Internet Law Commons^™

The Ghost Of Telecommunications Past, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

Paul Starr's The Creation of the Media presents modern policymakers with an important opportunity to consider the historical lessons of the telecommunications industry. This Book Review underscores how Starr's book richly explains some key components of U.S. information policy - such as relying on an integrated strategy of intellectual property, antitrust law, and telecommunications policy - and that some historical lessons are misplaced as to today's environment - such as a categorical skepticism of vertical integration. Moreover, Starr's account of telecommunications history explains that the U.S.'s success in promoting innovation in the information industries reflects our reluctance to manage key …

Trademark Law And The Social Construction Of Trust: Creating The Legal Framework For Online Identity, Beth Simone Noveck

Articles & Chapters

Trust is the foundation of society for without trust, we cannot

cooperate. Trust, in turn, depends upon secure, reliable, and persistent

identity. Cyberspace is thought to challenge our ability to build trust

because the medium undermines the connection between online

pseudonym and offline identity. We have no assurances of who stands

behind an online avatar; it may be one person, it may be more, it may be a

computer. The legal debate to date has focused exclusively on the question

of how to maintain real world identity in cyberspace. But new "social

software" technology that enables communities from eBay to …

For-Bid Scalping Online?: Anti-Scalping Legislation In An Internet Society, Daniel Glantz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rewriting The Telecom Act: An Introduction, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Trademark Law And The Social Construction Of Trust: Creating The Legal Framework For On-Line Identity, Beth Simone Noveck

Articles & Chapters

Trust is the foundation of society for without trust, we cannot cooperate. Trust, in turn, depends upon secure, reliable, and persistent identity. Cyberspace is thought to challenge our ability to build trust because the medium undermines the connection between online pseudonym and offline identity. We have no assurances of who stands behind an online avatar; it may be one person, it may be more, it may be a computer. The legal debate to date has focused exclusively on the question of how to maintain real world identity in cyberspace. But new "social software" technology that enables communities from eBay to …

Governing By Negotiation: The Internet Naming System, Tamar Frankel

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The governance of the Internet naming system is at a critical juncture, characterized by instability and power struggles. ICANN, while central to the system, operates on a precarious foundation due to its short-term contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which grants the U.S. significant control. The system's structure is vague, relying on ad hoc decisions rather than fixed rules, leading to a complex interplay between governments, registries, and ICANN. The article employs game theory to analyze these dynamics, highlighting the challenges in balancing structure and flexibility amidst evolving stakeholders' roles and internationalization pressures.

Staying Afloat In The Internet Stream: How To Keep Web Radio From Drowning In Digital Copyright Royalties, Emily D. Harwood

Federal Communications Law Journal

In the 1990's, the development of "streaming" technology allowed webcasters to begin broadcasting music on the Internet. The public took advantage of a plethora of free media players, and the number of web-based radio stations soared. However, a crippling dispute over broadcast rates left the viability of this technology in doubt. This Note criticizes current policies that curtail radio streaming by providing harsh financial restrictions on webcasters. In looking to the future, this Note argues that Congress should extend licensing exemptions to cover those Internet stations most like their AM/FM counterparts who do not have to pay additional fees.

No Wonder They Dislike Us: Us Admonishes Europe For Protecting Itself From Microsoft's Predation, Albert A. Foer, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This short article applauds the European Commission for holding that Microsoft violated European competition laws, and admonishes the U.S. for criticizing the Europeans for protecting themselves from Microsoft's anticompetitive activity.

Legislating The Tower Of Babel: International Restrictions On Internet Content And The Marketplace Of Ideas, Michael F. Sutton

Federal Communications Law Journal

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the expression of diverse viewpoints in virtually any medium. Nevertheless, the modern novelty of "borderless" communication via the Internet strains our ideal of keeping government out of the business of regulating speech. This Note reveals the conflict between the First Amendment's national protections and the Internet's lack of national boundaries, while also arguing for international intervention for the protection of free speech. This Author articulates the real danger of "watered-down speech" unless both the FCC and the international community provide regulations and harmonized international standards for online content that reflect First Amendment …

Introduction: A Regulatory Regime For The Internet Age, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Icann And Antitrust, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

National identification ("ID") cards appear increasingly inevitable. National ID cards have the potential to be repressive and privacy destroying, but it is also possible to design a system that captures more benefits than costs. Because the United States currently lacks a single, reliable credential, private businesses have trouble authenticating their customers and matching data among distributed databases. This Article argues that the desire for reliable ID creates a window of opportunity for the federal government to strike a bargain: offer private businesses the use of a reliable credential in the form of a national ID card, on the condition that …

The Internet, Innovation, And Intellectual Property Policy, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

The Internet continues to transform the information industries and challenge intellectual property law to develop a competition policy strategy to regulate networked products. In particular, inventors of "information platforms" that support the viewing of content-be they instant messaging systems, media players, or Web browsers-face a muddled set of legal doctrines that govern the scope of available intellectual property protection. This uncertainty reflects a fundamental debate about what conditions will best facilitate innovation in the information industries--a debate most often played out at the conceptual extremes between the "commons" and "proprietary control" approaches to the Internet and intellectual property policy.

