Law Commons^™

The Destruction Of An Empire: Will Viacom End Youtube's Reign?, Adam Shatzkes

Touro Law Review

In a pre-Napster world Congress sought to promote theadvancement and development of the Internet. To facilitate this expansion, Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), which protects internet service providers from copyright infringement liability. Due, in part, to the DMCA, the Internet has expanded beyond Congress' expectations. With the growth of the Internet, however, inequities have been created. YouTube epitomizes these inequities and Viacom's suit highlights the injustices that have been created. The ease with which copyrighted materials are published on the Internet has made it impossible for copyright owners to adequately protect their works. It is time for …

Do Students Turn Over Their Rights When They Turn In Their Papers? A Case Study Of Turnitin.Com, Stephen Sharon

Touro Law Review

Turnitin is a rapidly growing online anti-plagiarism service subscribed to by thousands of schools in the United States. Though the pursuit of honesty and integrity are at the heart of our academic institutions and the Turnitin anti-plagiarism service, there is a fatal flaw in its execution. This comment examines the copyright and fair use arguments presented by four Virginia students asserting that Turnitin violated their intellectual property rights. This comment goes beyond the facts of the four Virginia students to explore the root issues of a service that collects and distributes the copyrighted works submitted to it by hundreds of …

Possession Of Child Pornography: Should You Be Convicted When The Computer Cache Does The Saving For You?, Giannina Marin

Florida Law Review

“For years, defense lawyers have argued the ‘young and stupid’ semidefense for their youthful clients. Now, we can have the ‘I didn’t know it was on the hard drive’ objection for the unsophisticated computer user in child pornography cases—or at least they can in the 9th Circuit.” This quote, appearing on the website of an East Texas criminal defense law firm, refers to the outcome of United States v. Kuchinski. In Kuchinski, the defendant’s computer contained, in various forms, more than 15,000 images of child pornography. There was no question that Kuchinski’s volitional viewing of the images on the Internet …

Clicking Away Confidentiality: Workplace Waiver Of Attorney-Client Privilege, Adam C. Losey

Florida Law Review

Barbara Hall, an administrative assistant, often arrives at work an hour and a half early solely to check her personal e-mails on her employer’s computer. Afterwards, “[i]n the grand tradition of Chekhov, or perhaps ‘Days of Our Lives,’ Barbara Hall carries on a dialogue throughout the workday with her two daughters, both of whom work at an event-planning company in Cleveland and use its e-mail system for such exchanges.” When she gets home from work, Barbara continues to use her workplace e-mail account to send personal e-mails. Barbara Hall and her daughters are not alone. The average employee is estimated …

Student Speech Rights In The Digital Age, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Florida Law Review

For several decades courts have struggled to determine when, if ever, public schools should have the power to restrict student expression that does not occur on school grounds during school hours. In the last several years, courts have struggled with this same question in a new context—the digital media. The dramatic increase in the number of student speech cases involving the Internet, mobile phones, and video cameras begs for a closer examination of the scope of school officials’ authority to censor the expression of minors as well as the scope of juvenile speech rights generally. This Article takes a close …

Playing The Mysterious Game Of Online Love: Examining An Emerging Trend Of Limiting § 230 Immunity Of The Communications Decency Act And The Effects On E-Dating Websites, Matthew Altenberg

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Catch Me If You Can: An Analysis Of New Enforcement Measures And Proposed Legislation To Combat The Sale Of Counterfeit Products On The Internet, Jeffrey A. Lindenbaum, David Ewen

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cyberterrorism In The Context Of Contemporary International Law, Yaroslav Shiryaev

San Diego International Law Journal

The present Article addressed the legal issues surrounding cyberterrorism. In the first chapter, the author explains why cyberterrorism should be described as “the use of electronic networks taking the form of a cyber-attack to commit a) a substantive act criminalized by the existing legal instruments prohibiting terrorism, or b) an act of terrorism under international customary law.” Further, with a special emphasis on existing anti-terrorism conventions and customary international law, it was demonstrated which actors are likely to engage in acts of cyberterrorism (non-state actors, corporations and individuals), as well as which targets are protected by law and which aims …

