Internet Law Commons^™

Patents And The Pandemic: Intellectual Property, Social Contracts, And Access To Vaccines, Peter Lee

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Through enormous public support and private initiative, biopharmaceutical firms developed safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time. These remarkable vaccines represent humanity’s best chance to end the devastating pandemic. However, difficult questions about ownership and access have arisen alongside the development and deployment of these vaccines. Biopharmaceutical companies have patented many of the technologies underlying these vaccines, thus seeming to pit intellectual property rights against the objective of wide and rapid dissemination of these critical resources. While prevailing debates have been framed in the language of intellectual property, this Article suggests that contract principles can help break the impasse …

Cyber-Silencing The Community: Youtube, Divino Group, And Reimagining Section 230, Layla G. Maurer

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Social media platforms, once simple messaging boards, have grown to colossal size. They are now a vital source of communication and connection, particularly for marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community. Social media holds incredible sway over the news, political discourse, and entertainment that we consume, and the platforms we use are now able to sculpt conversations simply by allowing or disallowing (i.e., moderating) specific types of speech or content.

One indirect form of moderation is demonetization, a means by which content creators are disallowed revenue from advertisements on their hosted media. The consequence of improper demonetization is not just …

Tiktok The Musical: Copyright Issues Raised By The "Ratatouille" Musical, Paige V. Gagliardi

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

TikTok the Musical: Copyright Issues Raised by the “Ratatouille” Musical, explores the growing trend in derivative works and the failures of current copyright law to address it. This article asserts that while derivative works are excellent creative outlets, a safe haven in a tumultuous world, allowing appropriation of copyrights via the fair use doctrine conflicts with the foundations of copyright law. This article argues that IP giants such as the Walt Disney Company have sent a dangerous message to the general public by allowing the TikTok trend of the #ratatouillemusical to become an actual musical: that unlicensed derivative works …

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Gonzalez V. Google, 143 S.Ct. 1191 (2023) (No. 21-1333), Eric Schnapper, Robert J. Tolchin, Keith L. Altman, Daniel Weininger

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED: Section 203(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes an “interactive computer service” (such as YouTube, Google, Facebook and Twitter) for “publish[ ing] ... information provided by another” “information content provider” (such as someone who posts a video on YouTube or a statement on Facebook). This is the most recent of three court of appeals’ decisions regarding whether section 230(c)(1) immunizes an interactive computer service when it makes targeted recommendations of information provided by such another party. Five courts of appeals judges have concluded that section 230(c)(1) creates such immunity. Three court of appeals judges have rejected such immunity. …

The New Bailments, Danielle D’Onfro

Washington Law Review

The rise of cloud computing has dramatically changed how consumers and firms store their belongings. Property that owners once managed directly now exists primarily on infrastructure maintained by intermediaries. Consumers entrust their photos to Apple instead of scrapbooks; businesses put their documents on Amazon’s servers instead of in file cabinets; seemingly everything runs in the cloud. Were these belongings tangible, the relationship between owner and intermediary would be governed by the common-law doctrine of bailment. Bailments are mandatory relationships formed when one party entrusts their property to another. Within this relationship, the bailees owe the bailors a duty of care …

Copyright Licensing And The Regulation Of China's Music Market: Searching For Transactional Efficiency And Fair Compensation, Chien-Chih (Jesse) Lu

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

China’s music copyright collecting society and its new music platforms, find points of commonality through constructing more efficient and profitable systems to generate more users and greater income. By undertaking a comparison of the various copyright regulations, cases, and statistics, this research aims to contribute to academic science by extracting frameworks and solutions from the United States and European licensing models and examining them in the context of China’s music market. It aims to discover rational approaches to connect rising technology and emerging economic incentives.

Appropriate solutions are proposed based on the influence of international treaties and legislative progress driven …

Autonomous Corporate Personhood, Carla L. Reyes

Washington Law Review

Several states have recently changed their business organization law to accommodate autonomous businesses—businesses operated entirely through computer code. A variety of international civil society groups are also actively developing new frameworks— and a model law—for enabling decentralized, autonomous businesses to achieve a corporate or corporate-like status that bestows legal personhood. Meanwhile, various jurisdictions, including the European Union, have considered whether and to what extent artificial intelligence (AI) more broadly should be endowed with personhood to respond to AI’s increasing presence in society. Despite the fairly obvious overlap between the two sets of inquiries, the legal and policy discussions between the …

Copyright’S Deprivations, Anne-Marie Carstens

Washington Law Review

This Article challenges the constitutionality of a copyright infringement remedy provided in federal copyright law: courts can order the destruction or other permanent deprivation of personal property based on its mere capacity to serve as a vehicle for infringement. This deprivation remedy requires no showing of actual nexus to the litigated infringement, no finding of willfulness, and no showing that the property’s infringing uses comprise the significant or predominant uses. These striking deficits stem from a historical fiction that viewed a tool of infringement, such as a printing plate, as the functional equivalent of an infringing copy itself. Today, though, …