This …

Modularity, Vertical Integration, And Open Access Policies: Towards A Convergence Of Antitrust And Regulation In The Internet Age, Joseph Farrell, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

Antitrust law and telecommunications regulation have long adopted different stances on whether to mandate open access to information platforms. This article aims to help regulators and commentators incorporate both Chicago School and post-Chicago School arguments in evaluating this basic policy choice, suggesting how they can be integrated in an effective manner. In particular, the authors outline three alternative models that the FCC could adopt to guide its regulation of information platforms and facilitate a true convergence between antitrust and regulatory policy.

What’S In A Name?, Jonathan Zittrain

Federal Communications Law Journal

Book Review: Ruling the Root, Milton L. Mueller, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002, 301 pages.

A review of Milton L. Mueller's Ruling the Root, The MIT Press, 2002. In the spring of 1998, the U.S. government told the Internet: Govern yourself. This unfocused order-a blandishment, really, expressed as an awkward "statement of policy" by the Department of Commerce, carrying no direct force of law-came about because the management of obscure but critical centralized Internet functions was at a political crossroads. In Ruling the Root, Mueller thoroughly documents the colorful history both before and after this moment of inflection, and gives …

A Common Carrier Approach To Internet Interconnection, James B. Speta

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article argues that some generalized interconnection rules are broadly appropriate. Specifically, some lessons learned from the ancient regime of common carrier regulation provide the appropriate regulatory foundation for the modern Internet. Since at least the middle ages, most significant carriers of communications and commerce have been regulated as common carriers. Common carrier rules have resolved the disputed issues of duty to serve, nondiscrimination, and interconnection. These were the problems of seventeenth-century ferry owners and innkeepers, eighteenth-century steamships, nineteenth-century railroads, and twentieth-century telephone networks. They are similar to the problems of the twenty-first-century Internet, and similar rules can govern its …

A Digital Free Trade Zone And Necessarily-Regulated Self-Governance For Electronic Commerce: The World Trade Organization, International Law, And Classical Liberalism In Cyberspace, 20 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 595 (2002), Kristi L. Bergemann

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

In the absence of a world government, cross border trade is always subject to rules that must be politically negotiated among nations that are sovereign in their own realm but not outside their borders. The author explores the development of an international trade and e-commerce paradigm in two main phases as the Internet superhighway bridges nations together. She argues that the construction of an international trading framework must strike the appropriate balance between institutional order and norms and the human and business realities of free trade and democracy. She further argues that the balance can be achieved by creating an …

Vietnam’S Antitrust Legislation And Subscription To E-Asean: An End To The Bamboo Firewall Over Internet Regulation, 20 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 631 (2002), Robert Neil Wilkey

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

As a result of an unprecedented congestion of its Internet and mobile phone communications, many technocrats in Vietnam trace such problems to government policy driven by security concerns. Therefore, the author in this article analyzes Vietnam's regulatory response to Internet technology. The author first discusses the historical background of Vietnam's management and regulatory policy over the Internet. He argues that the policy is essentially the result of socialist assumptions of the state's dominant role in the country's economic growth. Under its 1997 decree regarding Internet usage, the General Director of the General Postal Bureau has the exclusive authority and primary …

Law And Information Platforms, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

Is Isp-Bound Traffic Local Or Interstate?, Thomas W. Bonnett

Federal Communications Law Journal

The shape of communications policy has been influenced by the jurisdictional tension between federal and state agencies and by the interplay between rival telecommunication providers. From the outset, the publicly switched telephone network (“PSTN”) was monopolistic and dually regulated by federal and state agencies. In recent years, facilitated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, vast competition in the local exchange market has developed between incumbent carriers and competitive carriers. This Article provides an overview of this competition and analyzes the dual regulation of the PSTN. In addition, this Article discusses the dispute between incumbents and competitive carriers as to whether …

My Reputation Always Had More Fun Than Me: The Failure Of Ebay's Feedback Model To Effectively Prevent Online Auction Fraud, Mary M. Calkins

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Online auctions for goods are currently a popular and lucrative form of e-commerce, but present special problems of trust and fraud prevention, because most deals involve buyers and sellers who do not know each other and are separated by distance. Online auctions for goods have been largely unregulated by formal laws. For that reason, trust-building and fraud prevention have primarily been accomplished through creative private regulatory models implemented by the auction houses themselves. This Comment examines one popular model, a registration and feedback system pioneered by the leading online auction company, eBay. Under this system, a user builds a public …

Limiting Tort Liability For Online Third-Party Content Under Section 230 Of The Communications Act, Jonathan A. Friedman, Francis M. Buono

