Law Commons^™

International Issues: Which Country's Law Applies When Works Are Made Available Over The Internet, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

My topic is International Implications, a topic that would not exist but for the Internet. When access to archival materials was on a physical basis, patrons came to the archive and consulted the material on site; the material did not leave the archive, much less get sent overseas. Even digitized materials, if consulted on site, do not present the problems that arise if the archives puts this material on a website, which is accessible around the world, that ubiquity being the default condition ofthe Internet.

Let us consider some problems that might arise and which have international consequences. First of …

Implications Of The Internet For Quasi-Legislative Instruments Of Regulation, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

It is a quarter century since I began telling my Administrative Law students that they had better be watching the Internet and how agencies of interest to them were using it, as they entered an Information Age career. The changes since then have been remarkable. Rulemaking, where the pace has perhaps been slowest, is now accelerating into the Internet, driven by a President committed to openness and consultation. This paper seeks little more than to point the reader toward the places where she can find the changes and watch them for herself.

Is Cyberprostitution Prostitution? New Paradigm, Old Crime, Brooke Campbell

Studio for Law and Culture

In any given industry, machines are rapidly replacing workers. Alternately celebrated as the liberation of the worker from the grind and peril of manual labor and lamented as the condemnation of the worker to lowered wages and/or the effeteness of unemployment, so-called “advances” in technology problematically recast the labor-capital relation as a human-machine relation. What does this process look like in the context of a criminalized industry like the sex industry? In this paper, I examine the way in which cyberprostitution — ostensibly, an advance in the technology of communication — places the conceptual terrain of prostitution into question. For …

Subsidizing Creativity Through Network Design: Zero Pricing And Net Neutrality, Robin S. Lee, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Today, through historical practice, there exists a de facto ban on termination fees – also referred to as a “zero-price” rule (Hemphill, 2008) – which forbids an Internet service provider from charging an additional fee to a content provider who wishes to reach that ISP’s customers. The question is whether this zero-pricing structure should be preserved, or whether carriers should be allowed to charge termination fees and engage in other practices that have the effect of requiring payment to reach users. This paper begins with a defense of the de facto zero-price rule currently in existence. We point out that …

Network Neutrality And The False Promise Of Zero-Price Regulation, C. Scott Hemphill

Center for Contract and Economic Organization

This Article examines zero-price regulation, the major distinguishing feature of many modern "network neutrality" proposals. A zero-price rule prohibits a broadband Internet access provider from charging an application or content provider (collectively, "content provider") to send information to consumers. The Article differentiates two access provider strategies thought to justify a zero-price rule. Exclusion is anticompetitive behavior that harms a content provider to favor its rival. Extraction is a toll imposed upon content providers to raise revenue. Neither strategy raises policy concerns that justify implementation of a broad zero-price rule. First, there is no economic exclusion argument that justifies the zero-price …

Just One Click: The Reality Of Internet Retail Contracting, Ronald J. Mann, Travis Siebeneicher

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores the enforceability and presence of pro-seller contract terms in internet retail contracts. Analyzing case law on internet contract enforceability and a survey of 500 firms'websites, it demonstrates that even the enforceability of many internet contracts is questionable. It then presents new data that suggest that the prevalence of pro-seller contract terms is far less than usually assumed. It suggests that the benefit of making these terms enforceable is outweighed by the loss of user friendliness required for the necessary interface changes. Finally, it uses fresh statistical analyses to determine what relationship, if any, exists between enforceability, pro-seller …

Recent Developments In Us Copyright Law – Part Ii, Caselaw: Exclusive Rights On The Ebb?, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The 1976 Act announces broad exclusive rights, offset by a myriad of specific exemptions, and one wide exception for "fair use." In words and intent, the exclusive rights are capacious, but new technologies may have caused some of the general phrases to become more constraining than might have been expected from a text whose drafters took pains to make forward-looking. Thus, the scope of the reproduction right turns on the meaning of "copy;" the reach of the distribution right on "distribute copies" and "transfer of ownership;" the range of the public performance right on "public" and "perform." Entrepreneurs and users …

