Law Commons^™

Property Rights In Augmented Reality, Declan T. Conroy

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Increasingly, cities, towns, and even rural communities are being slowly reshaped by a dynamic yet initially imperceptible phenomenon: the elaboration of augmented reality. Through applications that place virtual features over specific, real-world locations, layers of augmented reality are proliferating, adding new elements to an increasingly wide range of places. However, while many welcome the sudden appearance of arenas for battling digital creatures in their neighborhood or the chance to write virtual messages on their neighbor’s wall, the areas being augmented oftentimes are privately owned, thereby implicating property rights. Many intrusions, of course, are de minimis: an isolated, invisible Pikachu unexpectedly …

Steering Consumers Toward Driverless Vehicles: A Federal Rebate Program As A Catalyst For Early Technology Adoption, Marie Williams

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

In the not-too-distant future, your car could drive itself; technology companies and automobile manufacturers alike are currently developing driverless vehicle technology. While there are many touted benefits to driverless vehicles, perhaps the most important societal benefit is a reduction in automobile accidents. Currently, car crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and the majority of accidents are caused by human error. Unlike humans, driverless vehicles will not get distracted, significantly decreasing the number of car crash fatalities that happen each year.

In order for driverless vehicles to save lives, driverless vehicles must be on …

A Comment On Privacy And Accountability In Black-Box Medicine, Carl E. Schneider

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Human institutions and activities cannot avoid failures. Anxiety about them often provokes governments to try to prevent those failures. When that anxiety is vivid and urgent, government may do so without carefully asking whether regulation’s costs justify their benefits. Privacy and Accountability in Black Box Medicine admirably labors to bring discipline and rationality to thinking about an important development — the rise of “black-box medicine” — before it causes injuries regulation should have prevented and before it is impaired by improvident regulation. That is, Privacy and Accountability weighs the costs against the benefits of various forms of regulation across the …

New Threats To Vehicle Safety: How Cybersecurity Policy Will Shape The Future Of Autonomous Vehicles, Caleb Kennedy

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This note assesses the threat that hacking and related cybersecurity issues will pose to autonomous vehicles. Given the sweeping safety benefits autonomous vehicles will potentially bring to society, protecting against hacking and cyber-threats must be one of the top priorities for industry and public safety officials if autonomous vehicles are to gain widespread acceptance in the market. It proposes a framework for how these concerns should be addressed and how we can mitigate the risks. It addresses both proactive and reactive measures that can be taken by manufacturers, how to incentivize these measures, and the role cyber-insurance can play in …

Jailbreak!: What Happens When Autonomous Vehicle Owners Hack Into Their Own Cars, Michael Sinanian

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Autonomous and connected vehicles (ACVs) are a transformational force for humanity. It is highly likely that some owners of ACVs will circumvent their vehicle software to expose unauthorized functionality, known as “jailbreaking”. This would trigger copyright liability, the extent of which would be dependent upon the copyright system’s various rulemaking processes and common law interpretations. This note explores the world of software “jailbreaking”, with its roots in smartphone unlocking, and extrapolates that to ACVs. Some compelling (and at times dangerous) scenarios are contemplated, and recommendations are made for consumers, technologists, manufacturers, and policy makers.

A Survey Of Legal Issues Arising From The Deployment Of Autonomous And Connected Vehicles, Daniel A. Crane, Kyle D. Logue, Bryce C. Pilz

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

With concerns rising over the number and variety of state regulations, companies are increasingly looking to the federal government for guidance. Representatives from Google, GM, Lyft, and Delphi testified before Congress on March 15, urging Congress to pass a federal law concerning autonomous vehicles. While the passage of any federal legislation is unclear at this time, other parts of the federal government have been extremely active in recent months. In January 2016, the Obama administration proposed a 10-year, $4 billion investment in autonomous vehicle technology. In that same announcement, the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) committed to developing model state policy …