Computer Law Commons^™

A Topic Both Timely And Timeless, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

Electronic discovery therefore represents one of the most momentous developments in the everyday life of the modern lawyer. Its effect on civil litigators is obvious, but other lawyers need to pay heed to the issue as well. Transactional attorneys, legislative aides, prosecutors, in-house counsel, and anyone else with legal responsibilities must be aware of the consequences of using electronic means of documentation and communication. Even an act as innocuous as sending an e-mail (an act that occurs thirty-one billion times a day7) creates a digital paper trail that is subject to discovery. Delete a client 's e-mails - or close …

Cracks In The Foundation: The New Internet Legislation's Hidden Threat To Privacy And Commerce, Joshua Fairfield

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Scholarship to date has focused on the legal significance of the novelty of the Internet. This scholarship does not describe or predict actual Internet legislation. Instead of asking whether the Internet is so new as to merit new law, legislators and academics should re-evaluate the role of government in orchestrating collective action and change the relative weight of enforcement, deterrence, and incentives in Internet regulations.

A perfect example of the need for this new approach is the recent CANSPAM Act of 2003, which was intended to protect personal privacy and legitimate businesses. However, the law threatens both of these interests, …

Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing?: Jurgen Bϋssow’S Battle Against Hate-Speech On The Internet, Eric T. Eberwine

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Topic Both Timely And Timeless, James Gibson

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The courtroom is the crucible of the law, where the fire of litigation tests the intellectual and political forces that inform social policy. Discovery - the process by which litigants identify and assemble their evidence - provides the fuel for the fire. Indeed, not long ago most of the evidence that the discovery process produced was, quite literally, flammable: boxes upon boxes of paper documents.

Virtual Worlds, Real Rules, Caroline Bradley, Michael Froomkin

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virtual Worlds As Comparative Law, James Grimmelmann

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who’S In Charge Of Who I Am?: Identity And Law Online, Susan P. Crawford

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Information Privacy In Virtual Worlds: Identifying Unique Concerns Beyond The Online And Offline Worlds, Tal Z. Zarksy

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virtual Crimes, Gregory Lastowka, Dan Hunter

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Aesthetics Of The Family And The Nation: Agoraxchange And Notes Toward Re-Imaging The Future, Jacqueline Stevens

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States V. Irving, Jared Spitalnick

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Violence In Virtual Societies, Peter Judmaier, Jorg Piringer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Turning Worms: Some Thoughts On Liabilities For Spreading Computer Infections, Richard Owens

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Two aspects of the virus/worm liability problem are of particular note. The first is how tightly the Internet binds together many possible defendants; those who build and run it, those who populate it with increasingly complex electronic commerce Web sites, those who provide terminal software, those who send electronic mails, those who design its security algorithms, those who insure it, and those who hack it, amongst others.

The second aspect is how speculative such a review is. Little case law pertains. Even the language of the law(what does it really mean when we assess liability on the basis of a …

Les Consommateurs Et Les Clubs Vidéo Ont-Ils Le Droit De Modifier Les Films À Leur Guise?, René Pépin

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Dans un premier temps, nous voulons étudier le litige en cours. Même si aucune décision sur le fond n’est susceptible d’être rendue à court terme, nous pouvons scruter les prétentions des parties et voir l’état du droit aux États-Unis sur ce sujet. Nous examinerons ensuite comment cette problématique serait traitée au Canada.

Et c’est ici que la question soulevée dans le litige revêt tout son intérêt, car elle met en jeu des notions fonda- mentales en matière de droit d’auteur. On devra ainsi se demander si le fait pour une personne ou une entreprise de retrancher des séquences représentant quelques …

Law As Film: Representing Justice In The Age Of Moving Images, Shulamit Almog, Ely Aharonson

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Two main theses are presented here. The first is that there is a conceptual resemblance between the ways in which messages are transmitted in the courtroom and the ways in which they are transmitted in the cinema. The second is that the evolution of legal procedure is being influenced by developments taking place in visual culture generally and film specifically. Taken together, these theses lead to the conclusion that the development of a theory of ‘‘law-as-film’’ can provide insights into the contemporary practice of law that might otherwise be overlooked.