Homes With Tails: What If You Could Own Your Internet Connection?, Tim Wu, Derek Slater

Faculty Scholarship

America's communications infrastructure is stuck at a copper wall. For the vast majority of homes, copper wires remain the principal means of getting broadband services. The deployment of fiber optic connections to the home would enable exponentially faster connections, and few dispute that upgrading to more robust infrastructure is essential to America's economic growth. However, the costs of such an upgrade are daunting for private sector firms and even for governments. These facts add up to a public policy challenge.

Our intuition is that an innovative model holds unrealized promise: household investments in fiber. Consumers may one day purchase and …

The Future Of Internet Governance, Tim Wu, David A. Gross

Faculty Scholarship

The issues surrounding Internet naming and Internet governance have been controversial since the mid-1990s. But public attention was drawn to Internet governance in the early 2000s when Europe and other countries declared themselves unhappy with how Internet governance was working, how the domain names were being assigned, and other issues. David, can you summarize what was happening in the early 2000s that created controversy in this area?

China's Network Justice, Benjamin L. Liebman, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

China's Internet revolution has set off a furious debate in the West. Optimists from Thomas Friedman to Bill Clinton have predicted the crumbling of the Chinese Party-state ("Party-state"), while pessimists suggest even greater state control. But a far less discussed and researched subject is the effect of China's Internet revolution on its domestic institutions. This Article, the product of extensive interviews across China, asks a new and different question. What has China's Internet revolution meant for its legal system? What does cheaper, if not free, speech mean for Chinese judges?

The broader goal of this Article is to better understand …

A Tale Of Two Platforms, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses future competitions between cellular and computer platforms, in the context of a discussion of Jonathan Zittrain, The Generative Internet, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1974 (2006).

A Marriage Of Convenience? A Comment On The Protection Of Databases, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Daniel Gervais concluded his analysis of the protection of databases with three options for the future. I would like to examine a fourth. Let us assume no future flurry of national or supranational legislative activity because the content of databases is in fact already being protected. Not through copyright or sui generis rights, but through other means. Databases are an object of economic value, and they will conveniently wed whatever legal theory or theories will achieve the practical objective of preventing unauthorized exploitation of the works' contents. To beat the marriage metaphor into the ground, I'd like to suggest that, …

Keeping The Internet Neutral?: Tim Wu And Christopher Yoo Debate, Tim Wu, Christopher S. Yoo

Faculty Scholarship

"Net neutrality" has been among the leading issues of telecommunications policy this decade. Is the neutrality of the Internet fundamental to its success, and worth regulating to protect, or simply a technical design subject to improvement? In this debate-form commentary, Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo make clear the connection between net neutrality and broader issues of national telecommunications policy.

The Pros And Cons Of Strengthening Intellectual Property Protection: Technological Protection Measures And Section 1201 Of The Us Copyright Act, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The recent announcement (in late November 2006) of the Copyright Office's triennial rulemaking to identify "classes of works" exempt from the § 1201(a)(1) prohibition on circumvention of a technological measure controlling access to copyrighted works in part occasions this assessment of the judicial and administrative construction of this chapter of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The current Rulemaking appears more innovative than its predecessors, particularly in defining the exempted class of works by reference to the characteristics of the works' users. Copyright owner overreaching or misuse may also underlie the relative vigor of this Rulemaking: if producers of devices …

Wireless Carterfone, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Over the next decade, regulators will spend increasing time on conflicts between the private interests of the wireless industry and the public’s interest in the best uses of its spectrum. This report examines the practices of the wireless industry with an eye toward understanding their influence on innovation and consumer welfare.