You Are Not A Commodity: A More Efficient Approach To Commercial Privacy Rights, Benjamin T. Pardue

Washington Law Review

United States common law provides four torts for privacy invasion: (1) disclosure of private facts, (2) intrusion upon seclusion, (3) placement of a person in a false light, and (4) appropriation of name or likeness. Appropriation of name or likeness occurs when a defendant commandeers the plaintiff’s recognizability, typically for a commercial benefit. Most states allow plaintiffs who establish liability to recover defendants’ profits as damages from the misappropriation under an “unjust enrichment” theory. By contrast, this Comment argues that such an award provides a windfall to plaintiffs and contributes to suboptimal social outcomes. These include overcompensating plaintiffs and incentivizing …

Copyrighting Tiktok Dances: Choreography In The Internet Age, Ali Johnson

Washington Law Review

TikTok is a video-sharing social media application that launched in 2018 and has grown wildly since its inception. Many users are drawn to the platform by “dance challenges”—short dance routines of varying complexity set to popular songs that are recreated by other users, eventually going “viral” (i.e., recreated on a massive scale by other users) on the app. Going viral can provide young dancers and choreographers an opportunity to break into the highly competitive entertainment industry. However, there is a problem: due to TikTok’s interface and community practices, the original creators of a dance (who, significantly, are often young women …

Open World Regulation: The Urgent Need For Federal Legislation On Video Game Loot Boxes, Alex Reyes

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Loot boxes are items in video games that contain randomized prizes that players can purchase with real-world money. In recent years, loot boxes have come under scrutiny because the relationship between behavior and the underlying mechanics of loot boxes are similar to that of addictive behaviors associated with real-world gambling. Many papers suggest solutions focused on industry changes without direct regulation. However, these papers neglect the enormous profit incentive to maintain a business practice which can have detrimental behavioral effects on children. The United States federal government must take example from a growing number of European countries and ban the …

Table Of Contents, Ashley Stoll

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

Digital Contract Tracing In The Workplace, Alexandra Kiosse

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way businesses run and operate in the United States. With the dire need to keep employees safe, digital contact tracing has become the most efficient mechanism for controlling the spread of the virus within places of employment. However, information privacy laws come into tension with the use of employee health data by employers and third parties. This Article proposes a careful balance between contact tracing and maintaining employees’ privacy as they share health and proximity data with digital contact tracing applications in the workplace.

2021 Biennial Report

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has become a leading source for tech policy research and education and an indispensable resource to local, national, and international policymakers. In its seven-year history, the Lab has built a strong network and increased credibility that allows us to work directly with policymakers, publish research and guides on emerging technologies, and provide opportunities for the public to learn from experts. The last two years found not only our state, but our nation and the world in a time of great uncertainty. American society strives to reconcile centuries of racial and other …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

News Reporting On Trump's Covid-19 Treatments: Should Broadcasters Have To Disclose Their Being Potentially Dangerous?, Dr. Joel Timmer

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, President Trump touted a number of treatments that many medical professionals considered dangerous. These treatments include hydroxychloroquine and disinfectants, which if misused could cause a patient’s death. This prompted Free Press to file an emergency petition with the FCC, arguing that broadcasters who report on Trump’s claims about these treatments without highlighting their dangers could be in violation of the Commission’s broadcast hoax rule. Free Press also requested the FCC require that broadcasters include disclaimers when reporting on such claims. This article examines whether the broadcast hoax rule has been …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

Harlem Shake Meets The Chevron Two Step: Net Neutrality Following Mozilla V. Fcc, Christopher R. Terry, Scott Memmel

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In October 2019, the D.C. Circuit handed down its much-anticipated decision in Mozilla v. FCC, relying heavily on Chevron Deference and the Supreme Court’s 2005 Brand X decision. The per curiam opinion upheld large portions of the FCC’s 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order, but also undermined the FCC’s preemption of state law while also remanding issues related to public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline Program to the agency, assuring that the legal and policy battles over net neutrality will continue. This Article traces the history of the FCC’s efforts on net neutrality as it has moved in and out …

Masthead

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

No abstract provided.

