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Full-Text Articles in Law
After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge
After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge
Faculty Scholarship
Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies spawned by the innovation of blockchain programming have exploded in prominence, both in gains of massive market value and in dramatic market losses, the latter most notably seen in connection with the failure of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022. After years of investment and speculation, however, something crucial has faded: the original use case for Bitcoin as a system of payment. Can cryptocurrency-as-a-payment-system be saved, or are day traders and speculators the actual cryptocurrency future? This article suggests that cryptocurrency has been hobbled by a lack of foundational commercial and consumer-protection law that …
The New Bailments, Danielle D'Onfro
The New Bailments, Danielle D'Onfro
Scholarship@WashULaw
The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …
Towards Cnl-Based Verbalization Of Computational Contracts, Inari Listenmaa, Maryam Hanafiah, Regina Cheong, Andreas Kallberg
Towards Cnl-Based Verbalization Of Computational Contracts, Inari Listenmaa, Maryam Hanafiah, Regina Cheong, Andreas Kallberg
Centre for Computational Law
We present a CNL, which is a component of L4, a domain-specific programming language for drafting laws and contracts. Along with formal verification, L4’s core functionalities include natural language generation. We present the NLG pipeline and an interactive process for ambiguity resolution.
Smart Contracts And The Limits Of Computerized Commerce, Eric D. Chason
Smart Contracts And The Limits Of Computerized Commerce, Eric D. Chason
Faculty Publications
Smart contracts and cryptocurrencies have sparked considerable interest among legal scholars in recent years, and a growing body of scholarship focuses on whether smart contracts and cryptocurrencies can sidestep law and regulation altogether. Bitcoin is famously decentralized, without any central actor controlling the system. Its users remain largely anonymous, using alphanumeric addresses instead of legal names. Ethereum shares these traits and also supports smart contracts that can automate the transfer of the Ethereum cryptocurrency (known as ether). Ethereum also supports specialized "tokens" that can be tied to the ownership of assets, goods, and services that exist completely outside of the …
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
Transactional Scripts In Contract Stacks, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
Deals accomplished through software persistently residing on computer networks—sometimes called smart contracts, but better termed transactional scripts—embody a potentially revolutionary contracting innovation. Ours is the first precise account in the legal literature of how such scripts are created, and when they produce errors of legal significance.
Scripts’ most celebrated use case is for transactions operating exclusively on public, permissionless, blockchains: such exchanges eliminate the need for trusted intermediaries and seem to permit parties to commit ex ante to automated performance. But public transactional scripts are costly both to develop and execute, with significant fees imposed for data storage. Worse, bugs …
The Role Of International Rules In Blockchain-Based Cross-Border Commercial Disputes, Tonya M. Evans
The Role Of International Rules In Blockchain-Based Cross-Border Commercial Disputes, Tonya M. Evans
Law Faculty Scholarship
[excerpt] The concept of online dispute resolution (ODR) is not new. 1 But, with the advent of Web 3.0, the distributed web that facilitates pseudonymous and cross-border transactions via blockchain's distributed ledger technology, 2 the idea of, and pressing need for, appropriate dispute resolution models for blockchain-based disputes to support this novel system of distributed consensus and trust of which blockchain proponents boast, is a primary concern in rapid development. 3 The common goal of each project is to utilize smart contracts to facilitate "superior, quicker[,] and less expensive proceedings by eliminating so many of the tedious and protracted trappings …
Beyond Notice And Choice: Privacy, Norms, And Consent, Richard Warner, Robert Sloan
Beyond Notice And Choice: Privacy, Norms, And Consent, Richard Warner, Robert Sloan
All Faculty Scholarship
Informational privacy is the ability to determine for yourself when and how others may collect and use your information. Adequate informational privacy requires a sufficiently broad ability to give or withhold free and informed consent to proposed uses.