In many respects, the mobile wireless market is and remains a wonder. Thanks to both policy and technological innovations, devices that were science fiction 30 years ago are now widely available. Over the last decade, wireless mobile has been an “infant industry,” attempting to achieve economies of scale. That …

The World Trade Law Of Censorship And Internet Filtering, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Consider the following events, all from the last five years: (1) An American newsmagazine, Barron's, posts an unflattering profile of an Australian billionaire named Joseph Gutnick on its web site – the publisher, Dow Jones, Inc., is sued in Australia and forced to settle; (2) Mexico's incumbent telephone company, Telmex, blocks Mexicans from reaching the web site of the Voice-over-IP firm Skype; (3) the United States begins a major crackdown on web gambling services, causing serious economic damage to several small Caribbean economies; (4) the Chinese government prevents its citizens from using various foreign Internet services, including foreign e-mail and …

Network Neutrality: Competition, Innovation, And Nondiscriminatory Access, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

The best proposals for network neutrality rules are simple. They ban abusive behavior like tollboothing and outright blocking and degradation. And they leave open legitimate network services that the Bells and Cable operators want to provide, such as offering cable television services and voice services along with a neutral internet offering. They are in line with a tradition of protecting consumer's rights on networks whose instinct is just this: let customers use the network as they please. No one wants to deny companies the right to charge for their services and charge consumers more if they use more. But what …

The Promise Of Internet Intermediary Liability, Ronald J. Mann, Seth R. Belzley

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet has transformed the economics of communication, creating a spirited debate about the proper role of federal, state, and international governments in regulating conduct related to the Internet. Many argue that Internet communications should be entirely self-regulated because such communications cannot or should not be the subject of government regulation. The advocates of that approach would prefer a no-regulation zone around Internet communications, based largely on the unexamined view that Internet activity is fundamentally different in a way that justifies broad regulatory exemption. At the same time, some kinds of activity that the Internet facilitates undisputedly violate widely shared …

Market Bubbles And Wasteful Avoidance: Tax And Regulatory Constraints On Short Sales, Michael R. Powers, David M. Schizer, Martin Shubik

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, a speculative bubble in Internet stocks has burst and several "blue chip" firms have failed amidst high profile allegations of corporate misconduct. Why did high-tech start-ups with no earnings attain such lofty valuations? Why didn't sophisticated investors keep prices at saner levels? And why didn't more sophisticated investors look past accounting gimmicks much earlier to uncover problems at Enron and other firms? More generally, why did the mechanisms of market efficiency prove inadequate? While there obviously is no single answer to these complex questions, this Article focuses on one piece of the problem: U.S. tax and regulatory …

The (New?) Right Of Making Available To The Public, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The Berne Convention 1971 Paris Act covered the right of communication to the public incompletely and imperfectly through a tangle of occasionally redundant or self-contradictory provisions on "public performance," "communication to the public," "public communication," "broadcasting," and other forms of transmission. Worse, the scope of rights depended on the nature of the work, with musical and dramatic works receiving the broadest protection, and images the least; literary works, especially those adapted into cinematographic works, lying somewhere in between. The 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty rationalized and synthesized protection by establishing full coverage of the communication right for all protected works of …

The International Privacy Regime, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy has joined one of many areas of law understandable only by reference to the results of overlapping and conflicting national agendas. What has emerged as the de facto international regime is complex. Yet based on a few simplifying principles, we can nonetheless do much to understand it and predict its operation.

First, the idea that self-regulation by the internet community will be the driving force in privacy protection must be laid to rest. The experience of the last decade shows that nation-states, powerful nation-states in particular, drive the system of international privacy. The final mix of privacy protection that …

The Broadband Debate, A User's Guide, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Back in the 1990s, Internet communications policy was easier. It was easy to agree that the network's growth ought not be impended by excessive government regulation. It was easy to hope that the Internet would solve all of its own problems. Yet it turned out that the success of the network was hiding strong differences of opinion. Today, the euphoria is gone, and the divide in Internet communications policy has become clear and unmistakable. It most clearly a divide between two distinct groups: the self-proclaimed "Openists" and "Deregulationists."