U.S.-U.K. Executive Agreement: Case Study Of Incidental Collection Of Data Under The Cloud Act, Eddie B. Kim

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In March 2018, Congress passed the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, also known as the CLOUD Act, in order to expedite the process of cross-border data transfers for the purposes of criminal investigations. The U.S. government entered into its first Executive Agreement, the main tool to achieve the goals of the statute, with the United Kingdom in October 2019. While the CLOUD Act requires the U.S. Attorney General to consider whether the foreign government counterpart has a certain level of robust data privacy laws, the relevant laws of the United Kingdom have generally been questioned numerous times for …

Pseudo-Gambling And Whaling: How Loot Boxes Pray On Vulnerable Populations And How To Curtail Future Predatory Behavior, Alexander Mann

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The video game industry has blossomed from a niche hobby into a mainstream cultural industry, outpacing global box office sales in annual revenue. Yet the price of a video game has barely increased since the industry’s inception, and the current standard price point of sixty dollars has survived for over a decade. Competitive market forces drive companies to invest ever more time and money into creating increasingly complex software in order to remain on the cutting edge of graphics and design, while simultaneously increasing revenue. Thus, video game developers and publishers have developed a multitude of alternative money- making services …

Featurization And The Myth Of Data Empowerment, Nur Lalji

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Every day, we make a series of tradeoffs between privacy and convenience. We may check our email, post on social media, use the free Wi-Fi in public spaces, or take our cellphones with us wherever we go without a clear understanding of what information we are giving away when we do so. Increasingly, we are seeing products that claim to defy this opaqueness associated with big data and put users at the helm of their information. These "featurized" products wrap themselves in a data empowerment narrative, but ultimately erode individual privacy in new ways, sometimes even capitalizing on it. This …

Censorship, Free Speech & Facebook: Applying The First Amendment To Social Media Platforms Via The Public Function Exception, Matthew P. Hooker

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Society has a love-hate relationship with social media. Thanks to social media platforms, the world is more connected than ever before. But with the ever-growing dominance of social media there have come a mass of challenges. What is okay to post? What isn't? And who or what should be regulating those standards? Platforms are now constantly criticized for their content regulation policies, sometimes because they are viewed as too harsh and other times because they are characterized as too lax. And naturally, the First Amendment quickly enters the conversation. Should social media platforms be subject to the First Amendment? Can—or …

Annual Report, 2019 (Five Year Report 2013-2019)

Tech Policy Lab

With this report, we celebrate the Tech Policy Lab’s five-year anniversary. We are deeply grateful to the community for helping us mark this milestone. We came together in the fall of 2013 to create a deeply interdisciplinary research collaboration with real-world impacts. We chose to model our new collaboration on a laboratory—a place to experiment with a distinct interdisciplinary model for research, to develop tangible and innovative new resources, and to train the next generation of tech policy experts. With co-equal faculty directors from three distinct disciplines, and students and faculty from many more, we set out to bridge the …

Annual Report, 2018, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has become an indispensable source for tech policy research, education, and local, national, and international thought leadership. The Lab has worked directly with policymakers, published research and guides on emerging technologies, and provided opportunities for the public to learn from experts.

Annual Report, 2017, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has emerged as a leading resource for policymakers interested in wiser and more inclusive technology policy. This year the Lab built on its reputation for excellence in interdisciplinary research, published scholarship and tools to benefit tech policy, and had direct input into policymaking at multiple levels of government.

How The Washington State Supreme Court Wrongly Applied The Communications Decency Act In Village Voice, And What It Means For Internet Service Providers, Samuel J. Daheim

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In passing the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), Congress sought to promote and protect the ever-evolving free market of voices and ideas available on the internet. In order to reach this end, section 230(c) of the CDA extends protection from liability to those who provide a means for disseminating speech on the web, dubbed by the statute as “interactive computer service providers” (ICSP). Section 230 protects ICSPs from liability for harm inflicted by content created and posted by third parties on their respective forums. This Article focuses on a 2015 Washington State Supreme Court decision, J.S. v. Village Voice …

Annual Report, 2016, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has had an exciting third year! From organizing national and international policy fora to helping local authorities generate best practices, the Lab continues its record of rigorous, impactful research.

Real-Name Registration Rules And The Fading Digital Anonymity In China, Jyh-An Lee, Ching-Yi Liu

Washington International Law Journal

China has implemented comprehensive online real-name registration rules, which require Internet users to disclose their identities. Chinese national law has required most online service providers to implement real-name registration since 2012. This article uses the real-name registration rules to illustrate the supremacy and limitations of the Network Authoritarian Model (NAM), an approach leveraging corporate resources for political surveillance and occasionally adopted by the Chinese party-state. By addressing the evolution of real-name registration rules in China, this article illustrates the party-state’s gradual efforts in both eliminating cyberspace anonymity and etching Chinese characteristics on the architecture of the Internet. Although the Chinese …

The Secession Of The Successful: The Rise Of Amazon As Private Global Consumer Protection Regulator, Jane K. Winn

Articles

In 2005, the Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions (“AFFECT”) coalition issued a list of 12 principles it hoped would contribute to a new consensus about what constitutes fairness in online consumer transactions. A decade later, a cursory review of different jurisdictions indicates that, while there has been little discernable progress in the direction of the principles in the United States, other jurisdictions such as the European Union have made more progress.

However, the one jurisdiction in the world that comes closest to implementing all 12 principles across the full spectrum of consumer transactions is not a government at all, …