Law Commons^™

Downstreaming, Rachel Landy

Articles

Spotify and its competitors all offer the same product at the same price. Why? Scholars have argued that relationships can be designed in a way that naturally promotes innovation. By “braiding” certain formal contracting practices with informal enforcement norms, parties develop a frame-work that supports trust and positive, long-term collaboration. This Article takes on this consensus and shows that not all braiding is good. Using the multibillion-dollar subscription music streaming business as an illustration, it demonstrates just how industry forces can, and do, overcome braiding’s positive slant. In that industry, the major record labels (Universal, Warner, and Sony) weaponize braiding …

Update On Patent-Related Cases In Computers And Electronics, Karishma Jiva Cartwright, Timothy T. Hsieh, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Articles

This paper provides an overview of patent cases relating to computer and electronics technology that were not taken up by the Supreme Court during the October 2022 term. As of this writing, the Supreme Court has not granted certiorari in any patent-related cases for its October 2021 Term. The Court has, however, called for the views of the Solictor General in four cases, indicating higher interest and raising the possibility that one or more of these cases may appear on the Court's merits docket for the October 2022 Term. Additionally, though the Court denied certiorari in Baxter v. Becton, Dickinson, …

The Structure Of Secondary Copyright Liability, Felix T. Wu

Articles

Secondary copyright liability and secondary patent liability largely parallel each other. And yet, secondary copyright cases are often quite different from secondary patent cases. Whereas most secondary patent infringers act in a way that targets a particular patent or group of related patents, secondary copyright infringement mostly arises in the context of technologies or services that work across all copyrighted works. Secondary copyright liability raises issues of platform liability in ways that secondary patent liability usually does not.

The current structure and framing of secondary copyright liability inadequately account for this distinction. The result is that secondary copyright liability tends …

Wrong Search At The Wrong Time: Keyword Search Warrants And The Fourth Amendment, Nicole Chan

Articles

This Note will advocate for the view that when presented with the issue, state and federal courts should establish that keyword search warrants are unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment. Keyword search warrants cannot meet the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of probable cause and particularity because the subjects of the search cannot be identified until after the search is completed. These warrants are unnecessary and have the potential of implicating millions of internet users who have no connection to a crime. This Note will contend that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their search history data, and that …

Tax Reporting As Regulation Of Digital Financial Markets, Young Ran (Christine) Kim

Articles

FTX’s recent collapse highlights the overall instability that blockchain assets and digital financial markets face. While the use of blockchain technology and crypto assets is widely prevalent, the associated market is still largely unregulated, and the future of digital asset regulation is also unclear. The lack of clarity and regulation has led to public distrust and has called for more dedicated regulation of digital assets. Among those regulatory efforts, tax policy plays an important role. This Essay introduces comprehensive regulatory frameworks for blockchain-based assets that have been introduced globally and domestically, and it shows that tax reporting is the key …

Title Theft, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Real property owners across the country have been targeted by scammers who prepare deeds purporting to convey title to property the scammers do not own. Sometimes, the true owners are entirely unaware of these bogus transfers. In other instances, the scammers use misrepresentation to induce unsophisticated owners to sign documents they do not understand.

Property doctrine protects owners against forgery and fraud—the primary vehicles scammers use in their efforts to transfer title. Owners enjoy protection not only against the scammers themselves, but generally against unsuspecting purchasers to whom the scammers transfer purported title.

Recovery of title, however, involves costs and …

Moonshots, Matthew Wansley

Articles

In the last half-century, technological progress has stagnated. Rapid advances in information technology disguise the slow pace of productivity growth in other fields. Reigniting technological progress may require firms to invest in moonshots—long-term projects to commercialize innovations. Yet all but a few giant tech firms shy away from moonshots, even when the expected returns would justify the investment. The root of the problem is corporate structure. The process of developing a novel technology does not generate the kind of interim feedback that shareholders need to monitor managers and managers need to motivate employees. Managers who anticipate these agency problems invest …

Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalie Jimenez, Christopher K. Odinet

Articles

As part of federal and state relief programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic, many American households received pauses on their largest debts, particularly on mortgages and student loans. Others may have come to agreements with their lenders, likewise pausing or altering payment on other debts, such as auto loans and credit cards. This relief allowed households to allocate their savings and income to necessary expenses, like groceries, utilities, and medicine. But forbearance does not equal forgiveness. At the end of the various relief periods and moratoria, people will have to resume paying all their debts, the amounts of which may …

The Growth & Regulatory Challenges Of Decentralized Finance, Aaron J. Wright

Articles

Proceedings of the 2021 Spring Conference: The Impact of Blockchain on the Practice of Law Panel 1: The Growth & Regulatory Challenges of Decentralized Finance

The Rise Of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Opportunities And Challenges, Aaron J. Wright

Articles

The Author explores the nature of DAOs and highlights several areas where states and regulators can adapt existing legal regimes to potentially accommodate DAOs. Part of the Blockchain & Procedural Law seminars (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law).

Symposium: The California Consumer Privacy Act, Margot Kaminski, Jacob Snow, Felix T. Wu, Justin Hughes

Articles

This symposium discussion of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review focuses on the newly enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (CPPA), a statute signed into state law by then-Governor Jerry Brown on June 28, 2018 and effective as of January 1, 2020. The panel was held on February 20, 2020.

The panelists discuss how businesses are responding to the new law and obstacles for consumers to make effective use of the law’s protections and rights. Most importantly, the panelists grapple with questions courts are likely to have to address, including the definition of personal information under the CCPA, the application …

Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, And The Democratization Of Public Capital Markets, Jonathan Rohr, Aaron Wright

Articles

Best known for their role in the creation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, blockchains are revolutionizing the way technology entrepreneurs finance their business enterprises. In 2017 alone, tech entrepreneurs raised over $6 billion through the sale of blockchain-based digital tokens, with some sales lasting mere seconds before selling out. In a token sale, also referred to as an “initial coin offering” or “ICO,” organizers of a project sell digital tokens to members of the public to finance the development of new technological platforms and services. After the initial sale, cryptocurrency exchanges scattered across the globe list tokens for trading and facilitate …

Software Components Of Digital Health Innovations Raise Unique Questions For Standard University Technology Licenses, Rachel Landy

Online Publications

Imagine you have spent your graduate school years toiling away in a university research lab developing a groundbreaking digital health innovation. You and another lab worker are convinced that your latest discovery, a smart medical device with embedded software that connects to a mobile app, will forever change diagnostics. Having developed a prototype, including the embedded software and mobile app, you decide to form a company to commercialize the product. You have heard that the university will likely take ownership over all of your intellectual property rights (you do vaguely recall seeing something to that effect in the paperwork you …

Data Collection And The Regulatory State, Hillary Green, James Cooper, Ahmed Ghappour, Felix Wu

Articles

The following remarks were given on January 27, 2017 during the Connecticut Law Review's symposium, "Privacy, Security & Power: The State of Digital Surveillance."

Defining Privacy And Utility In Data Sets, Felix T. Wu

Articles

Is it possible to release useful data while preserving the privacy of the individuals whose information is in the database? This question has been the subject of considerable controversy, particularly in the wake of well-publicized instances in which researchers showed how to re-identify individuals in supposedly anonymous data. Some have argued that privacy and utility are fundamentally incompatible, while others have suggested that simple steps can be taken to achieve both simultaneously. Both sides have looked to the computer science literature for support.

What the existing debate has overlooked, however, is that the relationship between privacy and utility depends crucially …

On The Theory Class's Theories Of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship And Reality, Lester Brickman

Articles

No abstract provided.