Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Redirecting The Herd: Informing Cryptocurrency Regulations Through The Lens Of Behavioral Science, Jonathan Su

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

Conversations on cryptocurrencies have become a mainstay in society today, whether that be on social media or in individual conversations. The cultural and social impact of cryptocurrency is undeniable and, as conversations with cryptocurrency supporters would suggest, lead to a positive impact in the lives of those that invest in the currency. However, cracks are showing in the patchwork of cryptocurrency regulations throughout the United States as cryptocurrency scams run amok, resulting in losses for innocent investors. Although attention is placed upon the decisions of individual companies or executives in explaining cryptocurrency scams, little discussion is present regarding investor behaviors …

Masthead

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Artificially Intelligent Trolley Problem: Understanding Our Criminal Law Gaps In A Robot Driven World, Jake Feiler

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

Not only is Artificial Intelligence (AI) present everywhere in people’s lives, but the technology is also now capable of making unpredictable decisions in novel situations. AI poses issues for the United States’ traditional criminal law system because this system emphasizes mens rea’s importance in determining criminal liability. When AI makes unpredictable decisions that lead to crimes, it will be impractical to determine what mens rea to ascribe to the human agents associated with the technology, such as AI’s creators, owners, and users. To solve this issue, the United States’ legal system must hold AI’s creators, owners, and users strictly liable …

Regulating The Digital Resonance, Hassan Salman

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

The proliferation of automated content moderation in social media has negatively impacted users’ (individuals, businesses, and governments) selfexpressions. Major social media platforms like Facebook act as public forums for billions of users whose content may vary in terms of acceptability and legality. User content is colored by social as well as personal norms, values and experiences. For example, though blasphemy may be objectionable in Poland, it may not be so in France. However, despite facing some mistrust over how Facebook and other platforms handle user data and moderate content, users rely on the entities like Facebook to correctly filter this …

One Map To Rule Them All: Google Maps And Quasi-Sovereign Power In International Legal Disputes, Catherine Grace Katz

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

With 80% market share, Google Maps has become the most powerful digital mapping platform in the world to such an extent that users often believe Google Maps represents an objectively accurate and universally truthful depiction of the world. The desire to create a single, objective map for the whole world dates to the turn of the 20th Century, even though objectivity and cartography are inherently at odds—a notion that has long complicated the status of maps as evidence in domestic and international law. However, growing acceptance of GIS maps as evidence in both domestic and international courts highlights the importance …

Reducing Single-Use Plastic Waste: A Better Alternative To The Reduce Act Tax Proposal, Ryann Wong

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

This article will discuss the relevant and imminent need for government intervention to curb and reduce single-use plastic waste. It will look at the proposed 2019 REDUCE Act and consider potential outcomes and unintended consequences which the proposed plan may bring. The article will analyze the REDUCE Act through a discussion of: how similar policies have fared in the past, a historical survey of single-use plastics in US supply chain practices, how past tax laws have had a disproportionate impact on low-income taxpayers, the current market demands for single-use plastics, and an observation of how other countries are applying tax …

Reversing The Irreversible: Mitigating Legal Risks Of Blockchain-Based Data Breach Through Corporate Governance, Katayoon Beshkardana

Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal

The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) embodies a set of enforceable data subject rights, data controller and processor obligations, and compliance requirements. The GDPR outreach is extraterritorial and impacts US blockchain-based businesses that collect and process personal data of individuals from the EU. Given the ambiguities of the law itself surrounding what is considered as personal data on blockchain, and who data controllers and processors are, this research examines the corporate governance response to the GDPR as a bottom-up solution for compliance. To secure the sustainability of the business models based on blockchain solutions there is an immediate need …

Corporate Innovation: One Path To More Sustainable Big Business, David Nows

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Invasions Of Dicamba Particles: Holding States Accountable For Taking Offsite Property Owners' Right To Exclude, Terence J. Centner

University of Cincinnati Law Review

In 2017, special formulations of dicamba herbicides known as over-the-top products were marketed for post-emergent use on genetically engineered soybeans and cotton. The use of these products was accompanied by considerable herbicide drift and volatilization that harmed millions of acres of nearby crops. In 2018, the EPA added requirements to the products’ labels to preclude offsite injuries. However, for each growing season during 2018-2021, unacceptable offsite injuries were reported in the major soybean and cotton producing states. Because they received reported injuries, state agencies issuing new registrations for dicamba products in 2018 and 2020 knew offsite spray drift and volatilization …

Regulating The Autonomous Ocean, Annie Brett

Brooklyn Law Review

The rapid rise in aerial drone use and the future deployment of self-driving cars have both spurred extensive legal and social debate. Autonomous vessels on the ocean, on the other hand, have largely escaped detailed scrutiny, even as they are reshaping the landscape of human interactions with the ocean and creating novel challenges for national and international legal regimes. Autonomous vessels are being captured while spying on other countries, raising concerns about national security and surveillance regimes. The Coast Guard is using enforcement loopholes to justify abandoning many of their autonomous vessels at sea, in flagrant violation of national and …

Voice Shoppers: From Information Gaps To Choice Gaps In Consumer Markets, Noga Blickstein Shchory, Michal S. Gal

Brooklyn Law Review

Recent years have seen exponential growth in the use of voice shoppers – artificial intelligence–based algorithms installed on digital voice assistants, such as Alexa and Google Assistant, that buy products based on verbal requests received from consumers. This game-changing switch to semi-automated shopping is shaking up markets by reshaping consumer–supplier relationships, as well as the business models of suppliers and search services. Voice shoppers benefit consumers by offering speedier and more sophisticated transactions while reducing search and transaction costs. At the same time, consumers’ voluntary delegation of their search powers and product selection creates what we call a “choice gap,” …

Algorithmic Elections, Sarah M.L. Bender

Michigan Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered election administration. Across the country, election officials are beginning to use AI systems to purge voter records, verify mail-in ballots, and draw district lines. Already, these technologies are having a profound effect on voting rights and democratic processes. However, they have received relatively little attention from AI experts, advocates, and policymakers. Scholars have sounded the alarm on a variety of “algorithmic harms” resulting from AI’s use in the criminal justice system, employment, healthcare, and other civil rights domains. Many of these same algorithmic harms manifest in elections and voting but have been underexplored and remain …

A Tokenized Future: Regulatory Lessons From Crowdfunding And Standard Form Contracts, Darian M. Ibrahim

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the world of risk investing in the cryptoeconomy. The broader crypto market is booming despite the latest downturn. People and institutions are buying in. The question is now how to regulate it.

This Article first tackles the question of whether coins, tokens, and other investable cryptoassets are securities. Second, for those cryptoassets that are not securities, this Article seeks to find a regulatory solution that balances promoting innovation with investor protection, just as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would do. To strike the right balance, this Article adopts a proposal by Ian Ayres and Alan Schwartz …

Ftx: How The Sec Should React, Darian M. Ibrahim

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Marshalling Copyright Knowledge To Understand Four Decades Of Berne, Peter K. Yu

IP Theory

In the year 1978, the 1976 Copyright Act had just entered into effect. Marshall Leaffer, whom this article will affectionately refer to by his first name, had just completed his duties as an attorney advisor at the U.S. Copyright Office. On his way to academia, he, like the fictional character Captain William “Buck” Rogers, was to experience cosmic forces beyond all comprehension. In a freak mishap, his car veered off a rarely used mountain road and was frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. He did not return to academia until more than forty years later. What will he discover upon his …

Big Data Affirmative Action, Peter N. Salib

Northwestern University Law Review

As a vast and ever-growing body of social-scientific research shows, discrimination remains pervasive in the United States. In education, work, consumer markets, healthcare, criminal justice, and more, Black people fare worse than whites, women worse than men, and so on. Moreover, the evidence now convincingly demonstrates that this inequality is driven by discrimination. Yet solutions are scarce. The best empirical studies find that popular interventions—like diversity seminars and antibias trainings—have little or no effect. And more muscular solutions—like hiring quotas or school busing—are now regularly struck down as illegal. Indeed, in the last thirty years, the Supreme Court has invalidated …

W. Org. Res. Councils, Et Al. V. U.S. Bureau Of Land Mgmt., Sawyer J. Connelly

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States District Court for the District of Montana granted Plaintiffs summary judgment against BLM and the State of Wyoming. The court ruled that BLM violated NEPA and the APA because it failed to consider alternative leasing programs and the broad downstream impacts of coal, oil, and gas leasing in two Powder River Basin resource management plans. This decision followed WORC I & II, in which the court remanded the same plans to BLM to correct deficiencies. Following BLM’s revisions, Plaintiffs again sued in this case, arguing the revisions were still deficient under NEPA.

The Public Perception Of The #Geneeditedbabies Event Across Multiple Social Media Platforms: Observational Study, Ellen W. Clayton, Congning Ni, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In November 2018, a Chinese researcher reported that his team had applied clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats or associated protein 9 to delete the gene C-C chemokine receptor type 5 from embryos and claimed that the 2 newborns would have lifetime immunity from HIV infection, an event referred to as #GeneEditedBabies on social media platforms. Although this event stirred a worldwide debate on ethical and legal issues regarding clinical trials with embryonic gene sequences, the focus has mainly been on academics and professionals. However, how the public, especially stratified by geographic region and culture, reacted to these issues is not …

Beyond Window Dressing: Public Participation For Marginalized Communities In The Datafied Society, Michele Estrin Gilman

Fordham Law Review

We live in a datafied society in which our personal data is being constantly harvested, analyzed, and sold by public and private entities, and yet we have little control over our data and little voice in how it is used. In light of the impacts of algorithmic decision-making systems—including those that run on machine learning and artificial intelligence—there are increasing calls to integrate public participation into the adoption, design, and oversight of these tech tools. Stakeholder input is particularly crucial for members of marginalized groups, who bear the disproportionate harms of data-centric technologies. Yet, recent calls for public participation have …

The Digital First Sale Doctrine In A Blockchain World: Nfts And The Temporary Reproduction Exception, Chelsea Lim

Fordham Law Review

In 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) exploded in popularity. Representing over sixty million dollars in sales, NFTs are currently being bought and sold in almost every industry, in the form of exclusive videos in the sports industry and digital paintings in the art industry. NFTs are digital certificates that use blockchain technology to verify authenticity and proof of ownership. Through NFTs’ non-fungible and immutable characteristics, owners are able to create scarcity for and authenticity in digital copies of their works, replicating the tangible experience of owning a physical, limited-edition item. NFTs have also been able to promote a unique secondary marketplace, …