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Full-Text Articles in Law
Restraining Amazon.Com's Orwellian Potential: The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act As Consumer Rights Legislation, Alicia C. Sanders
Restraining Amazon.Com's Orwellian Potential: The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act As Consumer Rights Legislation, Alicia C. Sanders
Federal Communications Law Journal
In 2009, Amazon.com decided to correct a potential copyright violation by deleting e-books by George Orwell and Ayn Rand from the Kindles of users who had already purchased the offending texts. Two of those users, Justin Gawronski and Antoine Bruguier, claimed that Amazon.com had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by accessing their Kindles without authorization. The plaintiffs also relied on other causes of action, including breach of contract and trespass to chattels. Although the dispute quickly settled, the Gawronski lawsuit remains a useful case study that shows why the CFAA is a useful protection for consumers. Recently, …
Cooling-Off And Secondary Markets: Consumer Choice In The Digital Domain, Michael Mattioli
Cooling-Off And Secondary Markets: Consumer Choice In The Digital Domain, Michael Mattioli
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This article studies the law and economics of cooling-off periods and secondary markets for online media. The discussion is fueled by a current debate: In July 2009, the online retail juggernaut, Amazon.com, remotely deleted literary classics from consumers’ portable “Kindle” reading devices. The public outcry and class-action lawsuit that followed have reinvigorated an ongoing debate about how much control digital media distributors should wield. Pundits and plaintiffs argue that too often, digital distributors like Amazon impair consumer freedom by misusing Digital Rights Management (DRM) software systems. However, these same systems could also provide significant benefits that have largely gone ignored. …