Internet Law Commons^™

Volume 7 Issue 1 (2016), Case Western Reserve Journal Of Law, Technology & The Internet

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

When Real People Become Fictional: The Collision Of Trademark, Copyright, And Publicity Rights In Online Stories About Celebrities, Stacey M. Lantagne

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

"Fanficion is frequently defined as the writing of fiction involving the characters or setting of someone else’s creation. However, there is a subset of fanfiction that is known as Real Person Fiction, or RPF. This subset writes stories not about other people’s fictional creations but about real people, whether they be hockey players or movie stars, and it has long been the scene of heated debate in the fan community. Some fans who readily and enthusiastically engage with fanfiction draw strict “squick” lines about RPF and call it “creepy” and “disturbing.” "Perhaps for this reason, scholars have paid little attention …

The Art Of Nailing Jell-O To The Wall: Reassessing The Political Power Of The Internet, Bryan Druzin, Jessica Li

Journal of Law and Policy

Political observers commonly argue that, given the unique characteristics of the Internet, democratization is an inevitability of its widespread use. The critical role that social media played in the wave of demonstrations, protests, and revolutions that swept across the Arab world in 2011 cemented this perception in the minds of many. Yet China defies this simplistic paradigm—China has been stunningly successful at constraining the political power of its Internet. We argue that the political importance of Internet technology has been overstated, particularly with respect to China. As support for this thesis, we cite recent political events in Hong Kong known …

Standing Up For Their Data: Recognizing The True Nature Of Injuries In Data Breach Claims To Afford Plaintiffs Article Iii Standing, Andrew Braunstein

Journal of Law and Policy

Over the last several years, data breaches have become increasingly more common, due in no small part to the failures of organizations charged with storing and protecting personal data. Consumers whose data has fallen victim to these breaches are more often turning to federal courts in attempts to be made whole from the loss of their information, whether simple credit card information or, as breaches become more sophisticated, social security information, medical and financial records, and more. These consumers are often being turned away from the courthouse, however, due to a failure of many federal courts to find that the …

Les Photos Prises Par Les Téléphones Cellulaires Sont-Elles Assez « Originales » Pour Être Protégées Par La Loi Sur Le Droit D'Auteur?, René Pépin

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

On considérait traditionnellement que l’originalité réside dans les choix faits par le photographe au niveau de la sensibilité du film choisi, de la vitesse de l’obturateur, de la mise au foyer, de la pose du sujet photographié , etc. Mais les caméras incorporées dans les téléphones cellulaires sont si perfectionnées que la prise de photo se fait de façon presque automatique. L’appareil fait seul la mise au foyer, le flash se déclenche au besoin, la vitesse d’obturation est optimale, le cadrage se fait presque seul, etc. C’est justement le grand avantage et le grand attrait de ces appareils. L’utilisateur n’a …

Is There A 'Right To Be Forgotten' In Canada's Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda)?, Michael Rosenstock

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In this paper, I argue that PIPEDA could support a version of the right to be forgotten, subject to three important caveats. First, for search engines to meet the threshold applicability test under PIPEDA, their activities (i.e., crawling, indexing, organizing, etc.) must constitute the ‘‘collection, use or disclosure” of personal information. Ascribing such a role to search engines in information dissemination would likely require a court to distinguish the activities of search engines from hyperlinks on websites, which the Supreme Court in Crookes v. Newton determined did not involve control over content. Second, PIPEDA’s ‘‘all-or-nothing approach” means that if search …

Fashion Forward: The Need For A Proactive Approach To The Counterfeit Epidemic, Casey Tripoli

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In the last two decades, the overall activity of the counterfeit market has expanded and risen 10,000 percent. This dramatic shift corresponds to growth of the Internet, which has unified the fascination of obtaining cheap, illegitimate goods with the efficiency of a mouse click. With the expected continued inflation of the counterfeit market comes a host of new concerns, namely, how to determine who is responsible for the distribution of these knockoffs, and who should be ordained to limit them in the marketplace. In both the United States and the European Union, however, outdated laws produce a mélange of inadequate …

The Road To Artificial Super-Intelligence: Has International Law A Role To Play?, J.-G. Castel, Matthew E. Castel

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Part I of this article deals with the road to artificial general super-intelligence.

Part II addresses the controls, if any, that should be exercised over the production and use of partially or fully autonomous machines of artificial intelligence before and after they become super-intelligent. More particularly, should there be legal and ethical limits to their use and to what extent should international law play a role in this connection?

Book Review: Jonathan Clough, Principles Of Cybercrime, 2nd Ed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Christopher D. Ram

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The past decade has seen an enormous explosion of scholarship on the subject of cybercrime, as technologies and offenders pose new challenges and law enforcement, government and academic experts struggle to keep up. The new, second edition of Professor Jonathan Clough’s book occupies a fairly substantial, but specific niche in this increasingly diverse and complex landscape. Principles of Cybercrime contains only a cursory review of the history and criminology of cybercrime, it does not deal at all with IT security, investigative or enforcement matters, and discussion of cybercrime as a global issue is limited to brief discussions of the 2001 …

Flying Robots And Privacy In Canada, Paul D.M. Holden

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Drones have been a hot topic in recent years particularly when used in war and in domestic police operations. Drones have also attracted attention because of highprofile plans to use them for package delivery, among other things. While the glamourous and future uses of drones catch media attention, drones are already being used in the private sector for more mundane purposes including surveying, infrastructure inspection and real estate sales promotion. While the privacy threats of military and police drones are widely discussed, privacy concerns of private drones have attracted much less consideration.

