Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

A Constitutinal Analysis Of The Ncaa’S New Autonomous Governance Model And Its Effects On Student Athletes, Non-Athletes, And Professors – Is The Termination Of Uab’S Football Program Just The Beginning Of Things To Come?, Tyler N. Wilson

Tyler N Wilson

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

At the Internet’s inception, carriers providing the bit switching and transmission function largely embraced expanding connections and users as a primary service goal. These ventures refrained from metering traffic and charging for carriage based on the assumption that traffic volumes roughly matched, or that traffic measurement was not worth the bother in light of external funding from government grants. Most Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) bartered network access through a process known as peering in lieu of metering traffic and billing for network use. As governments removed subsidies and commercial carriers invested substantial funds to build larger and faster networks, identifying …

Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not unlawfully impose common carrier duties on private carriers. The Commission now has opted to reclassify broadband Internet access as common carriage, a decision sure to trigger a third court appeal. The FCC Open Internet Order offers several, possibly contradictory, justifications for its decision to apply Title II of the Communications Act, subject …

Network Neutrality And Consumer Demand For “Better Than Best Efforts” Traffic Management, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper assesses whether and how ISPs can offer quality of service enhancements, at premium prices for full motion video, while still complying with the new rules and regulations established by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) in March, 2015. The paper explains that having made the controversial decision to reclassify all forms of Internet access as a telecommunications service, the FCC increases regulatory uncertainty. In particular, the FCC has failed to identify instances where “retail ISPs,” serving residential broadband subscribers, can offer quality of service enhancements that serve real consumer wants without harming competition and the ability of most content …

After Further Review: Whether The College Football Playoff Falls Short Of The Antitrust Marker, Jude D. Schmit

Jude D Schmit

Throughout the annals of college football’s most storied traditions, perhaps the most powerful is its legacy for determining championships not on the field but from behind closed doors. This Article looks at the sport’s history of anticompetitive behavior in determining a national champion, including a look at the new College Football Playoff (“CFP”). Despite the CFP’s ambition, the structure does not right the wrongs inflicted by preceding structures and is ultimately subject to potential antitrust attack. Nonetheless, an expanded CFP format could level the playing field and, therefore, shield the structure from liability. This Article concludes that the current imbalance …

Invisible Labor, Invisible Play: Online Gold Farming And The Boundary Between Jobs And Games, Julian Dibbell

Julian Dibbell

When does work become play, and play work? Courts have considered the question in a variety of economic contexts, from student athletes seeking recognition as employees to professional blackjack players seeking to be treated by casinos just like casual players. Here I apply the question to a relatively novel context: that of online gold farming, a gray-market industry in which wage-earning workers, largely based in China, are paid to play online fantasy games (MMOs) that reward them with virtual items their employers sell for profit to the same games’ casual players. Gold farming is clearly a job (and under the …

, The Law School Of The Future: How The Synergies Of Convergence Will Transform The Very Notion Of “Law Schools” During The 21st Century From “Places” To “Platforms”, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

Jeffrey A. Van Detta

This article discusses the disruptive change in American (and trans-national) legal education that the convergence of technology and economics is bringing to legal education. It posits, and then defends, the following assertion about "law schools of the future":

“Law schools will no longer be ‘places’ in the sense of a single faculty located on a physical campus. In the future, law schools will consist of an array of technologies and instructional techniques brought to bear, in convergence, on particular educational needs and problems.”

This paper elaborates on that prediction, discussing the ways in which technology will positively impact legal education, …

The Deeply Flawed Inaugural College Football Playoff: A Call For Structural Changes To Protect Against Undue Commercialization, To Ensure Transparency, And To Systematize Democratic Due Process, Matthew M. Heekin, Bruce W. Burton

Matthew M. Heekin

This article contends that the new College Football Playoff system (CFP)—as formulated and administered in 2014—contains a series of serious flaws. The new CFP system needlessly incorporates an anti-democratic structure, lacks in the transparency required for sustainability in a democratic society, and endangers the longstanding tradition of the student-athlete in American college athletics. This article offers several detailed suggestions—in part modeled on the Administrative Procedures Act—to correct these flaws and move towards an improved CFP system.

Employing the benchmarks of television viewership and advertising revenues, some have declared the inaugural 2014 College Football Playoff a success. From the purely commercial …

The Right To Read, Lea Shaver

Lea Shaver

Reading – for education and for pleasure – may be framed as a personal indulgence, a moral virtue, or even a civic duty. What are the implications of framing reading as a human right?

Although novel, the rights-based frame finds strong support in international human rights law. The right to read need not be defended as a “new” human right. Rather, it can be located at the intersection of more familiar guarantees. Well-established rights to education, science, culture, and freedom of expression, among others, provide the necessary normative support for recognizing a universal right to read as already implicit in …

Making A Mark: Taking A Glance At Trademarks And Graphic Infringement, Heather S. Ray

Heather S Ray

No abstract provided.

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …