Internet Law Commons^™

With The Emergence Of Public Benefit Corporations, Directors Of Traditional For-Profit Companies Should Tread Cautiously, But Welcome The Opportunity To Invest In Social Enterprise, Mckenzie Holden Granum

Seattle University Law Review

Social entrepreneurship has become the popular term used to describe business forms that aim to produce profits while also seeking to significantly advance one or more social or environmental goals. In response to an increase in social entrepreneurship across sectors—from progressive industries like organic farming to conservative industries such as insurance and banking—several states have adopted new corporate governance structures. Such legislation allows incorporating businesses to choose an off-the-shelf formation type that embeds a social mission into its legal structure. The bulk of the newly implemented statutory forms provide not only a new framework for social entrepreneurs to work within, …

Boards Of Directors As Mediating Hierarchs, Margaret M. Blair

Seattle University Law Review

In June of 2014, the board of directors of Demoulas Supermarkets, Inc.—better known as Market Basket, a mid-sized chain of grocery stores in New England—decided to oust the man who had been CEO for the previous six years, Arthur T. Demoulas. Most likely, the board of directors did not anticipate what happened next: Thousands of employees, customers, and fans of Market Basket boycotted the stores and staged noisy public protests asking the board to reinstate “Arthur T.” The reaction by employees and customers made what had been a simmering, nasty, intrafamily feud within the closely held Market Basket chain into …

The Long Road To Reformulating The Understanding Of Directors' Duties: Legalizing Team Production Theory?, Thomas Clarke

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, the historical evolution of corporate governance is considered, highlighting the different eras of governance, the dominant theoretical and practical paradigms, and the reformulation of paradigms and counter paradigms. Two alternative and sharply contrasting theorizations, one collective and collaborative (the work of Berle and Means), the other individualistic and contractual (agency theory and shareholder value) are focused upon. The explanatory potential of Blair and Stout’s team production theory is elaborated, along with its conception of the complexity of business enterprise, with a mediating hierarch (the board of directors) securing a balance between the interests of different stakeholders. The …

The Agency Cost Paradigm: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Claire A. Hill, Brett H. Mcdonnell

Seattle University Law Review

In the “managerialist” world that preceded our present shareholder value world, some corporate managers could, and did, help themselves when they should have been doing their jobs. The modern agency cost paradigm has focused attention on this problem, in part by conceptualizing the duty of corporate managers as maximizing shareholder value. This paradigm has had a variety of effects: some good, some bad, and some ugly. The agency cost paradigm has had a good effect by focusing on the problem of managerial enrichment and providing a simple, clear benchmark—shareholder value-- that may quickly indicate when managers are performing badly. However, …

A Theory Of The Just Corporation, Ronit Donyets-Kedar

Seattle University Law Review

In their seminal article A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout hold that the modern corporation is best understood in terms of team production. Challenging the principal–agent model, Blair and Stout offer an analysis that considers the various stakeholders of the corporation as members of a team. Accordingly, they suggest, the purpose of corporate law is to provide a response to the problems created by collective production processes, in particular those pertaining to the distribution of profits stemming from the cooperation. According to Blair and Stout, the solution to this problem is to be found …

Team Production Theory And Private Company Boards, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

In their path-breaking article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout provided a new theory of the board of directors in a corporation. Drawing on the economic theory of team production, Blair and Stout argued that the board of directors serves as a mediating hierarchy for the firm as a whole, encouraging firm-specific investments from team members and reducing shirking and opportunistic behavior. While Blair and Stout provided a dramatically different view of the corporation from the conventional principal-agent account, they also delineated limitations to their proposed theory. Most importantly, they suggested that the …

The Corporation As Time Machine: Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Efficiency, And The Corporate Form, Lynn A. Stout

Seattle University Law Review

This Symposium Article argues that the board-controlled corporation can be understood as a legal innovation that historically has functioned as a means of transferring wealth forward and sometimes backward through time, for the benefit of present and future generations. In this fashion the board-controlled corporation promotes both intergenerational equity and intergenerational efficiency. Logic and evidence each suggest, however, that the modern embrace of “shareholder value” as the only corporate objective and “shareholder democracy” as the ideal of corporate governance is damaging the corporate form’s ability to serve this economically and ethically important function.