Notice and Choice (sometimes also called “notice and consent”) is the current paradigm for consent online. The Notice is a presentation of terms, typically in a privacy policy or terms of use agreement. The Choice is an action signifying acceptance of the terms, typically clicking on an “I agree” button, or simply using the website. Recent reports by the Federal Trade Commission …
Computable Contracts, Harry Surden
Computable Contracts, Harry Surden
Publications
This Article explains how and why firms are representing certain contractual obligations as computer data. The reason is so that computers can read and process the substantive aspects of contractual obligations. The representation of contractual obligations in data instead of (or in addition to) the traditional written language form - what this Article calls "data-oriented contracting" - allows for the application of advanced computer processing abilities to substantive contractual obligations. Certain financial contracts exemplify this model. Equity option contracts are routinely represented not as contract documents written in ordinary language - but as data records intended to be processed by …
Enforcement Of Open Source Software Licenses: The Mdy Trio's Inconvenient Compliations, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Enforcement Of Open Source Software Licenses: The Mdy Trio's Inconvenient Compliations, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Articles
The Federal Circuit’s ruling in Jacobsen v. Katzer [535 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2008)] finally settled the question of whether open source licenses are enforceable. Unfortunately, three recent cases from the Ninth Circuit have complicated matters. I call this trio of cases the “MDY Trio” in honor of the Ninth Circuit’s prior trio of licensing cases known as the “MAI Trio.”
On the surface, the MDY Trio provides a boost for the enforceability of software licenses, but the MDY Trio also creates two significant complications for open source licenses. First, the MDY Trio’s test for distinguishing between licenses and copyright …
Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Our fast-paced age of electronic agreements that ostensibly govern transactions as diverse as downloading software, ordering goods, and engaging in collaborative development projects raises questions regarding the suitability of contract law as the appropriate legal framework. While this question arises in many settings, we focus here on the free and open source software (FOSS) movement because of the maturity and success of its model and the ubiquity of its software. We explore in particular whether open source licenses are supported by consideration, and argue that they are, and that open source licenses are contracts. We further argue that a contractual …
Turned On Its Head?: Norms, Freedom, And Acceptable Terms In Internet Contracting, Richard Warner
Turned On Its Head?: Norms, Freedom, And Acceptable Terms In Internet Contracting, Richard Warner
All Faculty Scholarship
Is the Internet turning contract law on its head? Many commentators contend it is. Precisely this issue arises in current controversies over end user license agreements (EULAs) and Terms of Use agreements (TOUs, the agreements governing our use of web sites). Commentators complain that, in both cases, the formation process unduly restricts buyers’ freedom; and, that sellers and web site owners exploit the process to impose terms that deprive consumers of important intellectual property and privacy rights. The courts ignore the criticisms and routinely enforce EULAs and TOUs. There is truth on both sides of this court/commentator divide. EULAs and …
Getting Serious About User-Friendly Mass Market Licensing For Software, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Getting Serious About User-Friendly Mass Market Licensing For Software, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Articles
Software publishers use standard form end user licenses (“EULAs”) in mass market transactions on a regular basis. Most software users find EULAs perplexing and generally ignore them. Scholars, however, have focused on them intently. In the past twenty years over a hundred scholarly articles have been written on the subject. Most of these articles criticize EULAs and argue that courts should not enforce them. In their critique of EULAs, some scholars examine the adequacy of the offer, acceptance, and consideration. Others discuss EULAs as part of the troublesome issue of standard form contracting, and whether standard forms, on balance, harm …
Legal Protection For Software: Still A Work In Progress, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Legal Protection For Software: Still A Work In Progress, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz
Articles
Software began as geekware-something written by programmers for programmers. Now, software is a business and consumer staple. Cryptic character-based user interfaces have given way to friendly graphical ones; multi-media is everywhere; people own multiple computers of varying sizes; computers are connected to one another across the globe; email and instant electronic messages have replaced letters and telephone calls for many people.
The issue of whether the law should protect software seems quaint to us now. Over the past twenty-five years, legislatures and courts have concluded that copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark, and contract law all can be used to protect …
Identifying Horizontal Price Fixing In The Electronic Marketplace, Jonathan Baker
Identifying Horizontal Price Fixing In The Electronic Marketplace, Jonathan Baker
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
No abstract provided.
A Contractual Approach To Data Privacy, Stephanos Bibas
A Contractual Approach To Data Privacy, Stephanos Bibas
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.