Internet Law Commons^™

Harry Potter And The Three-Second Crime: Are We Vanishing The De Minimis Defense From Copyright Law?, Julie Cromer

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Getting Real About Privacy: Eccentric Expectations In The Post-9/11 World, Jeffrey A. Breinholt

ExpressO

What if science developed technology that would eliminate violent crime on American streets entirely, without jeopardizing civil liberties or personal privacy? This article describes such a scenario, and uses it to take a critical look at some of legal commentary claiming that Americans are bound to lose their rights and privacy if they fail to object to modern tools of domestic security. It concludes that those who have criticize modern scientific applications to the security challenge are overlooking well-established legal doctrines, based on eccentric fears of technology and the nation's law enforcers.

A Powers-Based Approach To Idea-Submission Law, Larissa Katz

ExpressO

This paper provides a unified account of idea-submission law in terms of legal powers. It argues that the duty upon a recipient of a novel and original idea results from the exercise of a legal power that the law confers on originators in order to enable them to share their ideas selectively. This paper contributes to our understanding of idea-submission law and to private law theory more generally in a number of ways that have not been addressed in the literature. First, it systematically reveals the lack of fit between the case law and conventional legal theories for the protection …

The Pull Of Patents, Brett M. Frischmann

ExpressO

The conventional view of the role of patents in the university research context (and more generally) is that patent-enabled exclusivity improves the supply-side functioning of markets for university research results (and inventions more generally) as well as those markets further downstream for derivative commercial end-products. The reward, prospect, and commercialization theories of patent law take patent-enabled exclusivity as the relevant means for fixing a supply-side problem—the undersupply of private investment in the production of patentable subject matter or in the development and commercialization of patentable subject matter that would occur in the absence of patent-enabled exclusivity. Put another way, patents …

Forty-Two: The Hitchhiker's Guide To Teaching Legal Research To The Google Generation, Ian Gallacher

ExpressO

Students are coming to law school increasingly dependent on computers to serve their research needs. And they expect that computerized legal research will be both more efficient and more effective than book-based research. These expectations place students in conflict with traditionalists who point to the inherent limitations of computer-assisted legal research and the dangers in relying on legal research conducted entirely in electronic databases. These traditionalists favor a “books first,” if not a “books only,” approach. This paper explores the cultural conflict between the traditionalists and the “Google generation,” evaluates the dangers associated with computer-assisted legal research, and proposes a …

Digital Wars -- Legal Battles And Economic Bottlenecks In The Digital Information Industries, Curt A. Hessler

ExpressO

The Digital Revolution has created the apparent anomaly that information, though very cheap to create and near costless to share, is managed by industries that are increasingly concentrated and roiled by endless legal warfare. This paper surveys the major legal battles by subjecting all of them to the familiar norm of "maximizing economic value added", as defined by neo-classical "welfare economics". The various legal wars are traced to defects and confusions in current legal approaches to intellectual property (the "property wars") and to antitrust doctrines (the "monopoly wars").

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Building Universal Digital Libraries: An Agenda For Copyright Reform , Hannibal B. Travis

ExpressO

This article proposes a series of copyright reforms to pave the way for digital library projects like Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and Google Print, which promise to make much of the world’s knowledge easily searchable and accessible from anywhere. Existing law frustrates digital library growth and development by granting overlapping, overbroad, and near-perpetual copyrights in books, art, audiovisual works, and digital content. Digital libraries would benefit from an expanded public domain, revitalized fair use doctrine and originality requirement, rationalized systems for copyright registration and transfer, and a new framework for compensating copyright owners for online infringement without imposing derivative …

Contracts Concluded By Electronic Agents - Comparative Analysis Of American And Polish Legal Systems, Aleksandra M. Jurewicz

ExpressO

This article analyzes the US and Polish law on contract formation by electronic agents. It persents the main similarities and differences in the approaches of common and civil legal systems. Finally, it discusses changes in legal theories in Poland that had to be made in order to comply with standards of electronic commerce.

