Law Commons^™

New Tech, Old Problem: The Rise Of Virtual Rent-To-Own Agreements, Carrie Floyd

Fellow, Adjunct, Lecturer, and Research Scholar Works

This Article explores how fintech has disrupted the traditional rent-to-own (RTO) industry, giving rise to new, virtual RTO agreements (VirTOs). These VirTOs have enabled the RTO industry to expand into the service industry and to markets for products not traditionally associated with rentals, such as vehicle repairs, pet ownership, and medical devices. This Article analyzes this development.

RTO agreements purport to rent products to a consumer until the conclusion of a set number of renewable rental payments, at which point ownership transfers. The fundamental characteristic of these agreements – and why they are not regulated as loans – are that …

Contract-Wrapped Property, Danielle D'Onfro

Scholarship@WashULaw

For nearly two centuries, the law has allowed servitudes that “run with” real property while consistently refusing to permit servitudes attached to personal property. That is, owners of land can establish new, specific requirements for the property that bind all future owners—but owners of chattels cannot. In recent decades, however, firms have increasingly begun relying on contract provisions that purport to bind future owners of chattels. These developments began in the context of software licensing, but they have started to migrate to chattels not encumbered by software. Courts encountering these provisions have mostly missed their significance, focusing instead on questions …

Open Source Perfume, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

ABRIDGED ABSTRACT: Perfume is a powerful art and technology, but its secrets are closely held by a privileged few - by some counts, there are more astronauts than there are perfumers. As critics have noted increasingly since 2020, those select few perfumers often share similar backgrounds. As interviews with American, British, and French perfumemakers reveal, intellectual property (IP) also plays a gatekeeping role in perfumery. Drawing on work by perfumer and educator Saskia Wilson-Brown, this Article suggests that perfumery is overdue for a transformation. One is emerging: open source perfume. For those seeking ways to share scents and signal commitment …

Privacy Nicks: How The Law Normalizes Surveillance, Woodrow Hartzog, Evan Selinger, Johanna Gunawan

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy law is failing to protect individuals from being watched and exposed, despite stronger surveillance and data protection rules. The problem is that our rules look to social norms to set thresholds for privacy violations, but people can get used to being observed. In this article, we argue that by ignoring de minimis privacy encroachments, the law is complicit in normalizing surveillance. Privacy law helps acclimate people to being watched by ignoring smaller, more frequent, and more mundane privacy diminutions. We call these reductions “privacy nicks,” like the proverbial “thousand cuts” that lead to death.

Privacy nicks come from the …

Tech Supremacy: The New Arms Race Between China And The United States, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

In the brewing tech war between the United States and China, the quest for tech supremacy is in full force. Through enacting a series of laws and policies, China aims to reach its goal of tech supremacy. If China succeeds, U.S. corporations will face a daunting task in competing against Chinese products and services in core industries and in sectors where artificial intelligence and technological breakthroughs reign. This Article is the first to identify and analyze China’s 2022 Law on Science and Technology Progress, Personal Information Protection Law, Made in China 2025, National Intellectual Property Strategies, and digital currency e-CNY; …

A Public Technology Option, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Private technology increasingly underpins public governance. But the state’s growing reliance on private firms to provide a variety of complex technological products and services for public purposes brings significant costs for transparency: new forms of governance are becoming less visible and less amenable to democratic control. Transparency obligations initially designed for public agencies are a poor fit for private vendors that adhere to a very different set of expectations.

Aligning the use of technology in public governance with democratic values calls for rethinking, and in some cases abandoning, the legal structures and doctrinal commitments that insulate private vendors from meaningful …

Deplatforming, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Deplatforming in the technology sector is hotly debated, and at times may even seem unprecedented. In recent years, scholars, commentators, jurists, and lawmakers have focused on the possibility of treating social-media platforms as common carriers or public utilities, implying that the imposition of a duty to serve the public would restrict them from deplatforming individuals and content.

