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Full-Text Articles in Law
Proving Fair Use: Burden Of Proof As Burden Of Speech, Ned Snow
Proving Fair Use: Burden Of Proof As Burden Of Speech, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Courts have created a burden of proof in copyright that chills protected speech. The doctrine of fair use purports to ensure that copyright law does not trample rights of speakers whose expression employs copyrighted material. Yet those speakers face a burden of proof that weighs heavily in the fair use analysis, where factual inquiries are often subjective and speculative. Failure to satisfy the burden means severe penalties, which prospect quickly chills the free exercise of speech that constitutes a fair use. The fair-use burden of proof is repugnant to the fair use purpose. Today, copyright holders are exploiting the burden …
A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy, Ned Snow
A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
The practice of email forwarding deprives email senders of privacy. Expression meant for only a specific recipient often finds its way into myriad inboxes or onto a public website, exposed for all to see. Simply by clicking the "forward" button, email recipients routinely strip email senders of expressive privacy. The common law condemns such conduct. Beginning over two-hundred-fifty years ago, courts recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold property rights in their expression. Under common-law copyright, authors held a right to control whether their correspondence was published to third parties. This common-law protection of private expression was nearly absolute, immune …
Accessing The Internet Through The Neighbor's Wireless Internet Connection: Physical Trespass In Virtual Reality, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
As wireless computer networks are becoming commonplace, so also is the practice of accessing the Internet through another's wireless network. The practice raises a simple question of law: Does accessing a wireless network, without express authorization, violate the property rights of the network operator? This Article argues that it does. A neighbor who intentionally accesses the Internet through a network operator's connection appears to trespass on physical property of the operator - the operator's router. Recent Internet jurisprudence suggests that the electronic signals that the neighbor sends through the router are sufficient to find trespassory physical contact. The same jurisprudence …
The Constitutional Failing Of The Anticybersquatting Act, Ned Snow
The Constitutional Failing Of The Anticybersquatting Act, Ned Snow
Faculty Publications
Eminent domain and thought control are occurring in cyberspace. Through the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), the government transfers domain names from domain-name owners to private parties based on the owners' bad-faith intent. The owners receive no just compensation. The private parties who are recipients of the domain names are trademark holders whose trademarks correspond with the domain names. Often the trademark holders have no property rights in those domain names: trademark law only allows mark holders to exclude others from making commercial use of their marks; it does not allow mark holders to reserve the marks for their own …