This paper looks at the privacy risks of …

Un Nouveau Code Pour Une Procédure Technologique: Mémento Pour Le Pr@Ticien, Antoine Guilman

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Table des matières

Introduction.................................................................................................. 18

I. La transmission technologique des actes de procédure ................................. 22

(a) Le dépôt technologique des actes de procédure ................................... 23

(i) Un régime légal inédit : les dispositions du NCPC...................... 23

(ii) Un régime réglementaire inexistant : l’exemple de la Cour fédérale ...................................................................................... 26

(b) La signification technologique des actes de procédure ......................... 28

(i) Le principe : la signification de main à main .............................. 29

(ii) L’exception : la signification technologique................................. 30

(c) La notification technologique des actes de procédure..........................35

(i) La notification par un moyen technologique .............................. 35

(ii) La notification par …

Minding The Gap: Why Or How Nova Scotia Should Enact A New Cyber-Safety Act - Case Comment On Crouch V. Snell, Jennifer Taylor

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Nova Scotia’s Cyber-safety Act was meant to fill a gap in the law. Where criminal charges and civil claims like defamation were unavailable or undesirable, the Act, it was hoped, would contain a substantive definition of cyberbullying, set out when it was actionable, and provide procedures for victims to obtain remedies. But the statute that was ultimately passed was too blunt a tool to address the problem, from both a substantive and a procedural perspective.

That helps explain why Justice McDougall of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia struck down the entire statute as unconstitutional, in the recent case of …

Protecting The Privacy Of Canadians' Health Information In The Cloud, Adrian Thorogood, Howard Simkevitz, Mark Phillips, Edward S. Dove, Yann Joly

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article presents results from a year-long research project reviewing health privacy issues in the cloud, funded by the Contributions Program of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). Section I provides a brief primer on cloud computing and its applications in data-centric health research and health care. Section II reviews Canadian privacy and health privacy laws and how they apply to CSPs. Section III identifies privacy risks arising from the technological, organizational, and jurisdictional complexity of cloud computing. Section IV argues that Canadian health privacy laws fail to address difficulties custodians face in balancing responsibilities with CSPs, …

Can Dna Be Speech?, Jorge R. Roig

Scholarly Works

DNA is generally regarded as the basic building block of life itself. In the most fundamental sense, DNA is nothing more than a chemical compound, albeit a very complex and peculiar one. DNA is an information-carrying molecule. The specific sequence of base pairs contained in a DNA molecule carries with it genetic information, and encodes for the creation of particular proteins. When taken as a whole, the DNA contained in a single human cell is a complete blueprint and instruction manual for the creation of that human being. In this article we discuss myriad current and developing ways in which …

The Lost Precedent Of The Reverse Doctrine Of Equivalents, Samuel F. Ernst

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Proponents of legislative patent reform argue that the current patent system perversely impedes true innovation in the name of protecting a vast web of patented inventions, the majority of which are never even commercialized for the benefit of the public. Opponents of such legislation argue that comprehensive, prospective patent reform legislation would harm the incentive to innovate more than it would curb the vexatious practices of non-practicing entities. But while the" Innovation Act" wallows in Congress, there is a common law tool to protect innovation from the patent thicket lying right under our noses: the reverse doctrine of equivalents. Properly …

Lenz V. Universal: A Call To Reform Section 512(F) Of The Dmca And To Strengthen Fair Use, Marc J. Randazza

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), those who issue materially false takedown notices are liable for damages. However, Section 512(f) has not effectively protected fair use. Currently, the DMCA issuer only has to prove he considered fair use before issuing a takedown notice, but faces no liability for actually taking action against fair use. The outcome of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case Lenz v. Universal shows the flaws in the language of the DMCA. This Article calls for a mild adjustment to Section 512(f) for the purpose of protecting fair use …

Sharing By Design: Data And Decentralized Commons, Jorge L. Contreras, Jerome H. Reichman

Faculty Scholarship

Ambitious international data-sharing initiatives have existed for years in fields such as genomics, earth science, and astronomy. But to realize the promise of large-scale sharing of scientific data, intellectual property (IP), data privacy, national security, and other legal and policy obstacles must be overcome. While these issues have attracted significant attention in the corporate world, they have been less appreciated in academic and governmental settings, where solving issues of legal interoperability among data pools in different jurisdictions has taken a back seat to addressing technical challenges. Yet failing to account for legal and policy issues at the outset of a …

Table Of Contents

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Extending Copyright Protection To Combat Free-Riding By Digital News Aggregators And Online Search Engines, Nancy J. Whitmore

