Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Rights Of Access And The Shape Of The Internet, Michael J. Madison
Rights Of Access And The Shape Of The Internet, Michael J. Madison
Articles
This Article reviews recent developments in the law of access to information, that is, cases involving click-through agreements, the doctrine of trespass to chattels, the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and civil claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Though the objects of these different doctrines substantially overlap, the different doctrines yield different presumptions regarding the respective rights of information owners and information consumers. The Article reviews those presumptions in light of different metaphorical premises on which courts rely: Internet-as-place, in the trespass, DMCA, and CFAA contexts, and contract-as-assent, in the click-through context. It argues that …
Information Wants To Be Free: Intellectual Property And The Mythologies Of Control, R. Polk Wagner
Information Wants To Be Free: Intellectual Property And The Mythologies Of Control, R. Polk Wagner
All Faculty Scholarship
This article challenges a central tenet of the recent criticism of intellectual property rights: the suggestion that the control conferred by such rights is detrimental to the continued flourishing of a public domain of ideas and information. I argue that such theories understate the significance of the intangible nature of information, and thus overlook the contribution that even perfectly controlled intellectual creations make to the public domain. In addition, I show that perfect control of propertized information - an animating assumption in much of the contemporary criticism - is both counterfactual and likely to remain so. These findings suggest that …