Computer Law Commons^™

A Quick And Inexpensive System For Resolving Peer-To-Peer Copyright Disputes, Mark A. Lemley, R. Anthony Reese

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Making Sense Of Payments Policy In The Information Age, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

Although I had been mulling over the ideas in this Essay for quite some time, I finally was driven to put the ideas on paper by a call from a colleague one Friday afternoon. He recently had purchased something on the Internet. Regrettably, the Internet merchant had never shipped the goods; apparently the merchant had failed. My colleague had given the merchant the number from his Visa card to pay for the transaction. Being well educated, my colleague assumed that he could have the charge removed from his credit card statement.

When he called the toll-free service line for the …

Do Patents Facilitate Financing In The Software Industry?, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is the first part of a wide study of the role of intellectual property in the software industry. Unlike previous papers that focus primarily on software patents – which generally are held by firms that are not software firms – this Article provides a thorough and contextually grounded description of the role that patents play in the software industry itself.

The bulk of the Article considers the pros and cons of patents in the software industry. The Article starts by emphasizing the difficulties that prerevenue startups face in obtaining any value from patents. Litigation to enforce patents is …

Leveraging Knowledge Assets: Can Law Reform Help?, Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Mark Perry

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper asks whether there is a need for law-makers to aid in the efficient transition to a new knowledge-based economic and social environment through the use of intellectual property devices. The use of such devices was effective in assisting with the transition to an industrial society that, combined with developments in commercial law and secured transactions, further fuelled economic growth in Canada. Can these disparate areas of law be brought together to provide opportunities for the growth of knowledge-based business? The Law Commission of Canada instigated a two-part investigation into these questions. The investigation culminated in the Commission's report …

Whazup With The Whois?, Sheldon Burshtein

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The WHOIS is a database directory of domain names and relevant contact information maintained by each top-level domain (TLD) registry, which lists all relevant registrant contact information for each domain name registration. Through its contracts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) requires registries and registrars to collect and display technical information and contact details for all registrants. The WHOIS is an important component of the domain name system (DNS). The WHOIS is used for a wide variety of purposes by registries, registrars, registrants, law enforcement authorities, consumers, and the general public. The WHOIS may enable identification of …

A Review Of Canadian Radiocommunications Law Around "Jammers", Tyson Macauley

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This comment argues that the Radiocommunications Act should be amended to relax the prohibition on specific types of ‘‘smart’’ jamming in the Industry Science Medicine (ISM) bands. Specifically, the legislation requires increased flexibility and granularity to accom- modate new wireless technologies in the ISM bands — particularly wireless LAN (WLAN) technologies like IEEEE 802.11b/IEEE 802.11g (WiFi), and IEEE 802.11a (henceforth collectively know as ‘‘ISM radios’’).

The availability of cheap, mass-produced ISM radios hardware and the proliferation of applications using the ISM spectrum bands of 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz present a variety of security and privacy concerns that cannot be effectively addressed …

Fundamentals Of Information Technology By Sunny Handa (Markham: Lexisnexis Canada Inc., 2004), Barbara Darby

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In the early 1990s, I purchased my first stereo with a CD player. I found myself trapped in a conversation with someone who tried to convince me that it was utter folly not to buy a turntable, because CD technology simply couldn’t replicate the ‘‘warmth’’ of vinyl. Had I only Handa’s book to hand, I could have provided a straight- forward and understandable explanation for why my records were well enough left in my parents’ basement; although ‘‘digitization . . . fails to record all characteristics of analog data, even at the highest finite sampling rate . . . Complete …

Introduction: Contains Cover, Table Of Contents, Letter From The Editor, And Masthead, Sean Sullivan Kumar

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

I hope you enjoy the second issue of Volume XI of the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology. The Editorial Board and Staff worked diligently with four outstanding authors to prepare this issue. We are proud to present timely articles by two professors, a practitioner, and the winner of the Journal’s staff casenote competition.

General Public License 3.0: Hacking The Free Software Movement's Constitution, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

The General Public License (GPL) enshrines a software hacker’s freedom to use code in important ways. Hackers often refer to the GPL as the free software movement’s “constitution.” Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) wrote the most recent version of the GPL, version 2.0, back in 1991. For a constitution, a fourteen-year-old document is young, but for a license, it is quite old. The revision process is finally underway, led by Stallman and Eben Moglen, FSF’s general counsel.

The release of GPL version 3.0 will be momentous for many reasons, but one reason stands out: The GPL …

Contracting Spyware By Contract, Jane K. Winn

Articles

The question of what constitutes "spyware" is controversial because many programs that are adware in the eyes of their distributors may be perceived as spyware in the eyes of the end user. Many of these programs are loaded on the computers of end users after the end user has agreed to the terms of a license presented in a click-through interface.

This paper analyzes whether it might be possible to reduce the volume of unwanted software loaded on end users' computers by applying contract law doctrine more strictly. Unwanted programs are often bundled with programs that the end user wants, …

Data Matching, Data Mining, And Due Process, Daniel J. Steinbock

Georgia Law Review

The Article concerns the governmental use of computerized data matching (comparison of records) and data mining (profiling),which increasingly are aimed at locating potential terrorists. The most striking aspect of virtually all anti-terrorist data matching and data mining decisions is the total absence of even the most rudimentary procedures for notice, hearing, or other opportunities for meaningful participation before, or even after, the deprivation is imposed. The Article evaluates under Fourth Amendment and due process standards a variety of law enforcement activities data matching or data mining might instigate. After reviewing these activities' potential effects on private, governmental, and accuracy interests, …

Video Games As A Protected Form Of Expression, Paul E. Salamanca

Georgia Law Review

Video games, like motion pictures, failed to qualify for First Amendment protection until well after they emerged as a medium. Today, a number of courts have held that such games constitute a form of expression and do not fall into any recognized category of unprotected speech. Nevertheless, a number of commentators have called for limited constitutional protection for video games, predicating their arguments on a variety of grounds, including the alleged deleterious effects of such games on children. This Article responds to these commentators and defends recent decisions extending protection to video games.