[4] Samuelson is a past Fellow of the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation[5] and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

[9] Although her work is typically directed at U.S. law, it also includes comparative study of U.S. and European approaches to intellectual property.

[10] She also forecast that "[a]s 'artificial intelligence' (AI) programs become increasingly sophisticated in their role as the 'assistants' of humans in the [creation] of a wide range of products .

"[11] More recently, the advent of large language models such as ChatGPT has sparked lawsuits by copyright holders over the use of their works as "training" material for the programs.

However, the flexibility of the doctrine led Judge Pierre Leval to describe it as "mysterious" and lament the perception that it is a "disorderly basket of exceptions".

in 2009, Samuelson augmented that analysis by canvassing the fair use case law and grouping opinions into what she termed "policy-relevant clusters" according to which of the goals of fair use the decision implicates: 1) freedom of speech and of expression; 2) the ongoing progress of authorship 3) learning; 4) access to information; 5) truth telling or truth seeking; 6) competition; 7) technological innovation; and 8) privacy and autonomy interests.

[18] They would, moreover, "be likely to want their out-of print books to be available on an open access basis rather than through a profit-maximizing scheme such as the GBS settlement proposed."

Samuelson's broader view of the public domain represented a conceptual shift which inspired other work on entitlements and cultural appropriation.

[27] Samuelson and others organized a conference to consider the implications of Article 2B, which several scholars have credited with contributing to the eventual abandonment of the proposed amendments.

[28] Software makers and other manufacturers embed digital rights management ("DRM") technology in their products to limit user behaviors —such as copying— which might infringe copyright.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 created rules prohibiting certain types of circumvention of these DRM technologies (so-called anti-circumvention laws).

Reichman explained, "[t]hese initiatives aim to rescue database producers from the threat of market-destructive appropriations by free-riding competitors who contributed nothing to the costs of collecting or distributing the relevant data were introduced.

"[32] Samuelson and Reichman agreed that existing laws "often fail to afford those who produce today's most commercially valuable information goods enough lead time to recoup their investments."

[34][35] Samuelson and her co-authors argued that compensation and modest deterrence were the primary reasons statutory damages were placed in the Copyright Act of 1909, and linked excessive penalties to a recent and (in their view) misplaced change in emphasis to making examples of infringers.

When a court finds a violation of the law in a civil case, it may award money damages or issue an injunction—an order to do something or refrain from doing it.

Samuelson and Krzysztof Bebenek analyzed eBay's impact on copyright cases and argued that the case set a standard "far more in line with traditional principles of equity which place the burden of proof of irreparable injury squarely on the shoulder of plaintiffs who seek the extraordinary remedy of preliminary injunctive relief".

While approving of the ruling, Samuelson and Mark Lemley wrote that the court's holding "sidestepped" the more fundamental issue of whether software interfaces such as APIs can be copyrighted at all.

[26] Samuelson has written that this creates challenges in the context of reverse engineering policy, because competition from cheaply produced clones "destroy incentives to invest in software innovation".

[46] Judge Frank Easterbrook cited the article in his opinion in the trade secret theft case U.S. v Lange.