Access Denied: Improper Use Of The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act To Control Information On Publicly Accessible Internet Websites, Christine Galbraith Davik

Faculty Publications

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was originally enacted in 1984 as a criminal statute to address hacking and the growing problem of computer crime. Recently, however, in an attempt to control competition and maintain market share, a number of companies have sought to prevent entities they deem unwelcome from obtaining data on their websites. Utilizing the civil action provisions of the CFAA, these companies have surprisingly succeeded in convincing federal courts that hacking includes accessing and using the factual information a company has chosen to post on a publicly available website. Despite the fact that many of the …

Getting Serious About User-Friendly Mass Market Licensing For Software, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

Software publishers use standard form end user licenses (“EULAs”) in mass market transactions on a regular basis. Most software users find EULAs perplexing and generally ignore them. Scholars, however, have focused on them intently. In the past twenty years over a hundred scholarly articles have been written on the subject. Most of these articles criticize EULAs and argue that courts should not enforce them. In their critique of EULAs, some scholars examine the adequacy of the offer, acceptance, and consideration. Others discuss EULAs as part of the troublesome issue of standard form contracting, and whether standard forms, on balance, harm …

Internet Contracting And Standard Terms In The Global Electronic Age: Perspectives For Japan, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

This piece is intended to show Japanese law students how their own everyday experiences raise significant domestic and international legal questions. It shows that a seemingly technical matter need not be boring, but can provide an example of practical application of law internationally and of the benefits that knowledge of foreign law can bring in assisting in understanding and improving domestic law. It discusses standard terms in licenses of information and software.

Foreign Investment Restrictions As Industrial Policy: The Case Of Canadian Telecommunications, Robert Crandall, Hal Singer

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

We assess the economic harms that would accrue if Canada were to adopt asymmetric rules of foreign ownership for incumbent carriers and entrants. We explain the current Canadian regulatory climate surrounding foreign investment in Canadian telecommunications. Competition in the telecommunications industry is generally robust, which suggests that rules aimed at favouring entrants are not necessary. Moreover, Canadian entrants are equally capable of attracting foreign capital as Canadian incumbents, which suggests that foreign investment rules aimed at favouring entrants are especially unwise.

Next, we review the U.S. attempt to stimulate competition in local telecommunications markets through an analogous form of asymmetrical …

Freeing The Mind: Free Software And The Death Of Proprietary Culture, Eben Moglen

Faculty Scholarship

The subject matter we are going to talk about is variously named and thewords have some resonances of importance. I am going to use the phrase "Free Software" to describe this material, and I am going to suggest to you that the choice of words is relevant. We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social movement with specific political goals, which will characterize not only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the production and distribution of culture generally.

My purpose this …

The Shrinkwrap Snafu: Untangling The "Extra Element" In Breach Of Contract Claims Based On Shrinkwrap Licenses, Nathan Smith

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Gradual Shift In U.S. Privacy Laws Towards A Comprehensive Regime , Kamaal R. Zaidi

ExpressO

This paper examines the current trends in a predominantly sectoral U.S. privacy regime that appears to be becoming more comprehensive in nature with respect to data privacy protection. This trend has been greatly attributed to the European Union's comprehensive position on data privacy protection. This paper investigates the growth in U.S. data privacy protection in relation to federal and state legislative history, federal administrative procedures, and private industry efforts. This shift from sectoral to comprehensive regimes is significant in the backdrop of U.S-EU trade relations.