But, in American law, the duty to serve all comers was never absolute. In fact, the question of whether and how to deplatform-—to exclude content, individuals, or businesses from critical services—- has been commonly and regularly debated throughout American history. In the common …

Leveraging Technology To Promote Access To Justice, Amy Emerson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Wrong Search At The Wrong Time: Keyword Search Warrants And The Fourth Amendment, Nicole Chan

Articles

This Note will advocate for the view that when presented with the issue, state and federal courts should establish that keyword search warrants are unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment. Keyword search warrants cannot meet the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of probable cause and particularity because the subjects of the search cannot be identified until after the search is completed. These warrants are unnecessary and have the potential of implicating millions of internet users who have no connection to a crime. This Note will contend that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their search history data, and that …

Two Visions Of Digital Sovereignty, Sujit Raman

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Science, Technology, Society, And Law, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Traditionally, science and technology have been granted as sources of knowledge and objective truth. However, much more recently, they are also seen as human activities, conducted in a social environment. This new approach focuses on the intersections between science, technology and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Concerns on how to best regulate the interaction come up in modern societies, and when either their use or their impacts are global, international law and international organizations become involved. The impact of the fourfold relation is so high that science and technology are seen as one of the reasons for …

The Interlinkages Science-Technology-Law: Information And Communication Society, Knowledge-Based Economy And The Rule Of Law, Giovanni Bombelli, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the circular and complex relationship between science, technology, society, and law. The technology/society connection focuses on the democratic deficit issue. The democratic deficit would be a consequence of the lack of adaptability of western democracy to complex (information) societies, where technology (and the increasing access to data that it permits) is separating the connection between information and knowledge (as well as the classical legitimacy couple of democracy-truth) moving these societies towards a technocracy. On one hand, the technology-law circle deals with the progressive reduction of law to a normative technique (since the law is always late …

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

Toward Stronger Data Protection Laws, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

No abstract provided.

Surveillance Technologies And Constitutional Law, Christopher Slobogin, Sarah Brayne

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This review focuses on government use of technology to observe, collect, or record potential criminal activity in real-time, as contrasted with “transaction surveillance” that involves government efforts to access already-existing records and exploit Big Data, topics that have been the focus of previous reviews (Brayne 2018, Ridgeway 2018). Even so limited, surveillance technologies come in many guises, including closed-circuit television, automated license plate and facial readers, aerial cameras, and GPS tracking. Also classifiable as surveillance technology are devices such as thermal and electromagnetic imagers that can “see” through walls and clothing. Finally, surveillance includes wiretapping and other forms of communication …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Articles

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Winning The Imitation Game: Setting Safety Expectations For Automated Vehicles, William H. Widen, Philip Koopman

Articles

This article suggests that legislatures amend existing law to create a new legal category of "computer driver" to allow a plaintiff to make a negligence claim against an automated vehicle manufacturer for loss proximately caused by any negligent driving behavior exhibited by the driving automation systems which it produced. Creating this new legal category will allow a status quo approach to attribution and allocation of liability, including permitting defendants to take advantage of contributory negligence and comparative fault rules. Creation of the category also allows for continued functioning of the structure of our existing liability laws and regulations for motor …

Using Artificial Intelligence In The Law Review Submissions Process, Brenda M. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

The use of artificial intelligence to help editors examine law review submissions may provide a way to improve an overburdened system. This Article is the first to explore the promise and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence in the law review submissions process. Technology-assisted review of submissions offers many possible benefits. It can simplify preemption checks, prevent plagiarism, detect failure to comply with formatting requirements, and identify missing citations. These efficiencies may allow editors to address serious flaws in the current selection process, including the use of heuristics that may result in discriminatory outcomes and dependence on lower-ranked journals to conduct …

Bridging The Computer Science – Law Divide, Azer Bestavros, Stacey Dogan, Paul Ohm, Andrew Sellars

Faculty Scholarship

Many pressing societal questions can be answered only by bringing experts from different disciplines together. Questions around misinformation and disinformation, platform power, surveillance capitalism, information privacy, and algorithmic bias, among many others, reside at the intersection of computer science and law. We need to develop institutions that bring together computer scientists and legal scholars to work together on issues like these, and to train new innovators, thought leaders, counselors, and policymakers with hybrid training in both disciplines. In Universities, the disciplines of Computer Science (CS) and Law are separated by many wide chasms. Differences in standards, language, methods, and culture …

Law School News: Rewards Of The Road Less Traveled 10-13-2022, Michelle Choate

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Highly Automated Vehicles & Discrimination Against Low-Income Persons, William H. Widen

Articles

Law reform in the United States often reflects a structural bias that advances narrow business interests without addressing broader public interest concerns.' This bias may appear by omitting protective language in laws or regulations which address a subject matter area, such as permitting the testing of highly automated vehicles ("HA Vs") on public roads, while omitting a requirement for a reasonable level of insurance as a condition to obtain a testing permit.2 This Article explores certain social and economic justice implications of laws and regulations governing the design, testing, manufacture, and deployment of HA Vs which might advance a business …

Social Media Harms And The Common Law, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article finds fault with the judiciaries' failure to create a set of common law norms for social media wrongs. In cases concerning social media harms, the Supreme Court and lower courts have consistently adhered to traditional pre-social media principles, failing to use the power of the common law to create a kind of Internet Justice.

