Law Commons^™

Explaining Florida Man, Ira P. Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

"Florida Man" is a popular cultural phenomenon in which journalists report on Floridians'unusual (and often criminal) behavior, and readers relish in and share the stories, largely on social media. A meme based on Florida Man news stories emerged in 2013 and continues to capture people's attention nationwide. Florida man is one of the latest unique trends to come from the Sunshine State and contributes to Florida's reputation as a quirky place.

Explanations for Florida Man center on Florida'sPublic Records Law, which is known as one of the most expansive open records laws in the country. All states and the District …

Speech Across Borders, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As both governments and tech companies seek to regulate speech online, these efforts raise critical, and contested, questions about how far those regulations can and should extend. Is it enough to take down or delink material in a geographically segmented way? Or can and should tech companies be ordered to takedown or delink unsavory content across their entire platforms—no matter who is posting the material or where the unwanted content is viewed? How do we deal with conflicting speech norms across borders? And how do we protect against the most censor-prone nation effectively setting global speech rules? These questions were …

Internet Of Infringing Things: The Effect Of Computer Interface Copyrights On Technology Standards, Charles Duan

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

You connect to the Internet via your Wi-Fi access point. You surf the Web using a browser and send emails through your email server. You probably use some USB peripherals-say a mouse, keyboard, or printer. Maybe you even watch cable or broadcast television.

Under current case law, each of those computer systems and devices may very well be copyright-infringing contraband. This is through no fault of your own-you need not be pirating music or streaming illegal movies to infringe a copyright. The infringement simply exists, hard-wired within each of those devices and many more that you use, a result of …

Reining In A 'Renegade' Court: Tc Heartland And The Eastern District Of Texas, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, the Supreme Court tightened the venue requirement for patent cases, making it more difficult for a plaintiff to demonstrate that a district court has venue over a defendant. Many commentators, however, view TC Heartland as merely a “reshuffling” of the district courts that receive patent cases. Whereas before the case, a large percentage of patent cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas, now, after TC Heartland, various other U.S. district courts (principally, the District of Delaware) have experienced an increase in patent infringement filings. Some commentators are unconvinced that this …

Borders And Bits, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Our personal data is everywhere and anywhere, moving across national borders in ways that defy normal expectations of how things and people travel from Point A to Point B. Yet, whereas data transits the globe without any intrinsic ties to territory, the governments that seek to access or regulate this data operate with territorial-based limits. This Article tackles the inherent tension between how governments and data operate, the jurisdictional conflicts that have emerged, and the power that has been delegated to the multinational corporations that manage our data across borders as a result. It does so through the lens of …

The Ongoing Challenge To Define Free Speech, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Internet Freedom With Teeth, Charles Duan

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

"You make the very salient statement that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a case about teeth. Well, Markman was a case about dry cleaning. But nobody thinks of Markman as standing for anything about dry cleaning."

So went what was Chief Judge Prost's perhaps most striking question to the attorney for the International Trade Commission at oral argument in ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. International Trade Commission, which is the focus of Professor Sapna Kumar's recent article Regulating Digital Trade. Yet this is what remains so fascinating about ClearCorrect: an administrative agency decision about idiosyncratic facts …

Trial By Google: Judicial Notice In The Information Age, Andrew Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article presents a theory of judicial notice for the information age. It argues that the ease of accessing factual data on the Internet allows judges and litigants to expand the use of judicial notice in ways that raise significant concerns about admissibility, reliability, and fair process. State and federal courts are already applying the surprisingly pliant judicial notice rules to bring websites ranging from Google Maps to Wikipedia into the courtroom, and these decisions will only increase in frequency in coming years. This rapidly emerging judicial phenomenon is notable for its ad hoc and conclusory nature – attributes that …

Pinterest And Copyright's Safe Harbors For Internet Providers, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Has the time come to substantially revise the Copyright Act to better adapt the law to the ever-evolving digital environment? A number of influential sources appear to think so. If their initiatives gain momentum, it will be important to consider lessons learned from the first such effort fifteen years ago when Congress made far-reaching changes to copyright law by extending the term of copyright for twenty years and by enacting a package of reform proposals known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This Article intertwines the story of one important provision of the DMCA - safe harbors for Internet …

The Referendum Process In Maryland: Balancing Respect For Representative Government With The Right To Direct Democracy, Steven G. Shapiro

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article will examine the Maryland referendum petition process to determine whether any changes in the current law should or could be made. This includes whether the legislature should reverse the holding in Whitley, whether it should add additional requirements to and restrictions on the signature gathering process, and whether the percentage of voters needed for a successful challenge should be increased.

First, as a matter of policy, should the law be changed? For example, does it strike the proper balance between respect for the legislative process and allowing for more voices in legislative matters by the public at large? …

Toward A Broadband Public Interest Standard, Anthony E. Varona

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Although they emerged seven decades apart, commercial broadcasting and the Internet were greeted with similar excited declarations of their potential to transform American democracy by hosting an electronic free marketplace of ideas that would inform and enlighten citizens and catalyze discussion on issues of public importance. The federal government played a central role in the initial development and proliferation of both technologies, but then assumed very different regulatory orientations to the two industries once they were commercialized. In broadcasting, the government took on an interventionist posture promoting civic republican First Amendment values by means of a variety of public interest …

Out Of Thin Air: Using First Amendment Public Forum Analysis To Redeem American Broadcasting Regulation, Anthony E. Varona

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

American television and radio broadcasters are uniquely privileged among Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensees. Exalted as public trustees by the 1934 Communications Act, broadcasters pay virtually nothing for the use of their channels of public radiofrequency spectrum, unlike many other FCC licensees who have paid billions of dollars for similar digital spectrum. Congress envisioned a social contract of sorts between broadcast licensees and the communities they served. In exchange for their free licenses, broadcast stations were charged with providing a platform for a free marketplace of ideas that would cultivate a democratically engaged and enlightened citizenry through the broadcasting of …

Thwarting Ethical Violations With Web Site Disclaimers, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Whose Music Is It Anyway? How We Came To View Musical Expression As A Form Of Property, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Many participants in the music industry consider unauthorized transmissions of music files over the Internet to be theft of their property. Many Internet users who exchange music files reject this characterization. Prompted by the dispute over unauthorized music distribution, this Article explores how those who create and distribute music first came to look upon music as their property and when in Western history the law first supported this view. By analyzing the economic and legal structures governing music making in Western Europe from the classical period in Greece through the Renaissance, the Article shows that the law first granted some …

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Logos, Links, And Lending: Towards Standardized Privacy And Use Policies For Banking Web Sites, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Withdrawal Of The Reference: Rights, Rules, And Remedies For Unwelcomed Web-Linking, Walter Effross

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Garbage In: Emerging Media And Regulation Of Unsolicited Commercial Solicitiations, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

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.