Verdugo In Cyberspace: Boundaries Of Fourth Amendment Rights For Foreign Nationals In Cybercrime Cases, Stewart M. Young

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Comment examines the current legal framework governing Fourth Amendment rights for foreign nationals accused of committing crimes within the United States. Over the past three years, federal courts have tried several cases charging foreign nationals with committing crimes through the use of the Internet; these cases demonstrate a lack of clarity in the standard for warrant requirements regarding these searches. Utilizing these cases, this Comment creates a hypothetical case that presents the issues of Fourth Amendment rights for foreign nationals and seeks to determine how such a question should be answered. It advocates the clear application of United States …

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

Working Paper Series

Many participants in the music industry consider unauthorized downloading of music files over the Internet to be “theft” of their “property.” Many Internet users who exchange music files reject that characterization. Prompted by this dispute, 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 musicmaking in Western Europe from the classical period in Greece through the Renaissance, the Article shows that the law first granted some exclusive rights in the Middle …

Technological Protection Measures In The United States, The European Union And Germany - How Much Fair Use Do We Need In The "Digital World"?, Wencke Baesler

ExpressO

This article analyzes the different approaches of the United States and the European Union in the EU Copyright Directive towards the protection of technological protection measures against circumvention. The European and German laws have a radically different approach to fair use that heretofore has not been satisfactorily examined. It is a basic principle of copyright law in the European countries not to provide for a broad fair use exception, but to enumerate specific uses that are excluded from the copyright owner’s right to intervene. However, mostly payment of a reasonable compensation is required. This system is preserved in the recently …

Toward A Criminal Law For Cyberspace: Distributed Security, Susan Brenner

ExpressO

The article analyzes the structure and evolution of the current, traditional model of law enforcement and explains why this model is not an effective means of addressing computer-facilitated criminal activity. It begins by analyzing the operation of rules in collective systems composed of biological or artificial entities; it explains that every such system utilizes basic, constitutive rules to maintain both internal and external order. The article explains that intelligence has a profound effect upon a system’s ability to maintain internal order. Intelligence creates the capacity for deviant behavior, i.e., the refusal to abide by constitutive rules, and this requires the …

Intellectual Property Laws In Harmony With Nafta: The Courts As Mediators Between The Global And The Local, Myra J. Tawfik

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper will argue that domestic courts can pro- vide a forum within which to mediate between these two extremes, to reconcile the ‘‘global’’ and the ‘‘local’’ — but that the courts themselves must adapt to meet the challenges that globalization places upon them. More specifically, the paper begins by setting out a framework for understanding harmonization of laws under NAFTA as one that encourages rather than eliminates diversity of law. The paper then studies the prevailing approaches to statutory interpretation that Canadian courts, most especially the Supreme Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal, have been employing …

Computer Law By George S. Takach (Toronto: Irwin Law Inc., 2000, 2nd Edition), David T.S. Fraser

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Banning Bans On New Reproductive And Novel Genetic Technologies, Matthew Herder

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Commentators argue that statutory prohibitions with the force of the criminal law should not be used to regulate new reproductive technologies (NRTs) and novel genetic technologies (NGTs). Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, however, codifies 10 criminal bans. This paper considers the merits of the various arguments levied against Bill C-13, and the corollary claim that only a "non-prohibitive" model of legislation befits NRTs and NGTs. Three types of arguments are used to critique criminal bans: (1) "Structural" arguments hinge on the constraints of the Canadian legal system - legislation complete with prohibitions runs afoul of the Constitution Act …

Student Protector, Internet Provider, Or Contractual Party? An Examination Of The Legal Relationship Between A University And Its Students, Anna Christine Milot

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The legal relationship between a university and its students is becoming increasingly complex as the use of technology spreads. Accordingly, it is important to define a university’s responsibilities and legal boundaries in order to understand the liability universities can potentially incur when dealing with students. Each Canadian university is unique in its founding and enacting legislation, as will be discussed further later. The individuality of Canada’s universities means that the questions raised in this paper cannot be given answers that can necessarily be generalized across universities. The approach to analysis in this paper, however, is applicable to any of the …