Smoking Out Big Tobacco: Some Lessons About Academic Freedom, The World Wide Web, Media Conglomeration, And Public Service Pedagogy From The Battle Over The Brown & Williamson Documents, Clay Calvert

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beware Of The Highwayman On The Information Superhighway: A Balanced Proposal To Protect Copyrights Within The National Information Infrastructure, Chandra Gehri Spencer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Innovative Link Between The Internet, The Capital Markets, And The Sec: How The Internet Direct Public Offering Helps Small Companies Looking To Raise Capital, Daniel Everett Giddings

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legal World Wide Web: Electronic Personal Jurisdiction In Commercial Litigation, Or How To Expose Yourself To Liability Anywhere In The World With The Press Of A Button, Robert M. Harkins Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Internet-Based Fans: Why The Entertainment Industries Cannot Depend On Traditional Copyright Protections , Thomas C. Inkel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Of The Intermediated Information Exchange, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Florida Law Review

When Wikipedia, Google, and other online service providers staged a ―blackout protest‖ against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January 2012, their actions inadvertently emphasized a fundamental truth that is often missed about the nature of cyberlaw. In attempts to address what is unique about the field, commentators have failed to appreciate that the field could—and should—be reconceptualized as a law of the global intermediated information exchange. Such a conception would provide a set of organizing principles that are lacking in existing scholarship. Nothing happens online that does not involve one or more intermediaries—the service providers who facilitate all …

Get Outta My Face[Book]: The Discoverability Of Social Networking Data And The Passwords Needed To Access Them, Mallory Allen, Aaron Orheim

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Under what circumstances can a social network user be compelled to turn over his or her user identification and password in civil litigation? In three recent cases, courts attempted to answer this question with varied results. The New York Supreme Court Appellate Division refused to allow discovery of private Facebook information in McCann v. Harleysville Insurance Co. because the discovery request was not sufficiently tailored to reach discoverable information. Soon thereafter, the same court allowed discovery of similar material in Romano v. Steelcase, Inc. based on the level of publicity of the social networking account. In McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, …

Why Copyright Falls Behind The Requirement For Protecting Graphic User Interfaces: Case Studies On Limitations Of Copyright Protection For Guis In China, Ling Jin, Yihong Ying

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Limits Of The Federal Wiretap Act's Ability To Protect Against Wi-Fi Sniffing, Mani Potnuru

Michigan Law Review

Adoption of Wi-Fi wireless technology continues to see explosive growth. However many users still operate their home Wi-Fi networks in unsecured mode or use publicly available unsecured Wi-Fi networks, thus exposing their communications to the dangers of "packet sniffing," a technique used for eavesdropping on a network. Some have argued that communications over unsecured Wi-Fi networks are "readily accessible to the general public" and that such communications are therefore excluded from the broad protections of the Federal Wiretap Act against intentional interception of electronic communications. This Note examines the Federal Wiretap Act and argues that the current Act's treatment of …

Liable For Your Lies: Misrepresentation Law As A Mechanism For Regulating Behavior On Social Networking Sites, Geelan Fahimy

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Managing The Impact Of New Media On The Employment Relationship, Susan A. O'Sullivan-Gavin, John H. Shannon

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Attention to privacy issues in the workplace has increased over the past two decades as use of electronic mail and text messages has made these means of communication commonplace. Beyond text messages and emails, employees can access the internet at their place of employment at many different entry points. This access can be through company issued desktops or laptops, mobile phones, mobile internet devices (MIDs), Smartphone technology (photography; video and voice recording capabilities; file transfer and storage), off-site internet connections, Wi-Fi access or hot spots. Employees can access and/or post information on various sites including blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, instant …

Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts , Cynthia R. Farina, Mary Newhart, Josiah Heidt, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Article considers how open government “magical thinking” around technology has infused efforts to increase public participation in rulemaking. We propose a framework for assessing the value of technology-enabled rulemaking participation and offer specific principles of participation-system design, which are based on conceptual work and practical experience in the Regulation Room project at Cornell University. An underlying assumption of open government enthusiasts is that more public participation will lead to better government policymaking: If we use technology to give people easier opportunities to participate in public policymaking, they will use these opportunities to participate effectively. However, experience thus far with …

Satellites And Municipalities: One Town’S Use Of Google Earth For Residential Surveillance, Edward Knoedler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quantifying The Economic Benefits Of Effective Redress: Large E-Commerce Data Sets And The Cost-Benefit Case For Investing In Dispute Resolution, Colin Rule

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Demonstrating the economic benefit of investments in fair and effective redress systems has been one of the greatest challenges for dispute resolution. This article uses results from large e-commerce data sets to demonstrate the quantifiable benefit in of investments in effective dispute resolution processes. Specifically, the data is based not on user-reported satisfaction, which can be unreliable, but instead on an analysis of the actual behavior of users before and after a dispute event. The result is hard evidence of the economic benefits from the deployment of effective redress processes, which is relevant to e-commerce service providers, as well as …

Walled Gardens Of Privacy Or “Binding Corporate Rules?”: A Critical Look At International Protection Of Online Privacy, Joanna Kulesza

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

A growing concern in the era of cloud computing is protecting Internet users' privacy. This concern is compounded by the fact that there are no effective international solutions. This article considers the latest European Union (EU) proposed development in this area – a regulatory model based on amended Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) – as introduced by the EU Justice Commissioner. These planned changes would have worldwide effects on international companies' online activities in transboundary cyberspace.

After providing a background on the concept of defining privacy in general, the article describes the BCR proposal, and proceeds to consider the likelihood of …

Who Are You? Difficulties In Obtaining Trademark Protection For Domain Names, Luke M. Rona

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Three appellate decisions illustrate the difficulty of acquiring trademark protection for domain names that include a top-level domain (“TLD”), such as “.com.” Courts have characterized these marks as generic or merely descriptive, which carries implications for the party seeking registration: generic marks cannot be protected, while descriptive marks can, assuming they possess a secondary meaning that makes the mark distinctive. Generic and descriptive domain names often indicate the services a company provides, with the addition of the “.com” TLD to indicate online services. One key test of genericness is whether the public identifies the mark with a service generally or …

Building Bridges To Remedies For Consumers In International Conflicts, Amy J. Schmitz

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

This essay addresses the lack of consumer remedy mechanism, and attempts to open consideration of expanded use of online processes for resolving business-to-consumer (B2C) eConflicts. Specifically, the essay attempts to highlight the problems created by problematic and uncertain enforcement of B2C arbitration, and proposes the use of the Internet to create fair and globally enforceable Online Dispute Resolution and Online Arbitration (OArb) mechanisms. These mechanisms would capitalize on the growth and efficiency of the Internet while protecting consumers from burdensome and/or expensive procedures that render existing remedies meaningless.

The essay begins by discussing the importance of fair and accepted B2C …

Gaming The System: A Critique Of Minors’ Privilege To Disaffirm Online Contracts, James Chang

UC Irvine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of The Magic Circle: Rejecting A Single Governance Model, Trey Hickman

UC Irvine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Griefing, Massacres, Discrimination, And Art: The Limits Of Overlapping Rule Sets In Online Games, Sal Humphreys

UC Irvine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dubious Autonomy Of Virtual Worlds , Mark A. Lemley

UC Irvine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Online User Account Termination And 47 U.S.C. § 230(C)(2), Eric Goldman

UC Irvine Law Review

No abstract provided.