Joe Fishman

Joseph Fishman is a professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School. His research focuses on intellectual property, particularly its relationship to creativity and the creative process. He is a recognized expert on music copyright matters. His recent scholarship has covered such legal issues as infringing similarity between songs, the role of expert witnesses in music copyright litigation, judges’ definition of musical originality, and trademark issues related to sound recordings. His work has appeared in leading journals, including the Harvard Law Review, NYU Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. 

Professor Fishman joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in fall 2015 after serving as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. He earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College with a joint major in music and religion, his M.Phil. in musicology from the University of Cambridge, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. After law school, he was a law clerk for Judge Jeffrey R. Howard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He practiced as an associate at Jenner & Block in the firm’s content, media and entertainment group, where he specialized in litigation involving the music industry, before entering the legal academy.