Zachary L. Catanzaro is an Assistant Professor of Law at Widener University Delaware Law School, where his scholarship deconstructs how emerging technologies reconstitute legal power relations. His work critiques the ways algorithmic systems transform foundational legal doctrine in the fields of property, sovereignty, due process, interpretation, jurisprudence, and legal philosophy.
 

Professor Catanzaro's scholarship appears in leading publications. His article Algorithmic Dead Hands: What is Dead May Never Die in the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal examines posthumous control through algorithmic systems. The article was recognized as a top-ten download on SSRN and recommended by Lawrence Solum on Legal Theory Blog. Building off an article published in the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment law, his research (and testimony) on NFTs and digital resale rights was cited by the U.S. Copyright Office in its report to Congress. His article Beyond Incentives: Copyright in the Age of Algorithmic Production, appearing in the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law, challenged copyright law's foundational assumption (the incentive theory) in light of generative AI.

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Professor Catanzaro forthcoming Sovereignty in the Technological Singularity (in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology) examines how AI-driven perpetuation of deceased individuals' preferences threatens democratic governance. His current project, Generative Simulations, examines how using statistical frequency to predict legal meaning and outcomes transforms law from a justice-oriented system into an exclusionary technology. He is contributing chapters on artificial intelligence to a forthcoming Carolina Academic Press volume and has authored a chapter on trademark law in Web3 for an ABA Publishing book.

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Beyond scholarship, Professor Catanzaro maintains an active voice in legal policy. He has supported amicus briefs on AI and copyright, age verification laws, and fair use in documentary filmmaking, and has testified before the U.S. Copyright Office on NFTs and intellectual property. Through the Florida Bar's Business Law Section, where he has served as Academic Chair of the Blockchain & Digital Assets Committee and Vice Chair of the Article 12 U.C.C. Digital Assets Taskforce, and he has authored white papers influencing legislation on digital currency and emerging technologies. He regularly delivers keynotes and CLE presentations on artificial intelligence and law, and presented a TEDx talk titled Ghosts in the Machine: Training AI to Outlive Us.

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During his decade in private practice, Professor Catanzaro focused on cyberlaw and intellectual property, representing entrepreneurs and technology companies with particular expertise in eDiscovery and digital assets. This practical experience informs both his scholarship and his teaching, which includes Civil Procedure and AI Empowered Lawyering, a skills course focused on ethically integrating artificial intelligence into legal practice.

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A lifelong musician with formal training in music performance and theory, Professor Catanzaro brings an interdisciplinary perspective to questions of creativity, technology, and law.