Communications Law Commons^™

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

The Application Of The Right To Be Forgotten In The Machine Learning Context: From The Perspective Of European Laws, Zeyu Zhao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The right to be forgotten has been evolving for decades along with the progress of different statutes and cases and, finally, independently enacted by the General Data Protection Regulation, making it widely applied across Europe. However, the related provisions in the regulation fail to enable machine learning systems to realistically forget the personal information which is stored and processed therein.

This failure is not only because existing European rules do not stipulate standard codes of conduct and corresponding responsibilities for the parties involved, but they also cannot accommodate themselves to the new environment of machine learning, where specific information can …

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

Market Power And Switching Costs: An Empirical Study Of Online Networking Market, Shin-Ru Cheng

University of Cincinnati Law Review

In recent years, states have launched several antitrust investigations targeting digital platforms. A major difficulty in these investigations is demonstrating the extent of a digital platform’s market power. Market power is defined as the control of the output or the price without the loss of business to competitors. As will be explored in this Article, market power is a critical component in an antitrust analysis. On several occasions, courts have adopted the switching costs approach in their analysis of market power. According to this approach, market power may be inferred when the costs of switching from one supplier to another …

Personal Data Privacy And Protective Federal Legislation: An Exploration Of Constituent Position On The Need For Legislation To Control Data Reliant Organizations Collecting And Monetizing Internet-Obtained Personal Data, Giovanni De Meo

Dissertations

In the past twenty years, the business of online personal data collection has grown at the same rapid pace as the internet itself, fostering a multibillion-dollar personal data collection and commercialization industry. Unlike many other large industries, there has been no major federal legislation enacted to monitor or control the activities of organizations dealing in this flourishing industry. The combination of these factors together with the lack of prior research encouraged this research designed to understand how much voters know about this topic and whether there is interest in seeing legislation enacted to protect individual personal data privacy.

To address …

The Environmental Impact Of Technological Innovation: How U.S. Legislation Fails To Handle Electronic Waste's Rapid Growth, Marisa D. Pescatore

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

A Monopoly Of Thought—How Growing Anticompetitive Practices On The Internet Affect Creative Work, Laurel Brown

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will address how dominant Internet companies detrimentally impact creative work and how legal solutions might be employed to combat the damage inflicted by online monopolies. Part I will focus on how certain Internet companies became dominant, showing an evolution from egalitarian ideals to the consolidated control of the World Wide Web (the web) by companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. In Part II, this Note will focus on how two particular companies—Google and Facebook—affect creative endeavors in their control of access to audiences and by determining the economics of content production on the Internet. Part III details what …

Seeing (Platforms) Like A State: Digital Legibility And Lessons For Platform Governance, Neil Chilson

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The growing backlash against Big Tech companies is a symptom of digital technology increasing the world’s legibility. James C. Scott’s book, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, explores how past governments responded to increased legibility – for good and for ill. This article shows how Scott’s historical lessons can guide governments and tech platforms as they seek to improve the human condition online.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

No Ifs, Ands, Or Juuls About It: Why Influencers Must Be Held Accountable, Krystina Dorta

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

This article analyzes how the FTC’s Endorsement Guide regulating the advertising of e-cigarette products should be applied to social media influencers. The struggle to regulate e-cigarettes by the FDA and the FTC has led to different advertising methods, which either comply with or neglect the FTC’s Endorsement Guide. This article evaluates the federal government’s reaction to the e-cigarette health crisis, followed by a review of the FTC’s previous actions addressing Endorsement Guide violations, along with the consequences on other companies’ marketing strategies. Finally, this article reviews influencer liability standards for Endorsement Guide violations and develops recommendations to improve those standards.

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Saving Small Business From The Big Impact Of Data Breach: A Tiered Federal Approach To Data Protection Law, Nadia Udeshi

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Small businesses provide a significant positive impact on the American economy. However, the current fragmented federal and state data protection and breach notification legal scheme puts the viability of small businesses at risk. While the probability of data breaches occurring continues to increase, small businesses lack the financial and technological resources to contend with the various state and federal laws that impose different monetary penalties and remedial requirements in the event of such breaches. To preserve the viability of small businesses, Congress should enact a centralized, multi-tiered federal data protection and breach notification framework that preempts state laws, imposes minimum …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Combating Fake News And Censorship In The Digital Age: How The United Kingdom Serves As A Model For Future Regulatory Intervention In Multimedia M&A Deals, Jake Kline

Cornell International Law Journal

This Note examines how countries should balance the delicate issue of promoting mergers and allowing business owners to make their own decisions while simultaneously preventing any corporation from cornering too large a portion of any multimedia market. While in the past the general public was concerned that their respective governments would suppress the freedom of the press, they now face the reality that corporations likewise engage in censorship activities. The sheer size of the top multimedia corporations today, compounded with unprecedented technological abilities to target each consumer individually, mean their influence upon their audiences has never been stronger. M&A deals …