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Implications For The Future Of Global Data Security And Privacy: The Territorial Application Of The Stored Communications Act And The Microsoft Case, Russell Hsiao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Cutting Out The Middleman: Why "Look And Feel" Should Be Ignored In Trade Dress Law, Nicholas Dimarino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note discusses the background and elements of general trade dress law. Part II discusses the narrower issue of "look and feel" in the context of websites and outlines how courts have currently addressed the "look and feel" issue. Part III proposes that courts ignore the artificial "look and feel" distinction and instead apply normal trade dress analyses and elements. This solution, which requires that courts adhere to a workable standard that serves the underlying purpose of trade dress law, allows recognition of the distinctive characteristics of website trade dress claims, while reducing the risk of …

Walk A Mile In The Shoes Of A Copyright Troll: Analyzing And Overcoming The Joinder Issue In Bittorrent Lawsuits, Kristina Unanyan

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Comment analyzes the issues surrounding joinder of copyright infringers who use BitTorrent, explores how joinder can be used and limited to create a more viable solution for copyright holders and consumers, as well as, supplements the sparse regulations that encompass joinder to create a rule that accommodates this technological era. Part II explains Copyright Law and the procedural aspects of a copyright infringement suit and joinder of defendants. Part III delves into the history of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing lawsuits and provides an illustration of where case law rests today regarding P2P networks. Part IV describes the BitTorrent network and …

Note: A Series Of (Inseparable) Tubes? “New Media” Streaming And The Impact Of In Re. Pandora Media, Related Decisions, And Performance Licensing In The Internet Era, Ross Coker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Avoiding The Next Napster: Copyright Infringement And Investor Liability In The Age Of User Generated Content, Truan Savage

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Rapid developments in digital technology over the past quarter century have made it easier than ever for people to create and instantly share content. These developments have served as the basis for countless innovations and have spawned some of today’s largest and most profitable companies. As content creation and distribution continues to evolve, businesses seek new ways to profit from these technological innovations. But while businesses continue to develop around new methods of content distribution, the law of copyright, which generally aims to encourage the creation of content, has been slow to adapt. This era of modern technological innovation thus …

From Inwood To Internet And Beyond: Assessing The Web Host-User Relationship In Contributory Online Trademark Infringement, Julie Liu

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

While courts have created a doctrine of contributory trademark infringement in response to the expansion of goods and services from brick-and-mortar to the Internet, the exact duties of web hosts under the rule are not yet clear. Despite judicial attempts to carve out new standards to define traditional requirements, the application of these standards remains inconsistent and has left unresolved ambiguities. The disparities between the standards may be balanced through an analysis of the affirmative duties imposed by the law on online service providers, as well as a closer look at the relationship between a service provider and user. This …

Pirates Or Privateers: Examining The Risks Of Conflicting International Regimes Through The Lens Of U.S.-Gambling, Eric A. Heath

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Copyright Tensions In A Digital Age, John D. Shuff, Geoffrey T. Holtz

Akron Law Review

The rapid and exponential expansion of our ability to duplicate and disseminate information by digital means has rejuvenated inherent tensions in the law pertaining to copyright and has created some new ones. Not since the advent of radio in the early 1900s have such tensions come so squarely into focus. Even though courts are rarely, if ever, called upon to address certain of these tensions since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, they are being called upon to do so now

The Case For Capsl: Architectural Solutions To Licensing And Distribution In Emerging Music Markets, Cody Duncan

Duke Law & Technology Review

Compulsory licensing in music has paved the way for a limited class of new noninteractive services. However, innovation and competition are stifled in the field of interactive or otherwise novel services due to high transaction costs inherent in direct licensing. While the creation of a new compulsory license available to a wider array of services may facilitate growth and diversity in new markets, it is unlikely that the legislative process can deliver a new compulsory regime in time to serve relevant interests. Furthermore, the risk exists that legislation written in response to contemporary technology will likely fail to recognize the …

Aereo, In-Line Linking, And A New Approach To Copyright Infringement For Emerging Technologies, Shannon Mcgovern

Catholic University Law Review

In an ever-changing technological landscape, strictly adhering to the language and definitions of the Copyright Act in cases involving emerging technologies may contravene the purpose and intent of copyright law. However, the Supreme Court’s 2014 opinion in American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo Inc. puts forth a commercial interest rationale that suggests copyright infringers may no longer be able to avoid liability based on perceived technological loopholes that have typically absolved online infringers of infringement liability. This Note argues that Aereo’s commercial interest rationale paves the way for a new approach to technologically complex copyright cases, particularly where in-line linking …

Wide Right: How Isp Immunity And Current Laws Are Off The Mark In Protecting The Modern Athlete On Social Media, Dominick J. Mingione

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

“[Y]our tranny looking dad is a disgrace to American football,” “I would rape the shit out of her,” and “[The] [B]ears are easier than you on prom night,” are just a sampling of some of the alarmingly harassing tweets received by Chloe Trestman between the night of November 9, 2014 and November 10, 2014. Who is Chloe Trestman, and what could she have possibly done to warrant such abuse? Chloe’s father is Marc Trestman, the head coach of the Chicago Bears. And the twitter vitriol, or “twitriol,” directed toward Chloe was in response to the Bears’ blowout loss to their …