Federal Communications Law Journal

Section 230 of the Communications Act provides online service providers (OSPs) with immunity from liability for harms arising from third-party content that is made available through an OSP's services. Some courts have recently held that section 230 immunity covers not only defamation but any tort claim that would make an OSP liable for information originating from the OSP's users or commercial partners. This Article argues that section 230 has been properly interpreted by the courts and that, contrary to the claims of critics, those decisions have not created a disincentive for OSPs aggressively to monitor their sites for defamatory or …

Www.Franchisedisclosure.Com: Assessing The Ftc's Proposed Franchise Rule Provisions Involving Electronic Disclosure, Perry C. Siatis

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright Misuse And Modified Copyleft: New Solutions To The Challenges Of Internet Standardization, Chip Patterson

Michigan Law Review

The Internet is a truly global community within which myriad economic, social and technological forces interplay to cause its standardization. Much of the competition in the industry has revolved around which product will become the standard for a given market sector. Some markets have seen victors; for example, TCP/IP is the Internet communication protocol, MP3 appears to be dominating music compression, and Microsoft Corporation's Windows ("Windows") is clearly the standard operating system. Similarly, the Internet must adopt a standard for web browsing and searching, for email, and for web programming. In many cases, the competition for this standard will be …

Online Auction Fraud: Are The Auction Houses Doing All They Should Or Could To Stop Online Fraud?, James M. Snyder

Federal Communications Law Journal

In April 1998, the FTC released a consumer alert pertaining to the increasing problem of online auction fraud. As the number of online auction participants increased, online auction fraud was becoming more prevalent. The FTC requested comments regarding methods that would be appropriate for curbing the increase in consumer deception. Many in the online auction industry proposed voluntary self-regulation. This Note exposes the inadequacy of industry self-regulation by analogizing online auction abuse with the misuse and near downfall of the 900-number industry. This Note proposes that only a regime of strict industry guidelines that the FTC initiates will halt online …

Paradigm Changes In Telecommunications Regulation, Phil Weiser

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Common Law In Cyberspace, Tom W. Bell

Michigan Law Review

Wrong in interesting ways, counts for high praise among academics. Peter Huber's stirring new book, Law and Disorder in Cyberspace, certainly merits acclaim by that standard. The very subtitle of the book, Abolish the FCC and Let Common Law Rule the Telecosm, announces the daring arguments to follow. A book so bold could hardly fail to make some stimulating errors, the most provocative of which this review discusses. Thanks to his willingness to challenge musty doctrines of telecommunications law and policy, moreover, Huber gets a great deal right. Law and Disorder in Cyberspace argues at length that the Federal Communications …

The Information Superhighway: Trolls At The Tollgate, Charles M. Oliver

Federal Communications Law Journal

Prior to the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, policymakers sought funding and regulatory mechanisms capable of fulfilling the vision of an Information Superhighway. Vice President Gore, the Clinton Administration's point person on the issue, initially proposed assessing fees on other sectors of the telecommunications industry to fund construction. Meanwhile, conservatives asserted that deregulation of the industry would achieve the desired result. A compromise ultimately was reached: the 1996 Act requires local exchange carriers to unbundle their networks and provide access at a reasonable cost to competitors. The use of regulatory formulas in lieu of taxes to subsidize a national …

Commercialism And The Downfall Of Internet Self Governance: An Application Of Antitrust Law, 16 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 125 (1997), David A. Gottardo

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This article discusses the proliferation of on-line commercialism on the Internet and the various problems related to the increase of commercialism. Spamming, which is defined as the distribution of large amounts of unsolicited information, has been the major form of commercialism and arguably the most problematic. The article emphasizes the attempts to reduce the problem of on-line commercialism through preventative measures, such as self-governance on the Internet. While the author states that self-governance may be a solution to the problem of excessive commercialism, he also states that self-governance may give rise to problems, such as intervention by the federal government …

Copying To Compete: The Tension Between Copyright Protection & Antitrust Policy In Recent Non-Literal Computer Program Copyright Infringement Cases, 15 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 171 (1996), Mark L. Gordon

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

A conflict exists between copyright law and antitrust policy. The conflict arises because pursuant to the Copyright Act, a copyright owner basically has a monopoly on the work's circulation throughout the market. Copyright protection benefits the owner and the public. Antitrust laws have the same goals. However, the antitrust laws balance these goals with competition in the market. Furthermore, computer programs complicate matters because the programs create a different problem than with other types of works. The Copyright Act states that "expression" is copyrightable and "ideas" are not. Computer programs, however, combine expression and ideas. Three types of copying are …

Welcoming Remarks And Statement Of The Issues, Fred H. Cate

Federal Communications Law Journal

The creation, manipulation, transmission, storage, and use of information constitute the United States' and the world's largest economic sector, affecting almost every aspect of business, education, government, and entertainment. The convener of From Conduit to Content: The Emergence of Information Policy and Law introduces The Annenberg Washington Program forum by noting the proliferation of information technologies and services, the diversity of industries and interests affected, and the number of government entities with jurisdiction, that contribute to both the complexity and the importance of information policy making.

From Conduit to Content: The Emergence of Information Policy and Law. The Annenberg Washington …