Law Commons^™

A Roundtable Discussion With Lawrence Lessig, David G. Post & Jeffrey Rosen, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

This article is a transcript of a discussion between Lawrence Lessig, David G. Post and Jeffrey Rosen on a variety of issues surrounding law, technology and the Internet. The moderator was Thomas E. Baker and the discussion was part of a Drake University Law School symposium in February of 2001.

A Symposium Précis, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

This article is an introduction to and overview of the Drake University Law School symposium The Constitution and the Internet, held in February of 2001. It highlights important issues including the Constitution and the Internet, civil liberty and the application of a 200 year old document to the modern age of rapidly changing technology.

Comparative Institutional Analysis In Cyberspace: The Case Of Intermediary Liability For Defamation, Susan Freiwald

Susan Freiwald

Almost every day brings reports that Congress is considering new cyberspace-targeted laws and the courts are deciding novel cyberspace legal questions. These developments lend urgency to the question of whether a particular cyberspace legal change should come through operation of new statutes, judicial decisions, or the free market. If we can develop sophisticated analytical methods to evaluate institutional competence in cyberspace, we can vastly improve the development of cyberspace law and public policy.

Comparative Institutional Analysis in Cyberspace: The Case of Intermediary Liability for Defamation promotes just such an approach. By describing and extending a recently proposed model of comparative …

Annotating The News: Mitigating The Effects Of Media Convergence And Consolidation, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a personal inquiry into the nature of media technology, law, and ethics in an era marked by the convergence of media that have been largely separate-print, broadcast, cable, satellite, and the Internet-and by the consolidation of ownership in all of these media. What inventions, practices, and norms must emerge to enable us to take advantage of this vast new information-based world, while preserving such important professional values as diversity, objectivity, reliability, and independence?

The right to know belongs not only to individuals, but to the public at large, it can (or, perhaps, must) be vindicated by government …

Evaluation Criteria And Quality Control For Legal Knowledge Systems On The Internet: A Case Study, Marie Stefanini Newman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Professor Newman discusses evaluation criteria for law-oriented Internet sites and how to use these criteria when launching new sites or improving existing sites. She also discusses the use of quality control procedures to ensure accuracy and reliability in Internet sites, and concludes with a case study of the Pace University School of Law's Web site on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

Internet Contacts And Forum Notice: A Formula For Personal Jurisdiction, Darren L. Mccarty

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unauthorized Dissemination Of Celebrity Images On The Internet ... In The Flesh, Navin Katyal

Cleveland State Law Review

This paper will explore and analyze the unauthorized use and dissemination of celebrity images over the Internet as a violation of the copyrights of either the celebrity themselves, or the cinematographic' rights of the film production studio(s). The analysis will focus on the Copyright Act of both Canada and the United States and will be covered in three parts. Part I will define the basic nomenclature of the Internet and explain the applicability of copyright law to the Internet. Part II will focus on methods in which the celebrity and film studio can protect their copyright 'On-line' through the American-defined …

Salvaging The Communications Decency Act In The Wake Of Aclu V. Reno And Shea V. Reno, Rebecca J. Dessoffy

Cleveland State Law Review

Hundreds of Worldwide Web site providers blackened their pages for forty-eight hours to protest the enactment of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("CDA"). The CDA regulates the transmission of sexually explicit material, both obscene and indecent, over the Internet. The CDA protesters claimed the law, designed to protect children, impermissibly infringes on adults' First Amendment rights to send and receive sexually explicit material. This note begins by exploring the challenged provisions of the CDA and the positions of those parties who opposed the CDA in the federal district court declaratory judgment actions. Next, the note examines applicable case precedent …

Keynote Colloquy: Finding Justice In The Internet Dimension, Hon. Alex Kozinski

Seattle University Law Review

The Internet community—just like all other speech communities—ought to be afforded First Amendment protections. I don't see any reason why Internet speech should be treated any less favorably than other kinds of speech. But the vastly overblown claim that the communications medium somehow deserves to be put outside normal legal constraints--because it's so global, or because it's so different—is self-defeating. It substitutes generalities and sentiments for real thinking. The kind of analysis we've seen at this conference—the kind of debate we've had here—is very useful, because we're talking about the specifics of what legal constraints should be allowed. Not whether …