Litigating Consumer Protection Acts In The Hamp Context, Amanda Martin

Seattle University Law Review

The foreclosure crisis has lingered despite the improving economy. To alleviate this crisis, the U.S. government implemented the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP), a Treasury-sponsored initiative that aims to prevent foreclosure by encouraging mortgage loan servicers to modify the mortgages of qualified homeowners. The Treasury Department has extended HAMP multiple times—from its original ending date in 2013 to its present ending date in 2016. While HAMP has indeed helped homeowners avoid foreclosure, the program has spawned an array of litigation as servicer misconduct runs rampant. As the Ninth Circuit recently noted, “the [HAMP] program seems to have created more litigation …

Copyright, Consumerism, And The Cloud: Proposing Standards-Essential Technology To Support First Sale In Digital Copyright, Marco Puccia

Seattle University Law Review

America’s entertainment industry, and the creative talent that drives it, is a national treasure. Equally valuable, however, is America’s drive and commitment toward technological innovation. These two sectors have been in tension since at least 1908, when the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the makers of piano rolls for automatically playing pianos had to pay royalties to the composers. Since that time, the entertainment industry has continued to use copyright law to resist advances in technological innovation that it views as a threat to its existing business models. This Note seeks to provide the necessary context and …

Shareholder Wealth Maximization As Means To An End, Robert P. Bartlett, Iii

Seattle University Law Review

In several recent cases, the Delaware Chancery Court has emphasized that where a conflict of interest exists between holders of a company’s common stock and holders of its preferred stock, the standard of conduct for directors requires that they strive to maximize the value of the corporation for the benefit of its common stockholders rather than for its preferred stockholders. This article interrogates this view of directors’ fiduciary duties from the perspective of incomplete contracting theory. Building on the seminal work of Sanford Grossman and Oliver Hart, incomplete contracting theory examines the critical role of corporate control rights for addressing …

Lobbying, Pandering, And Information In The Firm, Adam B. Badawi

Seattle University Law Review

In their classic and insightful article on team production in corporate law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout identify the minimization of rent-seeking as one of the chief benefits of vesting ultimate authority over a firm with the board of directors. In their analysis, this problematic rent-seeking arises when parties need to divide the gains from production after the fact. The squabbling that is likely to ensue may threaten to eat away most, or all, of the gains that come from productive activity. If parties know that this sort of rent-seeking will occur, they may not engage in productive activity in …

The History Of Team Production Theory, Ron Harris

Seattle University Law Review

In this short Essay, the author consider the team production theory developed by Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout1 from a historical perspective, in three senses. First, does the theory fit the historical use of the corporate form? Second, can it explain the development of corporation law doctrines? And third, can we place the development of the theory as such into the intellectual history of corporation theories at large? The author will state my bottom line up front: while the Article finds the team production theory insightful and useful for my historical research, for teaching corporation law, and for thinking about …

Choosing The Partnership: English Business Organization Law During The Industrial Revolution, Ryan Bubb

Seattle University Law Review

For most of the period associated with the Industrial Revolution in Britain, English law restricted access to incorporation and the Bubble Act explicitly outlawed the formation of unincorporated joint stock companies with transferable shares. Furthermore, firms in the manufacturing industries most closely associated with the Industrial Revolution were overwhelmingly partnerships. These two facts have led some scholars to posit that the antiquated business organization law was a constraint on the structural transformation and growth that characterized the British economy during the period. Importantly, however, the vast majority of manufacturing firms in the modern sector were partnerships. An easy explanation for …

The Self, The Stasi, The Nsa: Privacy, Knowledge, And Complicity In The Surveillance State, Richard Warner, Robert H. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

We focus on privacy in public. The notion dates back over a century, at least to the work of the German sociologist, Georg Simmel. Simmel observed that people voluntarily limit their knowledge of each other as they interact in a wide variety of social and commercial roles, thereby making certain information private relative to the interaction even if it is otherwise publicly available. Current governmental surveillance in the US (and elsewhere) reduces privacy in public. But to what extent?

The question matters because adequate self-realization requires adequate privacy in public. That in turn depends on informational norms, social norms that …

Personal Jurisdiction And The "Interwebs", Alan M. Trammell, Derek E. Bambauer

Scholarly Articles

For nearly twenty years, lower courts and scholars have struggled to figure out how personal jurisdiction doctrine should apply in the Internet age. When does virtual conduct make someone amenable to jurisdiction in any particular forum? The classic but largely discredited response by courts has been to give primary consideration to a commercial Web site’s interactivity. That approach distorts the current doctrine and is divorced from coherent jurisdictional principles. Moreover, scholars have not yielded satisfying answers. They typically have argued either that the Internet is thoroughly exceptional and requires its own rules, or that it is largely unexceptional and can …

Bridgefunding Crowdfunding And The Market For Entrepreneurial Finance, Seth C. Oranburg

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the business environment of entrepreneurial finance through the lens of securities regulations. It finds that regulators should be more concerned with protecting investors from startup failure than from crowdfunding fraud. It recommends an amendment to Regula- tion Crowdfunding that may enable startup success: the limit on fun- draising should be raised from $1 to $5 million.

