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Paypal Is New Money: Extending Secondary Copyright Liability Safe Harbors To Online Payment Processors, Erika Douglas
Paypal Is New Money: Extending Secondary Copyright Liability Safe Harbors To Online Payment Processors, Erika Douglas
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has shaped the Internet as we know it. This legislation shields online service providers from secondary copyright infringement liability in exchange for takedown of infringing content of their users. Yet online payment processors, the backbone of $300 billion in U.S. e-commerce, are completely outside of the DMCA’s protection. This Article uses PayPal, the most popular online payment company in the U.S., to illustrate the growing risk of secondary liability for payment processors. First it looks at jurisprudence that expands secondary copyright liability online, and explains how it might be applied to PayPal. Then it …
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …
From The Cluetrain To The Panopticon: Isp Activity Characterization And Control Of Internet Communications, Eric Evans
From The Cluetrain To The Panopticon: Isp Activity Characterization And Control Of Internet Communications, Eric Evans
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
If ISPs are exposed to liability for forwarding others' messages--messages originating with other ISPs or with the ISP's own users--the norm of universal mutual message forwarding that underlies the present operation of the Internet will be threatened. This Note will argue that society presently confronts a choice between a common carrier Internet characterized by universal mutual message forwarding and a monitored and controlled Internet. Part I will describe the underlying rules that govern ISPs' liability for their users' actions. Part II will argue that the present statutory regime governing ISPs' liability for users' copyright infringement includes elements that provide ISPs …
Snake-Oil Security Claims The Systematic Misrepresentation Of Product Security In The E-Commerce Arena, John R. Michener, Steven D. Mohan, James B. Astrachan, David R. Hale
Snake-Oil Security Claims The Systematic Misrepresentation Of Product Security In The E-Commerce Arena, John R. Michener, Steven D. Mohan, James B. Astrachan, David R. Hale
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The modern commercial systems and software industry in the United States have grown up in a snake-oil salesman's paradise. The largest sector of this industry by far is composed of standard commercial systems that are marketed to provide specified functionality (e.g. Internet web server, firewall, router, etc.) Such products are generally provided with a blanket disclaimer stating that the purchaser must evaluate the suitability of the product for use, and that the user assumes all liability for product behavior. In general, users cannot evaluate and cannot be expected to evaluate the security claims of a product. The ability to analyze …
Plotting The Return Of An Ancient Tort To Cyberspace: Towards A New Federal Standard Of Responsibility For Defamation For Internet Service Providers, Christopher Butler
Plotting The Return Of An Ancient Tort To Cyberspace: Towards A New Federal Standard Of Responsibility For Defamation For Internet Service Providers, Christopher Butler
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Though the rapid development of the Internet has created a fertile ground for legal innovation, more often than not legislators and courts have sought to address this relatively new medium by attempting to squeeze it into precedents and paradigms better suited to older forms of communication, technology, and media. Part I of this article looks back at the courts' initial efforts at addressing defamation via the Internet. From the start the courts attempted to fit the role of the ISP into the common law's categorizing of print media as either "publishers" or "distributors" of information. One court's misstep in overextending …