The Dark Side Of Reputation, Emily Kadens

Cardozo Law Review

This Article seeks to contribute to the literature challenging the role of reputation in disciplining commerce. The historical disputes discussed here, which arose in the supposedly privately-ordered zone of the premodern merchant, add nuance to our understanding of how commerce works in the real world. Part I briefly reviews some of the problems the economic and network theory literature has identified with reputation. Part II turns to the history and demonstrates how trust could be cheaply manufactured due in part to potential partners' failure to look beyond superficial indicia of reputation. Part III then considers why reputation might have been …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collective Shout's Victory Against Sexpo: A Win For Children's Rights, Caitlin Roper

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This report is an account of the legal battle between Australian grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout and Sexpo, the annual sex industry exhibition. Sexpo brought a lawsuit against Collective Shout after their campaign against Sexpo’s promotion of live-streamed porn shows on public buses servicing school routes. In April 2018, Sexpo’s application was dismissed, with Sexpo ordered to pay Collective Shout’s legal costs.

"Distinctive Sounds": A Critique Of The Transformative Fair Use Test In Practice And The Need For A New Music Fair Use Exception, Kristin Bateman

Seattle University Law Review

The Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” resulting in our modern regime of patent, trademark, and copyright law. Over time, however, this artistic tradition of copying has collided with more modern concepts of intellectual property rights, especially copyright protections. The advent of the internet as well as state-of-the-art recording and mixing software has vastly increased opportunities to copy, remix, sample, parody, and otherwise alter the work of other artists, particularly musicians. More than twenty years after Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, transformative fair use has become the predominant test courts have used to …

Curtailing Online Service Provider Immunity From Liability: An Advocacy For The Entension Of Roommates.Com, Corey Patton

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was enacted following the controversial decision in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Servs. Co., where an interactive computer service provider was held liable for a libelous message posted by a user on one of its financial message boards. The court determined that the service provider was a “publisher” of the libelous message for the purposes of state law because it had engaged in screening and moderating of other objectionable posts on its message boards but failed to remove the libelous message in question. Because the service provider voluntarily self-policed some of the …

Remnants Of Net Neutrality: Policing Unlawful Content Through Broadband Providers, Aaron Lerman

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The 2015 Open Internet Order, released by The Federal Communication Commission (FCC), introduced sweeping, new rules that promised to preserve an equal and open Internet to consumers. These rules, otherwise known as “Net Neutrality,” prohibited broadband and internet service providers from impairing, blocking, or throttling access to “lawful content” online. But with a new administration and agenda, the FCC’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order repealed Net Neutrality. Since then, various states have pushed back against the repeal, with some adopting their own versions of the 2015 Open Internet Order’s Net Neutrality, keeping most of the rule language intact, including the …

Law School News: 'Marketplace Of Ideas' Imperiled (04-05-2018), David A. Logan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Corporate Social Responsibility And Social Media Corporations: Incorporating Human Rights Through Rankings, Self-Regulation And Shareholder Resolutions, Erika George

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the emergence and evolution of selected ranking and reporting frameworks in the expanding realm of business and human rights advocacy. It explores how indicators in the form of rankings and reports evaluating the conduct of transnational corporate actors can serve as regulatory tools with potential to bridge a global governance gap that often places human rights at risk. This article examines the relationship of transnational corporations in the Internet communications technology sector (ICT sector) to human rights and the risks presented to the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy when ICT sector companies …

Privacy Of Information And Dna Testing Kits, Shanna Raye Mason

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

In modern times, consumers desire for more control over their own health and healthcare. With this growing interest of control, direct to consumer DNA testing kits have never been more popular. However, many consumers are unaware of the potential privacy concerns associated with such use. This comment examines the popularity and privacy risks that are likely unknown to the individual consumer. This comment also addresses the shortcomings of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), as well as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) in regard to protecting individual’s genetic information from misuse. This comment …

Alexa, Who Owns My Pillow Talk? Contracting, Collaterizing, And Monetizing Consumer Privacy Through Voice-Captured Personal Data, Anne Logsdon Smith

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

With over one-fourth of households in the U.S. alone now using voice-activated digital assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo (better known as “Alexa”) and Google’s Home, companies are recording and transmitting record volumes of voice data from the privacy of people’s homes to servers across the globe. These devices capture conversations about everything from online shopping to food preferences to entertainment recommendations to bedtime stories, and even phone and appliance use. With “Big Data” and business analytics expected to be a $203 billion-plus industry by 2020, companies are racing to acquire and leverage consumer data by selling it, licensing it, …

The Commercial Difference, Felix T. Wu

Articles

When it comes to the First Amendment, commerciality does, and should, matter. This Article develops the view that the key distinguishing characteristic of corporate or commercial speech is that the interest at stake is “derivative,” in the sense that we care about the speech interest for reasons other than caring about the rights of the entity directly asserting a claim under the First Amendment. To say that the interest is derivative is not to say that it is unimportant, and one could find corporate and commercial speech interests to be both derivative and strong enough to apply heightened scrutiny to …

Throttle Me Not: 2015 Open Internet Order Protects Unlimited Data Plan Users, Shawn Marcum

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.