This divide will do much to inform the reform of the Telecommunications …

Regulating Internet Payment Intermediaries, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet has produced significant changes in many aspects of commercial interaction. The rise of Internet retailers is one of the most obvious changes, but oddly enough the overwhelming majority of commercial transactions facilitated by the Internet use a conventional payment system. Thus, even in 2002, shoppers made at least eighty percent of Internet purchases with credit cards. To many observers, this figure has come as a surprise. The early days of the Internet heralded a variety of proposals for entirely new payment systems – generically described as electronic money – that would use wholly electronic tokens that consumers could …

The Right To Claim Authorship In U.S. Copyright And Trademarks Law, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

If you inquired among the general public, “What does U.S. copyright law protect?” many people might start by grumbling that it overprotects piggish record companies. Calming slightly, they might next reply that copyright protects authors' rights and that among those is the right to be recognized as the author of the work. Indeed, few interests seem as fundamentally intuitive as that authorship credit should be given where credit is due. For example, in prelapsarian, pre-Napster days, the act of copyright infringement in which a youthful individual most likely engaged was probably plagiarism: there, lifting another author's text may have been …

Freeing The Mind: Free Software And The Death Of Proprietary Culture, Eben Moglen

Faculty Scholarship

The subject matter we are going to talk about is variously named and thewords have some resonances of importance. I am going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material, and I am going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals, which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally.

My purpose this …

When Code Isn't Law, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

When the Supreme Court upheld extended copyright terms in Eldred v. Ascroft, many Internet activists called for renewed political action in the form of appeals to Congress or even a campaign to amend the Constitution. But others suggested a very different course: They argued that it would be wiser to forgo institutions controlled by the powers of the past, and to return instead to the keyboard to write the next generation of "lawbusting" code. In the words of one observer, "tech people are probably better off spending their energy writing code than being part of the political process" because …

Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Communications regulators over the next decade will spend increasing time on conflicts between the private interests of broadband providers and the public's interest in a competitive innovation environment centered on the Internet. As the policy questions this conflict raises are basic to communications policy, they are likely to reappear in many different forms. So far, the first major appearance has come in the "open access" (or "multiple access") debate, over the desirability of allowing vertical integration between Internet Service Providers and cable operators. Proponents of open access see it as a structural remedy to guard against an erosion of the …

The Soul Of A New Political Machine: The Online, The Color Line And Electronic Democracy, Eben Moglen, Pamela S. Karlan

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, we want to suggest two ways in which people's experience with the Internet may affect how they think politics ought to be organized, and to consider the consequences for the political aspirations of minority communities. First, the notion of "virtual communities” – that is, communities that affiliate along nongeographic lines – may provide new support for alternatives to traditional geographic districting practices. As Americans become more comfortable with the idea that people can belong to voluntarily created, overlapping, fluid, nongeographically defined communities, which may be as important as the physical communities in which they live, they may …

Copyright And Control Over New Technologies Of Dissemination, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship of copyright to new technologies that exploit copyrighted works is often perceived to pit copyright against progress. Historically, when copyright owners seek to eliminate a new kind of dissemination, and when courts do not deem that dissemination harmful to copyright owners, courts decline to find infringement. However, when owners seek instead to participate in and be paid for the new modes of exploitation, the courts, and Congress, appear more favorable to copyright control over that new market. Today, the courts and Congress regard the unlicensed distribution of works over the Internet as impairing copyright owners' ability to avail …

Application-Centered Internet Analysis, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

There is a now-standard debate about law and the Internet. One side asserts that the Internet is so new and different that it calls for new legal approaches, even its own sovereign law. The other side argues that, although it is a new technology, the Internet nonetheless presents familiar legal problems. It is a battle of analogies: One side refers to Cyberspace as a place, while the other essentially equates the Internet and the telephone.

In my view, these two positions are both wrong and right: wrong in their characterization of the Internet as a whole, yet potentially right about …