Part I of this article reviews social media history and explores how judicial decisions created a fertile bed for social media harm to blossom. Part II illustrates social media harms across several doctrinal disciplines and highlights judicial reluctance to embrace the realities of social …

Cyborgs And The Americans With Disabilities Act, Lou Colasanti

Student Scholarship

Medical technology is advancing at lightning speed with the potential to drastically benefit the disabled. These new technologies will result in humans who will use a wide array of assistive technologies and will likely be labelled as Cyborgs. Assistive technologies such as self-driving cars, robots, computer chip implants, insertable medical hardware, and exoskeletons are already well developed. The day is rapidly approaching when Cyborgs as a class will be large and influential. Critically, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the judges tasked with enforcing this legislation, and the legislature itself are all ill equipped to handle the speed of this …

Competition And Innovation: The Breakup Of Ig Farben, Felix Poege

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between competition and innovation is difficult to disentangle, as exogenous variation in market structure is rare. The 1952 breakup of Germany’s leading chemical company, IG Farben, represents such a disruption. After the Second World War, the Allies occupying Germany imposed the breakup because of IG Farben’s importance for the German war economy instead of standard antitrust concerns. In technology areas where the breakup reduced concentration, patenting increased strongly, driven by domestic firms unrelated to IG Farben. An analysis of patent texts shows that an increased propensity to patent does not drive the effect. Descriptively, IG Farben’s successors increased …

Autonomous Vehicle Regulation & Trust: The Impact Of Failures To Comply With Standards, William H. Widen, Phillip Koopman

Articles

The autonomous vehicle (AV) industry works very hard to create public trust in both AV technology and its developers. Building trust is part of a strategy to permit the industry itself to manage the testing and deployment of AV technology without regulatory interference. This article explains how industry actions to promote trust (both individually and collectively) have created concerns rather than comfort with this emerging technology. The article suggests how the industry might change its current approach to law and regulation from an adversarial posture to a more cooperative one in which a space is created for government regulation consistent …

Crossing The Rubicon: Evaluating The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In The Law And Singapore Courts, Ming En Tor

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has challenged many fundamental assumptions of how organisations and industries should operate. The Courts, traditionally seen as a hallowed ground graced by the best of lawyers, still remains as unchartered territory for AI’s infiltration. Yet, there is growing evidence which suggest AI may soon cross this frontier to replace important court functions.

This paper critically assesses the use of AI in law and the courts. Part II will first examine the arguments for and against the adoption of AI in the legal profession. Thereafter, Part III will critically examine whether AI should …

Persistent Surveillance, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Persistent surveillance technologies grant police vast new investigative capabilities. The technologies both monitor targeted areas and generate databases of searchable information about people, places, and patterns that can be connected and accessed for criminal prosecutions.

In the face of this growing police surveillance, courts have struggled to make sense of a fragmented Fourth Amendment doctrine. The Supreme Court has offered some clues that “digital may be different” when it comes to surveillance, but lower courts have been left struggling to apply old law to new technologies. Warrantless use of persistent surveillance technologies raises hard questions about when a “search” occurs …

Considering "Machine Testimony": The Impact Of Facial Recognition Software On Eyewitness Identifications, Valena Beety

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article uses a wrongful conviction lens to compare identifications by machines, notably facial recognition software, with identifications by humans. The Article advocates for greater reliability checks on both before use against a criminal defendant. The Article examines the cascading influence of facial recognition software on eyewitness identifications themselves and the related potential for greater errors. As a solution, the Article advocates the inclusion of eyewitness identification in the Organization of Scientific Area Committees' ("OSAC") review of facial recognition software for a more robust examination and consideration of software and its usage. The Article also encourages police departments to adopt …

Reconnecting The Patient: Why Telehealth Policy Solutions Must Consider The Deepening Digital Divide, Laura C. Hoffman

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article will attempt to untangle the complicated web of providing telehealth to those populations it is potentially capable of further alienating from access to healthcare including: 1) race/minority populations, 2) aging adults, 3) individuals with disabilities, 4) non-English speakers, 5) individuals living in rural areas, 6) socioeconomic class, and 7) children, in order to advance the argument that telehealth can be successful in providing healthcare access to these populations. Rather than suggesting that telehealth simply "cannot work" for these populations, instead consideration can and must meet these individuals through technology, access, and policy developments.

First, this Article will explain …

Racialized, Judaized, Feminized: Identity-Based Attacks On The Press, Lili Levi

Articles

No abstract provided.