Stacey Lantagne

Stacey Lantagne is a Professor of Law whose research focuses on the intersection of digital creativity and copyright and trademark law, with a particular focus on fanfiction and internet memes. She has also recently published on the copyright implications of generative artificial intelligence. She is a member of the Legal Committee of the Organization for Transformative Works, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of fanworks.

Professor Lantagne has been quoted in news outlets including Law360, The Atlantic, NPR (1A), Slate, Vox, Wired, and The Verge. Her scholarship has appeared in publications including the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, the Nevada Law Journal, the University of Richmond Law Review, the Georgia State University Law Review, and the Michigan Telecommunication and Technology Law Review. She is a frequent presenter and guest speaker, including at pop culture and fan studies conferences and fan conventions.

A native Rhode Islander, Professor Lantagne received her B.A. summa cum laude from Boston College, with a major in English and a minor in computer science, and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was co-executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. She was an intellectual property litigator at Goodwin Procter in Boston and Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington, DC, after clerking for Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana. Prior to joining Suffolk Law, Professor Lantagne taught at Western New England University School of Law, University of Mississippi School of Law, and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

Professor Lantagne teaches contracts law, entertainment law, food law, and advertising law. She has also taught various intellectual property courses as well as courses on internet, social media, and artificial intelligence law.

Publications

Articles

• Just Like a Human Being: The Anthropomorphism of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Copyright Law Arguments, 25 WAKE FOREST J. BUS. & INTELL. PROP. L. 174 (2025).
• Goncharov (1973), Internet Folklore, and Corporate Copyright, 27 VAND. J. ENT. & TECH. L. 1 (2025).
• Tinhatting the Constitution: Originalism as a Fandom, 2 FLA. ENTER. & SPORTS L. REV. 11 (Nov. 2022).
• Mutating Internet Memes and the Amplification of Copyright's Authorship Challenges, 17 VA. SPORTS & ENT. L.J. 221 (Spring 2018).
• Famous on the Internet: The Spectrum of Internet Memes and the Legal Challenge of Evolving Methods of Communication, 52 U. RICHMOND L. REV. 387 (Jan. 2018) (cited in The U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 1: Digital Replicas 34, n.215 (2024), available at https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-1-Digital-Replicas-Report.pdf).
• The Copymark Creep: How the Normative Standards of Fan Communities Can Rescue Copyright, 32 GA. ST. U. L. REV. 459 (Winter 2016).

Chapters

• Owning Time Travel, Real and Fictional, in A CELEBRATION OF TIME TRAVEL: DEPAUL POP CULTURE CONFERENCE 134 (Stephanie Grau & Paul Booth eds., 2023).
• Using Reality Shows as Contractual Fodder in the 1L Classroom, in THE MEDIA METHOD: TEACHING LAW WITH POPULAR CULTURE (Christine Corcos ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2019).
• A Fan Fiction Monopoly: How Disney Builds Its Empire on Re-Copyrighting the Public Domain, in A CELEBRATION OF DISNEY: DEPAUL POP CULTURE CONFERENCE 2019 116 (Emily Goldstein & Paul Booth eds., 2019).
• Harry Potter and the Control of the Creator of the Canon, in TIME LORDS & TRIBBLES, WINCHESTERS & MUGGLES: THE DEPAUL POP CULTURE CONFERENCE, A FIVE-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE 321 (Paul Booth & Isabella Menichiello eds., 2017).

Media

• Quoted in Wired, "Lots of People Make Money on Fanfic. Just Not the Authors," February 2024.
• Quoted in @1dhistorian TikTok video, "We all remember the feverdream Larry Stylinson Euphoria moment, but how was that ever allowed?? 1D Historian weighs in…," June 2023.
• Quoted in Law360, "Trademarks And The City: Peloton Gets Big Branding Lesson," December 2021.
• Quoted in The Atlantic, "You Can't Escape the Attention Economy," June 2021.
• Quoted in Lindsay Ellis YouTube channel, "Into the Omegaverse: How a Fanfic Trope Landed in Federal Court," September 2020.
• 1A radio show, "We Stan: Real Person Fan Fiction Comes to Life," April 2019.

Education

Harvard Law, J.D.
Boston College, B.A. in English and Computer Science

Bar Admittance

Massachusetts
District of Columbia

Awards & Honors

Sponsored Scholarship Grant for the Legal Academy from The Honorable Nancy F. Atlas Intellectual Property American Inn of Court, administered by the Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law (IPIL) at the University of Houston Law Center (2024)