Looking For Sullivan In Cyberspace, Geoffrey A. Neri

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Of Rainbows And Rivers: Lessons For Telecommunications Spectrum Policy From Transitions In Property Rights And Commons In Water Law, Dale B. Thompson

ExpressO

A number of industries utilize the telecommunications spectrum to provide billions of dollars of services. However, some have noted that technological development and implementation of spectrum applications have not progressed as fast in the United States as in other parts of the world To improve technological development, many have recommended significant changes in United States policy of allocating spectrum, some based on a “property rights” approach, and others based on a “commons” approach. This article takes a novel approach to this problem, by applying lessons from our two hundred year history of water law to spectrum policy. Also, instead of …

Race Against The Machine: An Argument For The Standardization Of Voting Technology, Jason Belmont Conn

ExpressO

In this article/note, I examine a lingering question from the court cases arising out of the 2000 election: Does Bush v. Gore and the relevant equal protection case law open the door for a legal challenge to a state’s use of different voting machines/technologies and how do racial disparities in machine error rates impact this analysis? In addition to reviewing the current literature and case law on voting machine standardization, I also present an unrecognized and undocumented connection between the “all deliberate speed” order in Brown and the Court’s discussion of voting technology in Bush v. Gore.

Thieves In Cyberspace: Examining Music Piracy And Copyright Law Deficiencies In Russia As It Enters The Digital Age, Michael F. Mertens

ExpressO

The article discusses broadly the music piracy problem in Russia, the current state of Russia’s copyright laws, and how its laws and problems compare to the U.S. and the rest of the world. In particular, the article focuses on music piracy through the Internet and how it has exploded in Russia. One of the websites I target is the infamous Allofmp3.com, which has attracted a large amount of U.S. attention in recent times by consumers as well as lawmakers. The article analyzes the legislative and enforcement deficiencies in Russia that led to the enormous problem with traditional music piracy and …

Sharing Potential And The Potential For Sharing: Open Source Licensing As A Legal And Economic Modality For The Dissemination Of Renewable Energy Technology, Jason Wiener

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

‘Code’ And The Slow Erosion Of Privacy, Ronald Leenes, Bert-Jaap Koops

ExpressO

The notion of software code replacing legal code as a mechanism to control human behavior – ‘code as law’ – is often illustrated with examples in intellectual property and freedom of speech. This article examines the neglected issue of the impact of ‘code as law’ on privacy. To what extent is privacy-related ‘code’ being used, either to undermine or to enhance privacy? On the basis of cases in the domains of law enforcement, national security, E-government, and commerce, it is concluded that technology rarely incorporates specific privacy-related norms. At the same time, however, technology very often does have clear effects …

Law And Neuroscience, Atahualpa Fernandez

ExpressO

Localizing the brain correlates related to moral judgments, using neuroimage techniques (and also studies on brain lesions), seems to be, without doubt, one of the big events in the history of the normative social sciences.The best neuroscientific model of normative judgment available today establishes that the ethical-cerebral law operator counts on, in his neural evaluative-affective systems, a permanent presence of requirements, obligations and strategies, with a “should be” that incorporates internally rational and emotional reasons, that are constitutively integrated in all the activities at the practical, theoretical and normal levels of every process of exercising the law.

