpoint of America’s Fastest-Growing Technology Company, 11 Yale Journal of Law and Technology 209 (2009)
• Opting Out of the Internet in the United States and European Union: Copyright, Safe Harbors, and International Law, 84 Notre Dame Law Rev. 331 (2008)
• Of Blogs, eBooks, and Broadband: Access to Digital Media as a First Amendment Right, 35 Hofstra Law Rev. 1519 (2007)
• Wi-Fi Everywhere: Universal Broadband Access as Antitrust and Telecommunications Policy, 55 American University Law Rev. 1697 (2006)
• Google Book Search and Fair Use: iTunes for Authors, or Napster for Books?, 61 Miami Law Rev. 87 (2006)
• Building Universal Digital Libraries: An Agenda for Copyright Reform, 33 Pepperdine Law Rev. 761 (2006)
• The Battle for Mindshare: The Emerging Consensus that the First Amendment Protects Corporate Criticism and Parody on the Internet, 10 Virginia J. Law & Technology 3 (2005)
• Pirates of the Information Infrastructure: Blackstonian Copyright and the First Amendment, 15 Berkeley Technology Law J. 777 (2000)

International Law & Human Rights Publications:

• Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Intent: Conceptualizing Destruction of Local Populations, 20 Global Studies L. Rev. 803 (2021)
• Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2010)
• The Right of Return to Iraq: Conceptualizing Insecurity, State Fragility, and Forced Displacement, in Transitional Justice and Forced Migration: Perspectives from the Global South 158-190 (Nergis Canefe ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019) (with Shamiran Mako)
• When the UN Refuses to Prevent Genocide: Legal, Political, and Religious Factors, in The United Nations and Genocide 146-185 (Deborah Mayersen ed., Palgrave, 2016)
• Reparations for Mass Atrocities as a Path to Peace: After Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Can Victims Seeks Relief at the International Criminal Court?, 40 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 1-70 (2015)
• Wargaming the “Arab Spring”: Predicting Likely Outcomes and Planning UN Responses, 46 Cornell International Law J. 75 (2013)
• Child Soldiers: Children’s Rights in Time and War and/or Genocide, inThe Plight and Fate of Children During and Following Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review (Samuel Totten ed., Transaction 2014) (with Sara Demir).
• On the Original Understanding of the Crime of Genocide, 8 Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 30-55 (2012)
• After Regime Change: United States Law and Policy Regarding Iraqi Refugees, 2003-2008, 55 Wayne Law Rev. 1007 (2009)

Latest News

• Professors Erwin & Travis selected as the two winners of the 2023 SEALS Call for Paper Competition
• Prof. Travis article judged by Thomson Reuters to be one of the best articles relating to intellectual property published in U.S. law review in 2019
• Prof. Travis Book Reviewed as “Very Inspiring” by Oxford Journal