The Name Is Not Always The Same, Neal J. Friedman, Kevin Siebert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the present Internet addressing system, the history of trademark disputes on the Internet, and proposals for resolving these disputes. Part I provides a brief history of the Internet, discusses its addressing system, and explains the use of domain names as identifiers for companies on the Internet. Part II introduces the current system for registering Internet domain names and the problems associated with its structure. Part III gives a brief background of trademark law and tracks the evolution of disputes that have arisen as a result of the intersection of the Internet and trademark law. Finally, Part IV …

The Internet And Its Legal Ramifications In Taiwan, George C.C. Chen

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Article briefly introduces the five main legal issues related to Internet use in Taiwan. Part II discusses network-related copyright issues, including the doctrine of fair use, personal and corporate use of the Internet, and one of the first court cases in Taiwan on this issue. Part III discusses issues arising from commercial activity on the Internet, including the validity of on-line contracts, the use of digital signatures for authentication, and the applicability of Taiwan's Broadcasting and Television Law, Cable Television Law, and Fair Trade Law to regulating commercial advertising on the Internet. Part IV discusses the …

Bridging The Analogy Gap: The Internet, The Printing Press And Freedom Of Speech, Jonathan Wallace, Michael Green

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court will bring the highest degree of clarity to the Internet freedom of speech debate if, in ACLU v. Reno, it sets forth the operative metaphor for freedom of speech and applies the metaphor in conjunction with an appropriate analogy for the technology.Part I of this Article discusses judicial decision-making tools with an emphasis on the use of analogy and the importance of applying legal precedents in a manner which is consistent and logical. Part I also discusses the use of metaphor in judicial decisionmaking and illustrates how operative metaphors for free speech have served to provide …

Diogenes Wanders The Superhighway: A Proposal For Authentication Of Publicly Disseminated Documents On The Internet, Kelly Kunsch

Seattle University Law Review

On the national level, there are proposals to make the Internet the primary, and even the exclusive, means of disseminating certain government information. Concurrently, corporations and other private organizations may adopt a similar approach for their reports and other documents. Intertwined with these official and quasi-official documents are innumerable others created by individuals around the world. With so many documents, there is potential for dissemination of false, biased, and even fraudulent information. This is the source of the authentication problem.

Cyberspace Must Exceed Its Grasp, Or What's A Metaphor? Tropes, Trips And Stumbles On The Info Highway, Robert C. Cumbow

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay will focus on three metaphors, and show briefly how the arguments that copyright law is “unworkable” in the Internet context are based on a misreading of these metaphors. The first metaphor is the use of the term “cyberspace” to apply to the Internet; the second is the tendency to describe Internet communication as “going” somewhere. Both of these metaphors mistakenly suggest a space in which enforcement—and, indeed, violation—of any law is impossible. The third metaphor is the “wine and bottles” analogy, set forth by John Perry Barlow in his widely circulated article, “The Economy of Ideas," to show …

The Quest For Enabling Metaphors For Law And Lawyering In The Information Agae, Pamela Samuelson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of James Boyle, Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society and M. Ethan Katsh, Law in a Digital World

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 …

Last Writes? Re-Assessing The Law Review In The Age Of Cyberspace, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Articles

This article - the original version of which was published on the author’s website in February 1996, possibly making it the first scholarly article posted online by a law professor before print publication - undertakes a comprehensive re-assessment of the law review from the perspective of the present age of cyberspace. In Part I, I investigate the conditions that initially joined to generate the form, showing how the law review emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the product of the fortuitous interaction of academic circumstances and improvements in publishing technology. In Part II, I trace the …

Telecommunications In Transition: Unbundling, Reintegration, And Competition, David J. Teece

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The world economy is experiencing a technological revolution, fueled by rapid advances in microelectronics, optics, and computer science, that in the 1990s and beyond will dramatically change the way people everywhere communicate, learn, and access information and entertainment. This technological revolution has been underway for about a decade. The emergence of a fully-interactive communications network, sometimes referred to as the "Information Superhighway," is now upon us. This highway, made possible by fiber optics and the convergence of several different technologies, is capable of delivering a plethora of new interactive entertainment, informational, and instructional services that are powerful and user-friendly. The …

A Puzzle Even The Codebreakers Have Trouble Solving: A Clash Of Interests Over The Electronic Encryption Standard, Sean Flynn

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.