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Full-Text Articles in Law

Known And Unknown, Property And Contract: Comments On Hoofnagle And Moringiello, James Grimmelmann Oct 2010

Known And Unknown, Property And Contract: Comments On Hoofnagle And Moringiello, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In addition to gerund-noun-noun titles and a concern with the misaligned incentives of businesses that handle consumers' financial data, Chris Hoofnagle's Internalizing Identity Theft and Juliet Moringiello's Warranting Data Security share something else: hidden themes. Hoofnagle's paper is officially about an empirical study of identity theft, but behind the scenes it's also an exploration of where we draw the line between public information shared freely and secret information used to authenticate individuals. Moringiello's paper is officially a proposal for a new warranty of secure handling of payment information, but under the surface, it invites us to think about the relationship …


Principles Of The Law Of Software Contracts: Some Highlights, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke Jun 2010

Principles Of The Law Of Software Contracts: Some Highlights, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The final draft of the Principles of the Law of Software Contracts ("Principles") was unanimously approved by the American Law Institute membership in May of 2009. The goal of the project is to “clarify and unify the law of software transactions.” However, the Principles will not become law in any jurisdiction unless and until a court adopts them, so only time will tell whether the project will accomplish this goal. Nevertheless, one thing is certain. The current law of software transactions, a mish-mash of common law, Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and federal intellectual property law, among other …


Contract Law In Context: The Case Of Software Contracts, Robert A. Hillman Jan 2010

Contract Law In Context: The Case Of Software Contracts, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The membership of The American Law Institute unanimously approved the “Principles of the Law of Software Contracts” in May of 2009. In this essay for a symposium in the Wake Forest Law Review, I draw on my experience as Reporter on the ALI project to add my perspective on an interesting general question: Is specialization of contract law wise and, if so, in what contexts? I certainly cannot definitively answer the question of whether in the abstract society is better off with general or specialized law, but my experience in drafting the software rules, along with Associate Reporter, Maureen O'Rourke, …


Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke Jan 2010

Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Our fast-paced age of electronic agreements that ostensibly govern transactions as diverse as downloading software, ordering goods, and engaging in collaborative development projects raises questions regarding the suitability of contract law as the appropriate legal framework. While this question arises in many settings, we focus here on the free and open source software (FOSS) movement because of the maturity and success of its model and the ubiquity of its software. We explore in particular whether open source licenses are supported by consideration, and argue that they are, and that open source licenses are contracts. We further argue that a contractual …