Internet Law Commons^™

The Time And Place For "Technology-Shifting" Rights, Max Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

Intellectual property policy requires balance between the goal of motivating innovation and the need to prevent that motivation from stifling further innovation. The constitutional grant of congressional power to motivate innovation by securing "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" is qualified by the requirement that congressional enactments under the Intellectual Property Clause "promote progress."

The speed of technological change, particularly in the converging fields of computer software, music, video, television, and communications, coupled with the power of technology industry lobbying, have left the statutory balance tilted in favor of rewarding …

Sovereignty In The Age Of Twitter, Donald L. Doernberg

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Copyright’S Twilight Zone: Digital Copyright Lessons From The Vampire Blogosphere, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bloodsucking Copyrights , Ann Bartow

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal And Ethical Issues Associated With Employee Use Of Social Networks, Gundars Kaupins, Susan Park

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can help employees enhance a company’s marketing, recruiting, security, and safety. However, employee’s use of social networking sites and employers’ access of those sites can result in illegal and unethical behavior, such as discrimination and privacy invasions. Companies must gauge whether and how to rely upon employees’ use of personal social networking sites and how much freedom employees should have in using networks inside and outside of the companies. This research summarizes the latest legal and ethical issues regarding employee use of social networks and provides recommended corporate policies.

Making The Punishment Fit The (Computer) Crime: Rebooting Notions Of Possession For The Federal Sentencing Of Child Pornography Offenses, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Sexual exploitation of children is a real and disturbing problem. However, when it comes to the sentencing of child pornography possessors, the U.S. federal system has a problem, as well. This Article adds to the current, heated discussion on what is happening in the sentencing of federal child pornography possession offenses, why nobody is satisfied, and how much the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are to blame. At the heart of this Article are the forgotten players in the discussion—computers and the Internet—and their role in changing the realities of child pornography possession. This Article argues that computers and the Internet are …

Protecting The Children: Challenges That Result In, And Consequences Resulting From, Inconsistent Prosecution Of Child Pornography Cases In A Technical World, Francis S. Monterosso

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography. Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses—the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it’s your reputation that’s stolen. Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they’ll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites. Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer—and …

The Darknet: A Digital Copyright Revolution, Jessica A. Wood

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

We are in the midst of a digital revolution. In this “Age of Peer Production,” armies of amateur participants demand the freedom to rip, remix, and share their own digital culture. Aided by the newest iteration of file sharing networks, digital media users now have the option to retreat underground, by using secure, private, and anonymous file sharing networks, to share freely and breathe new life into digital media. These underground networks, collectively termed “the Darknet[,] will grow in scope, resilience, and effectiveness in direct proportion to [increasing] digital restrictions the public finds untenable.” The Darknet has been called the …

Introduction: Contains Cover, Table Of Contents, Letter From The Editor, And Masthead, Francis C. Oroszlan

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The Richmond Journal of Law and Technology is proud to present the first issue of the 2010–2011 academic year. This issue addresses topics ranging across the legal and technological spectrums, and tackles subject matter at the forefront and future of legal debate.

Google Analytics: Analyzing The Latest Wave Of Legal Concerns For Google In The U.S. And The E.U., 7 Buff. Intell. Prop. L.J. 135 (2010), Raizel Liebler, Keidra Chaney

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

The next wave of concern regarding Google involves web analytics. Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. The concerns of web analytics use touches on issues of online user privacy, government use of personal information, and information on website user activity. While Google Analytics is not the sole web analytics product on the market, it is widely used by corporate, non-profit, and government organizations. The product has been reported to have a 59% market share among web analytics vendors in a 2008 study.

Web analytics technology …

Governing Gambling In The United States, Maria E. Garcia

CMC Senior Theses

The role risk taking has played in American history has helped shape current legislation concerning gambling. This thesis attempts to explain the discrepancies in legislation regarding distinct forms of gambling. While casinos are heavily regulated by state and federal laws, most statutes dealing with lotteries strive to regulate the activities of other parties instead of those of the lottery institutions. Incidentally, lotteries are the only form of gambling completely managed by the government. It can be inferred that the United States government is more concerned with people exploiting gambling than with the actual practice of wagering.

In an effort to …

The New Ontologies: The Effect Of Copyright Protection On Public Scientific Data Sharing Using Semantic Web Ontologies, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 181 (2010), Andrew Clearwater

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The semantic web is going to become an important tool for scientists who need to accurately share data given context through structured relationships. The structure that defines contextual relationships on the semantic web is known as an ontology; which is a hierarchical organization of a knowledge domain that contains entities and their relations. This paper seeks to answer whether semantic web ontologies are protectable by copyright, and regardless of the outcome, what the best practices are for the scientific community. The best practices for the scientific community should include the adoption of a machine readable ontology license which disclaims copyright …

Twitter: New Challenges To Copyright Law In The Internet Age, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 231 (2010), Rebecca Haas

