Law Commons^™

Rethinking Spyware: Questioning The Propriety Of Contractual Consent To Online Surveillance, Wayne R. Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

The spyware epidemic has reached new heights on the Internet. Computer users are increasingly burdened with programs they did not knowingly or consciously install, which place strains on their computers' performance, and which also trigger annoying "pop-up" advertisements of products or services which have been determined to match the users' preferences. The users' purported preferences are determined, in turn, by the software continuously monitoring every move the consumer makes as she "surfs the Internet." The public overwhelmingly disapproves of spyware which is surreptitiously placed on computers in this manner, and also largely disapproves of the pop-up advertising paradigm. As a …

P2p And The Future Of Private Copying, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Since the beginning of the P2P file-sharing controversy, commentators have discussed the radical expansion of copyright law, the industry's controversial enforcement tactics, the need for new legislative and business models, the changing social norms, and the evolving interplay of politics and market conditions. Although these discussions have delved into the many aspects of the controversy, none of them presents a big picture of the issues or explains how they fit within the larger file-sharing debate.

Using a holistic approach, this Article brings together existing scholarship while offering some thoughts on the future of private copying. The Article does not seek …

The Origins Of Cctld Policymaking, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Extract:

A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, there was a decentralized global network of computers. These computers shared information with each other regardless of how far apart they were and whether there was any direct line of communication between them. In the very beginning, this network was used exclusively by government and military agencies, educational and research institutions, government contractors, scientists, and technology specialists. Instead of the domain names we use today, such as “www. amazon.com,” users typed in numeric addresses, such as “123.45.67.89,” and, later, host names to send information to other computers.

This …

Four Common Misconceptions About Copyright Piracy, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright piracy is one of the most difficult, yet important, transnational problems in the twenty-first century. Although legal literature has discussed copyright piracy extensively, commentators rarely offer a "grand unified theory" on this global problem. Rather, they give nuanced analyses, discussing the many aspects of the problem-political, social, economic, cultural, and historical.

This nuanced discussion, however, is missing in the current public debate. To capture the readers' emotion and to generate support for proposed legislative and executive actions, the debate often oversimplifies the complicated picture by overexagerrating a particular aspect of the piracy problem or by offering an abbreviated, easy-to-understand, …

The First International Competition For Online Dispute Resolution: Is This Big, Different And New?, Benjamin G. Davis, Franklin G. Snyder, Kay Elkins Elliott, Peter B. Manzo, Alan Gaitenby, David Allen Larson

Faculty Scholarship

In February of 2002, the International Competition for Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR) was held to address the issue of new uses of technology is dispute resolution. This article describes the competition with individual presentations from the perspectives of a problem drafter, a coach, a participant, the evaluators, and an organizer. In the conclusion, the author presents some observations on why this International Competition for Online Dispute Resolution is big, different, and new.

Bridging The Digital Divide: Equality In The Information Age, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The digital revolution has transformed the lives of many, but also has left untouched the lives of many others. As a result, a large segment of the world population misses out on the tremendous political, social, economic, educational, and career opportunities created by the digital revolution. This gap between the information haves and have-nots is commonly referred to as the digital divide.

Although evidence suggested that the digital divide in the United States is closing, the same is not true for the less developed countries. In light of the alarming disparities between the information haves and have-nots, the Howard M. …

Piracy, Prejudice, And Perspectives: An Attempt To Use Shakespeare To Reconfigure The U.S.-China Intellectual Property Debate, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Since the mid-1980s, the U.S.-China intellectual property conflict has entered into the public debate. It was frequently debated in Congress and was widely covered by the mass media. Despite the importance of this issue, the debate thus far has been one-sided, focusing primarily on the unfair competition aspect. While there are undeniably some greedy Chinese who are eager to free ride on the creative efforts of Western authors and inventors, greed alone cannot explain the century-old U.S.-China intellectual property conflict. To understand the roots of this conflict, one must focus on the significant political, social, economic and cultural differences between …