Law Commons^™

Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

May Public Universities Restrict Faculty From Receiving Or Transmitting Information Via University Computer Resources? Academic Freedom, The First Amendment, And The Internet, Damon L. Krieger

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Silencing John Doe: Defamation And Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

John Doe has become a popular defamation defendant as corporations and their officers bring defamation suits for statements made about them in Internet discussion fora. These new suits are not even arguably about recovering money damages but instead are brought for symbolic reasons — some worthy, some not so worthy. If the only consequence of these suits were that Internet users were held accountable for their speech, the suits would be an unalloyed good. However, these suits threaten to suppress legitimate criticism along with intentional and reckless falsehoods, and existing First Amendment law doctrines are not responsive to the threat …

The Copyright Dilemma Involving Online Service Providers: Problem Solved . . . For Now, Christian C.M. Beams

Federal Communications Law Journal

The Internet environment has presented copyright law with a development unlike any other this century. The illegal trading of copyrighted works has become easier than ever. Until recently, it was possible to hold online service providers strictly liable for the infringing actions of their users, regardless of whether the provider had knowledge of any infringing activity. While promoting the policy of copyright law, upholding such a standard had the potential to limit Internet speech and retard its growth. Seeing this, Congress began to debate on legislation that would protect innocent service providers from this liability. This Note argues that with …

Click Here: Web Links, Trademarks And The First Amendment, Christopher E. Gatewood

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The World Wide Web has experienced rapid growth during the 1990s, with millions of publishers adding diverse opinions, objectives and page content. The main programming feature that has kept this network of networks from becoming a twisted thicket of web-sites is the hyperlink. These links guide users across the Web by creating connections from page to page and site to site, allowing a reader to follow tangential paths to whatever it is the Web has to offer her. Links provide connections within a site and are also used constantly to travel from one publisher's site to another. Because the linking …

"Chilling" The Internet? Lessons From Fcc Regulation Of Radio Broadcasting , Thomas W. Hazlett, David W. Sosa

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Congress included the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in the Telecommunications Act signed into law on February 8, 1996. The bill seeks to outlaw the use of computers and phone lines to transmit "indecent" material with provisions of jail terms and heavy fines for violators. Proponents of the bill argue it is necessary to protect minors from undesirable speech on the Internet. The CDA was immediately challenged in court by the American Civil Liberties Union, and the special 3-judge federal panel established to hear the case recently declared the Act unconstitutional. Yet, its ultimate adjudication remains in doubt. Ominously, the federal …

Sovereign Indignity? Values, Borders And The Internet: A Case Study, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on the publication ban issued by a Canadian court in a notorious murder trial, and the popular reaction to the publication ban, as a case study of the new global communications environment. Part I reconstructs the factual circumstances that provoked the ban, as well as the responses of the media, the legal establishment, and the public. Part II examines the ban itself, the constitutional challenge mounted by the media, and the landmark Dagenais decision. Part III reflects on the meaning of the entire episode for law, journalism, and national sovereignty.

The Dagenais decision demonstrates the continued independence …

Fencing Cyberspace: Drawing Borders In A Virtual World, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

In the last few years, the Internet has increasingly become a source of information even for the historically computer illiterate. The growing popularity of the Internet has been driven in large part by the World Wide Web (web). The web is a system that facilitates use of the Internet by helping users sort through the great mass of information available on it. The web uses software that allows one document to link to and access another, and so on, despite the fact that the documents may reside on different machines in physically remote locations. The dispersion of data that is …

The First Amendment, Children, The Internet, And America's Public Libraries, Fred H. Cate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Web: Free Speech And The Global Information Infrastructure, A, Victor Mayer-Schönberger, Teree E. Foster

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

National restrictions of freedom of speech on the nascent global information infrastructure are commonplace not only in the United States, but also around the globe. Individual nations, each intent upon preserving what they perceive to be within the perimeters of their national interests, seek to regulate certain forms of speech because of content that is considered reprehensible or offensive to national well-being or civic virtue. The fact that this offending speech is technologically dispersed instantaneously to millions of potential recipients strengthens the impetus to regulate.... Activists at both ends of the spectrum disregard an integral aspect of the global composition …

Foucault In Cyberspace: Surveillance, Sovereignty, And Hardwired Censors, James Boyle

Faculty Scholarship

This is an essay about law in cyberspace. I focus on three interdependent phenomena: a set of political and legal assumptions that I call the jurisprudence of digital libertarianism, a separate but related set of beliefs about the state's supposed inability to regulate the Internet, and a preference for technological solutions to hard legal issues on-line. I make the familiar criticism that digital libertarianism is inadequate because of its blindness towards the effects of private power, and the less familiar claim that digital libertarianism is also surprisingly blind to the state's own power in cyberspace. In fact, I argue that …

Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not To Censor The Internet, Peter Johnson

Federal Communications Law Journal

Historically, the development of new media has been advanced by the creators of pornography. This was evident as communications media evolved from vernacular speech to movable type, to photography, to paperback books, to videotape, to cable and pay-TV, to 900 phone lines, to the French Minitel, and to the Internet. In short, pornography, far from being an evil that the First Amendment must endure, is a positive good that encourages experimentation with new technology. Accordingly, society should not view cyberpornographers as pariahs, rather they should be viewed as explorers who pave the roads for civilization to follow.

Application Of U.S. Supreme Court Doctrine To Anonymity In The Networld, George H. Carr

Cleveland State Law Review

There are still many issues to be resolved about the Internet's unique status as a media technology and its legal status under current law. Debate over the propriety, necessity, and legality of anonymous speech has been protracted and pervasive. Indeed, this debate has extended to all corners of the Internet. The main source material for this Note is the recent case of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, in which the Supreme Court confirmed its continuing commitment to preservation of the right to free speech, and interpreted the First Amendment to protect much anonymous speech. This Note will quantify how the …

Garbage In: Emerging Media And Regulation Of Unsolicited Commercial Solicitiations, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Closing The Barn Door After The Genie Is Out Of The Bag: Recognizing A "Futility Principle" In First Amendment Jurisprudence, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

This article argues for a simple proposition: the First Amendment imposes a presumption against the suppression of speech when suppression would be futile. Suppression is futile when the speech is available to the same audience through some other medium or at some other place. The government can overcome this presumption of futility only when it asserts an important interest that is unrelated to the content of the speech in question, and only when the suppression directly advances that interest.

In Part I, the article explores the role that this unarticulated "futility principle" has played in Supreme Court and other decisions …

Censorship Of Cyberspace A Personal Choice, I. Trotter Hardy

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment And The National Information Infrastructure, Fred H. Cate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What the First Amendment status of electronic information should be is a fundamental question which must be addressed in any attempt to arrive at appropriate legal standards to protect the multifarious interests of the users of cyberspace. Yet, despite its importance, the First Amendment has largely been ignored in the debate surrounding what sort of legal framework should control the emerging National Information Infrastructure. Professor Cate surveys the current terrain of First Amendment jurisprudence and describes the different analytical approaches which may be taken. Doctrinal anomalies such as the law of common carriage indicate that at times the courts have …

Information Superhighway Or Technological Sewer: What Will It Be?, Robert W. Peters

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.