The Great Decentralization: How Web 3.0 Will Weaken Copyrights, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 136 (2015), Nick Vogel

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Bitcoin’s popularity increased as its value increased and people became excited about the prospect of a trustless, decentralized currency that could be used on the Internet. Within the last two years, however, people and organizations began exploiting the potential of the block chain that powers the bitcoin network. These people realized that the block chain—a transparent public ledger that cannot be altered—can be used for more than digital currency. One such organization calls itself Ethereum and its developers plan to use block chains to allow decentralized autonomous applications to operate free of government censorship or corruption. While such a network …

Debatable Premises In Telecom Policy, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 453 (2015), Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Roslyn Layton

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

The five premises that this paper considers are:

1. Everyone needs low-cost access to high speed broadband service

2. High-speed broadband is necessary for education, health, government, and other social services

3. Wireless can‟t compete with cable

4. An open Internet is necessary for innovation and necessarily benefits consumers

5. Telecommunications are better somewhere else.

The Law And 3d Printing, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 505 (2015), Jasper Tran

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Recent years have seen extraordinary growth in the amount of legal scholarship and practice at the intersection of law and 3D printing. To help navigate this emerging field of 3D printing law, I created the accompanying Law and 3D Printing Bibliography. The published bibliography presented herein contains over 100 entries. The brief introductory comments to the published piece discuss the creation and contents of the bibliography, and provide suggestions for where one should begin their research in the area. The comments focus on (1) 3D printing‘s background, (2) historical growth pattern of law and 3D printing scholarship, (3) identification of …

Legal Problems In Data Management: It & Privacy At The Forefront: Opening Remarks, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 521 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Selected State Laws Governing The Safeguarding And Disposing Of Personal Information, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 487 (2015), Bruce Radke, Michael Waters

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Numerous states have adopted laws mandating the protection and disposal of personal information. Under those laws, businesses are required to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the information in order to protect the personal information from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. Although the definition of “personal information” varies from state to state, “personal information” is generally defined as an individual’s first name or initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements, when either the name or the data elements are not encrypted or …

Legal Problems In Data Management: It & Privacy At The Forefront: Dual-Use Devices In The Workplace, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 527 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: It & Privacy At The Forefront: Developments In Cybersecurity Law And Best Practices, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 587 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: It & Privacy At The Forefront: Drafting And Implementing Effective Social Media Policies In The Workplace, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 549 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: It & Privacy At The Forefront: “Big Data”: Ownership, Copyright, And Protection, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 565 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: Ethics Of Big Data Analytics And The Importance Of Disclosure, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 641 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: Global Approach To Data Privacy: Safe Harbor, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 633 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Legal Problems In Data Management: The Impact Of International Data Restriction Laws On U.S. Companies, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 609 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

‘The Greatest Wealth Is Health’: Patient Protected Health Information In The Hands Of Hackers, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 657 (2015), Samantha Singer

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This comment will analyze the specific requirements and stages that EPs/EHs must comply with in order to receive its Medicare and Medicaid incentives, how EHR technologies are being implemented, how EHR technologies are affecting patients' privacy with regard to hacking a patient‟s PHI, and what EHR technology vendors and EPs/EHs should be doing to improve patient privacy and security to prevent hacking and other breaches.

Part I of this comment will address hacking of PHI. Part II will analyze the security measures that EHR vendors must currently incorporate into EHR technology and how the lack of required security measures impacts …

Japanese And American Privacy Laws, Comparative Analysis, 32 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 1 (2015), Jane Kim

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

To understand the laws of a foreign nation, one must first under-stand that nation’s culture. Its people and their customs will provide in-sight into the proper interpretation and application of such laws. For those reasons, this commentary commences with cursory background on Japanese people, followed by a brief comparative analysis of Health In-surance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) (enacted in 1996) and its Japanese counterpart, the Act on the Protection of Personal In-formation (“APPI”) (enacted in 2003). The Japanese have borrowed a lot of American concepts of privacy laws. This paper will explore how these imported privacy concepts may not …