Directory
Tracy Reilly
Professor Emeritus
Emeritus
School of Law
Profile
Professor Tracy Reilly taught real property, entertainment, and intellectual property law courses at the School of Law from 2006 to 2024. In 2014, she was awarded the title of NCR Distinguished Professor of Law & Technology and appointed as the director of the law school’s innovative Program in Law & Technology. Before joining the faculty, she was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago, where she worked in the areas of intellectual property, entertainment, advertising, and corporate law. She has also worked as in-house counsel for an independent record label where she specialized in international licensing transactions, at a boutique entertainment law firm in Chicago, and as a law clerk for both the Honorable Wayne R. Andersen in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Honorable Anne M. Burke in the Appellate Court of Illinois.
Professor Reilly has published in the areas of copyright, trademark, and property law, with a particular focus on heavy metal music and digital sampling, as well as the interdisciplinary cross-sections of law with literature, psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics.
Professor Reilly retired from the School of Law in 2024.
Degrees
M.A., Literary & Cultural Studies, University of Dayton, 2022
J.D., summa cum laude, Valparaiso University School of Law, 1995
B.A., cum laude, Northern Illinois University, 1990
Courses Taught
LAW 6104 Real Property I
LAW 6804 Real Property II
LAW 6400 Intellectual Property Law
LAW 6415 Copyright Law
LAW 6525 Digital Music Sampling & Copyright Infringement
LAW 6971 Trademarks & Unfair Competition Law
LAW 6926 Capstone: Trademark Prosecution and Practice
LAW 6841 Entertainment Law
International Entertainment Law: DePaul College of Law Study Abroad Program (Prague, Czech Republic, Summers 2010 and 2011)
Selected Publications
Where Did the Mojo Go?: Can the Fall of Our Rock and Heavy Metal Heroes Predict the Fall of Our Culture? (forthcoming book).
Imagining Justice and Cancel Culture Through Iris Murdoch’s “Enchanter” Characters, 14(1) British Journal of American Legal Studies __ (forthcoming 2025).
Cancel [©opyright] Culture: A Legal Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four, 21 Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property 23 (2021).
“’Sad But True’: Why Metallica’s Fans Continue to Fail Them (and Not Vice Versa) Twenty Years After the Napster Lawsuit,” Popular Culture Review, Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring 2020
Copyright and a Synergistic Society, 18 Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology 575 (2017).
Copyright and the Tragedy of the Common, 55 IDEA: The Law Review of the Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property 105 (2014).
Betty Boop Almost Lost Her “Bling-Bling”: Fleischer Studios v. A.V.E.L.A. I and the Re-Emergence of Aesthetic Functionality in Trademark Merchandising Cases (PDF) 94 Journal of the Patent & Trademark Office Society 95 (2012).
Good Fences Make Good Neighboring Rights: The German Federal Supreme Court Rules on the Digital Sampling of Sound Recordings in Metall auf Metall (PDF), 13 Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology (2012).
Marks of Mayhem & Murder: When a Few Bad “Mongols” Spoil the Bunch, Should the Government Seize a Motorcycle Association’s Registered Trademark? (PDF), 7 Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal 1 (2009).
The “Spiritual Temperature” of Contemporary Popular Music: An Alternative to the Legal Regulation of Death-Metal and Gangsta-Rap Lyrics (PDF), 11 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law 335 (2009).
Debunking the Top Three Myths of Digital Sampling: An Endorsement of the Bridgeport Music Court’s Attempt to Afford “Sound” Copyright Protection to Sound Recordings (PDF), 31 Columbia Journal of Law & Arts 355 (2008).
Recent Presentations
“In Through the Out Door”: The Counterproductive Role of Contemporary Feminism in the Musical Heritage of Led Zeppelin, Heavy Metal and Change Conference, University of Dayton, OH, October 19, 2024.
Home is Where the Hartley is: Property Ownership as Inspiration Toward the Good in Iris Murdoch’s “The Sea, The Sea,” The Eleventh International Iris Murdoch Conference, University of Chichester, England, September 1, 2024.
“Iris Murdoch’s Enchanters and the Evil of Cancel Culture,” The Tenth International Iris Murdoch Conference, University of Chichester, England, June 24, 2022.
“Sad But True”: Why Metallica’s Fans Failed Them (and Not Vice Versa) in the Wake of the Napster Lawsuit,” 4th Biennial International Society of Metal Music Studies Conference: “Locating Heavy Metal Music and Culture,” Nantes, France, June 19, 2019.
The “Count”-Less Faces of Dracula: Who Owns the Copyright in the Creature?, Second Annual International Vampire Arts & Film Festival, Sighisoara, Transylvania, Romania, May 26, 2017.
Heavy Metal in the Courtroom, Metal in Strange Places: Aural, Emotional, Tactile, Visual Conference, University of Dayton, October 20, 2016.