Turning Gold Into Epg: Lessons From Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism For Electronic Rulemaking And Other Ventures In Cyberdemocracy , Peter M. Shane

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

Empowered Participatory Governance, or EPG, is a model of governance developed by Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright that seeks to connect a set of normative commitments for strengthening democracy with a set of institutional design prescriptions intended to meet that objective. It is derived partly from democratic theory and partly from the study of real-world attempts to institutionalize transformative strategies for democratizing social and political decision making. This paper reviews Fung and Wright's recent volume, Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, and considers the relevance of the authors' and other contributors' insights for the future of a …

A Model For Emergency Service Of Voip Through Certification And Labeling, Patrick S. Ryan, Tom Lookabaugh, Douglas Sicker

ExpressO

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) will transform many aspects of traditional telephony service, including the technology, the business models, and the regulatory constructs that govern such service. Perhaps not unexpectedly, this transformation is generating a host of technical, business, social, and policy problems. In attempting to respond to these problems, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could mandate obligations or specific solutions to VoIP policy issues; however, it is instead looking first to industry initiatives focused on the key functionality that users have come to expect of telecommunications services. High among this list of desired functionality is user access to emergency …

What Makes Asset Securitization "Inefficient"?, Kenji Yamazaki

ExpressO

Despite the damage caused by the recent Enron scandal , the asset securitization market has been vibrant and has become a popular financing alternative . A number of academics emphasize its merits and suggest that it is a more favorable way of financing, and Congress’s proposal to make sales of asset in securitization immune from characterization as secured transactions under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001 (the “Reform Act”) almost materialized when the Enron scandal hit the scene. Conversely, there have been accusations that securitization is not a legitimate way of financing because, for example, it fosters fraudulent transactions.

Why …

Intellectual Property Rights In Digital Media: A Comparative Analysis Of Legal Protection, Technological Measures And New Business Models Under E.U. And U.S. Law, Nicola Lucchi

ExpressO

The production of digital content is a phenomenon which has completely changed the conditions of access to knowledge. Within this framework it becomes even more important to find and to formulate a new settlement for intellectual property rights balancing contrasted rights. Owners of the old technology and policy makers have found two different solutions and remedies for intellectual property rights: legal and technological. When both remedies work together any rights that a consumer may have under copyright law could be replaced by a unilaterally defined contractual term and condition. To balance this inequity this article analyses different solutions under U.S. …

The Drm Dilemma: Re-Aligning Rights Under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Jacqueline D. Lipton

ExpressO

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’) prevents unauthorized copying and distribution of digital copyright works by regulating devices that can be used to circumvent Digital Rights Management (‘DRM’) measures that are used to restrict access to those works. A significant problem is that those devices, like many new technologies, have the potential to be used for both socially harmful and socially beneficial purposes. There is no obvious way for Congress to regulate circumvention devices to prevent the social harms, while at the same time facilitating the social benefits they might provide. Recent judicial interpretations of the DMCA have unsurprisingly erred …

An Economic Theory Of Infrastructure And Commons Management, Brett M. Frischmann

ExpressO

In this article, Professor Frischmann combines a number of current debates across many disciplinary lines, all of which examine from different perspectives whether certain resources should be managed through a regime of private property or through a regime of open access. Frischmann develops and applies a theory that demonstrates there are strong economic arguments for managing and sustaining openly accessible infrastructure. The approach he takes differs from conventional analyses in that he focuses extensively on demand-side considerations and fully explores how infrastructure resources generate value for consumers and society. As a result, the theory brings into focus the social value …

Copyright Law, The Production Of Creative Works And Cultural Growth In Cyberspace , Alina Ng

ExpressO

The Internet has affected information flow in copyrighted content in a profound manner. Authors and artists are enabled through the Internet to assert greater control over the flow of information in their works as these new technologies offer new and different distribution channels for content. These new technologies also allow consumers to use content in ways, which had not been anticipated by the copyright industries. This paper presents that copyright law was developed for a specific purpose, which was to encourage learning and growth. As new technologies emerge and as content industries experience changes in information flow in copyrighted works, …

Copyright Law, The Production Of Creative Works And Cultural Growth In Cyberspace , Alina Ng

ExpressO

The Internet has affected information flow in copyrighted content in a profound manner. Authors and artists are enabled through the Internet to assert greater control over the flow of information in their works as these new technologies offer new and different distribution channels for content. These new technologies also allow consumers to use content in ways, which had not been anticipated by the copyright industries. This paper presents that copyright law was developed for a specific purpose, which was to encourage learning and growth. As new technologies emerge and as content industries experience changes in information flow in copyrighted works, …

Law’S Box: Law, Jurisprudence And The Information Ecosphere, Paul D. Callister

ExpressO

For so long as it has been important to know “what the law is,” the practice of law has been an information profession. Nonetheless, just how the information ecosphere affects legal discourse and thinking has never been systematically studied. Legal scholars study how law attempts to regulate information flow, but they say little about how information limits, shapes, and provides a medium for law to operate.