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Twitter is part of the new wave of internet communication. It is unique because messages sent via Twitter are limited to 140 characters. Many of these messages are about mundane details of daily life, but some are creative, even literary, and may qualify for copyright protection. The problem,then, is not necessarily whether a Tweet can qualify for copyright protection, but how that protection is enforced. Current infringement policies and procedures are not designed to effectively handle copyright infringement on the internet. Internet infringement is widespread and not easy to monitor or regulate, therefore there is a need for a regulatory …

Not Undertaking The Almost-Impossible Task: The 1961 Wire Act’S Development, Initial Applications, And Ultimate Purpose, David G. Schwartz

Library Faculty Research

For a Camelot-era piece of legislation, the Wire Act has a long and unintended shadow. Used haltingly in the 1960s, when the Wire Act failed to deliver the death blow to organized crime, 1970’s Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) became a far better weapon against the mob. Yet starting in the 1990s, the Wire Act enjoyed a second life, when the Justice Department used to it prosecute operators of online betting Web sites that, headquartered in jurisdictions where such businesses were legal, took bets from American citizens. The legislative history of the Wire Act, however, suggests that it was …

The State Of Internet Radio In 2010, Adam Deutsch

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Recognizing Virtual Property Rights, It's About Time, John S. Chao

Student Works

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Investigation Of The Practice Of Planned Unit Development And Its Theoretical Implementation In The “Second Life” Virtual Community, Ryan M. Jennings

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Online Gaming: The Dominant Factors Of Poker & The Fall Of The Uigea And Its Predecessors, Peter Schiavone

Student Works

No abstract provided.

A New (Virtual) World Order: A Look At Criminal Activity In Online Communities, J Matthew Johnson

Student Works

No abstract provided.

How To Tame The New Wild-Wild West: Potential Lassos For Virtual Crime, Ian Leyden

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Defamation Of Second Life Avatars: How The Laws Of First Life People Could Be Invoked, Brian Seguin

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Modern Application Of The Right Of Publicity To Virtual Avatars, Elina Slavin

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Evolving Property Rights In Domain Names, Jeffrey R. Wiedmann

Student Works

No abstract provided.

A Hole In The Need Of Mending: Copyright And The Individual Marking Of Advertisements Published In Collective Works, Randy Gordon

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Libraries, Digital Content, And Copyright, Laura N. Gasaway

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Libraries use, acquire, create and host generate digital content. They digitize their existing collections of works such as letters, diaries and manuscripts and post them on library websites. Increasingly, libraries are utilizing digital technology to preserve library works which may or may not be made available to the public. Libraries also create, manage and host user generated content such as posts on discussion boards, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, tagging, and social networks. Libraries use user generated content for internal library purposes, such as displays and events and for teaching. Further, libraries often are asked to assist users who …

Mending The Gap: The Use Of Common Law To Supplement Virtual Mass Contracts, Floyd Morris

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Overview Of Trademark Issues Presented To Businesses Owners Within Second Life, Ross J. Switkes

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Wikipedia's Labor Squeeze And Its Consequences, Eric Goldman

Faculty Publications

This Essay explains why Wikipedia will not be able to maintain a credible website while simultaneously letting anyone freely edit it. To date, Wikipedia editors have successfully defended against malicious attacks from spammers and vandals, but as editors turn over, Wikipedia will need to recruit replacements. However, Wikipedia will have difficulty with this recruiting task due to its limited incentives for participation. Faced with a potential labor squeeze, Wikipedia will choose to restrict users’ ability to contribute to the site as a way of preserving site credibility. Wikipedia’s specific configuration choices make it an interesting test case to evaluate the …

Creating Effective Broadband Network Regulation, Daniel L. Brenner

Federal Communications Law Journal

The Internet is central to the business and pastimes of Americans. Calls for increased regulation are ongoing, inevitable, and often justified. But calls for "network neutrality" or "nondiscrimination" assume with little hesitation federal agency competence to give predictable and accurate meaning to these terms and create regulations to implement them. This Article's chief contribution to Internet policy debate is to focus attention on the likelihood of successful FCC Internet regulation-a key assumption of some advocates.

The Article analyzes three characteristics that hobble the FCC, which is the likeliest federal agency to provide prescriptive rules. First, the record for the agency …

Network Neutrality Between False Positives And False Negatives: Introducing A European Approach To American Broadband Markets, Jasper P. Sluijs

Federal Communications Law Journal

Network neutrality has become a contentious issue both in Europe and the United States. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic face digital divides in their society, and are confronted with potentially conflicting policy goals-to incentivize private investment in next-generation broadband while maintaining "neutral" and competitive broadband networks.

This Article compares nascent American and European network neutrality policy in terms of regulatory error costs. Emerging markets, such as broadband, are more likely to be affected by regulatory errors, and these errors have graver consequences in emerging markets than in regular markets. U.S. telecommunications policy traditionally has advanced a trial-and-error approach …