Part I of the paper introduces a holistic approach to “medium theory”—the idea that methods of communication influence social development and ideology—and applies the theory to the development of legal thinking and institutions. Part …

Block Me Not: Are Patented Genes 'Essential Facilities'?, Shamnad Basheer

ExpressO

The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by the ‘cumulative innovation’ paradigm, wherein the discovery of a gene sequence is only the first step. In order to convert such sequence information into viable products, tests and cures for genetic conditions and diseases, vast amounts of additional time, effort and money have to be spent. It is feared that patents over upstream gene sequences may ‘block’ further downstream research and consequently adversely impact drug discovery, as many diseases today are known to have genetic origins.

This ‘blocking’ or ‘restricted access’ issue has been the subject of several important papers and a wide array …

Cross-Examining The Brain: A Legal Analysis Of Neural Imaging For Credibility Impeachment, Charles N. W. Keckler

ExpressO

The last decade has seen remarkable process in understanding ongoing psychological processes at the neurobiological level, progress that has been driven technologically by the spread of functional neuroimaging devices, especially magnetic resonance imaging, that have become the research tools of a theoretically sophisticated cognitive neuroscience. As this research turns to specification of the mental processes involved in interpersonal deception, the potential evidentiary use of material produced by devices for detecting deception, long stymied by the conceptual and legal limitations of the polygraph, must be re-examined. Although studies in this area are preliminary, and I conclude they have not yet satisfied …

Material Vulnerabilities: Data Privacy, Corporate Information Security And Securities Regulation, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

ExpressO

This article undertakes a normative and empirical legal inquiry into the manner information security vulnerabilities are being addressed through law and in the marketplace. Specifically, this article questions the current legislative paradigm for information security regulation by presenting a critique grounded in information security and cryptography theory. Consequently, this article advocates shifting our regulatory approach to a process-based security paradigm that focuses on improving security of our system as a whole. Finally, this article argues that in order to accomplish this shift with least disruption to current legal and economic processes, expanding an existing set of well-functioning legal structures is …

Why "Bad" Patents Survive In The Market And How Should We Change?--The Private And Social Costs Of Patents, Jay P. Kesan

ExpressO

In this paper, we formally demonstrate that incorrectly issued patents can survive in the market without judicial review, even when the invention is neither novel nor non-obvious. We support this contention by presenting a game theoretic model that studies the interaction between the patentee and an alleged infringer/challenger. Using this model, we demonstrate the impact of the transaction costs in the patent system at the administrative stage in the Patent Office and at the enforcement stage in the courts, and highlight the inability in our current system to mount effective challenges to improperly granted patents in the current system. We …

Communication Breakdown?: The Future Of Global Connectivity After The Privatization Of Intelsat, Kenneth D. Katkin

ExpressO

In 1971, 85 nations (including the United States) formed the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization “INTELSAT,” a public intergovernmental treaty organization. INTELSAT was charged with operating the world’s first global telecommunications satellite system, in order to guarantee the interconnectedness of the world’s communications systems and the availability of international telecommunications service to every nation on earth. By the late 1980s, however, INTELSAT’s operations began to experience substantial competition from the private sector. In 2000, the proliferation of privately-owned telecommunications satellites and transoceanic fiber optic cables led the U.S. Congress to mandate the privatization of INTELSAT. That privatization process began in 2001, …