Internet Law Commons^™

Copystrikes And Meme Bans: Social Media And Copyright Protections In The Digital Age, Angelina Sanchez

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Social media is a pervasive and ever-present aspect of many peoples’ lives. Its use permeates nearly every aspect of our existence – there truly is an app for everything. Most notably, social media operates internationally both in scope and usage allowing for the creation of an astounding global society that shares cultures and perspectives in a way unprecedented in human history. Never before have societies been as interconnected as they are now. Unfortunately, such interconnectedness comes with the issue of globalizing enforcement of copyright laws. Infringement runs rampant online and forces creators to struggle against a seemingly faceless foe in …

Digital Privacy Rights And Cloud Act Agreements, Tim Cochrane

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) will soon bring into force a new international law enforcement data sharing ‘CLOUD Act agreement’ (US-UK Agreement), the first of its kind under the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018 (CLOUD Act). These agreements enable law enforcement in one state to directly request data from service providers based in the other state. They respond to long-standing concerns with the main mechanism for obtaining overseas data, mutual legal assistance (MLA). The US and UK claim the US-UK Agreement will significantly speed up data access relative to MLA while “respecting privacy and …

Copyright’S Techno-Pessimist Creep, Xiyin Tang

Fordham Law Review

Government investigations and public scrutiny of Big Tech are at an all-time high. While current legal scholarship and government focus have centered overwhelmingly on whether and how antitrust law and § 230 of the Communications Decency Act can be revised to address platform dominance, scant attention has been paid to another, almost unseen attempt to regulate Big Tech: copyright law. The recent adoption in Europe of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive, which holds internet platforms liable for user-generated creative content unless they obtain costly content licenses, is the most direct example of such regulation—and may serve as precedent for …

Seeking A Safe Harbor In A Widening Sea: Unpacking The Schrems Saga And What It Means For Transatlantic Relations And Global Cybersecurity, Scott J. Shackelford

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Article is structured as follows. Part I examines Schrems I (Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner) and the fall of the Safe Harbor regime. Part II analyzes Schrems II (Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook & Max Schrems) along with the rise and fall of Privacy Shield. Part III focuses on opportunities to bridge the data governance divide and present a united front to help ensure a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient vision for cyberspace.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Deep In The Heart Of North America: Texas And The Future Of North American Energy Trade, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez, James W. Coleman

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Texas, the heart of North American energy markets, has recently emerged from history’s biggest oil boom, and is becoming the crossroads for an increasingly two-way trade in oil and gas. Texas and Mexico, in particular have much to gain from expanded energy trade. This report shows how energy law changes in the U.S. and Mexico present under-studied dangers to cross-border energy trade and will set an agenda for legal reform to enable mutually beneficial fuel and power trade.

Protecting Sentient Artificial Intelligence: A Survey Of Lay Intuitions On Standing, Personhood, And General Legal Protection, Eric H. Martinez, Christoph Winter

Faculty Scholarship

To what extent, if any, should the law protect sentient artificial intelligence (that is, AI that can feel pleasure or pain)? Here we surveyed United States adults (n = 1,061) on their views regarding granting 1) general legal protection, 2) legal personhood, and 3) standing to bring forth a lawsuit, with respect to sentient AI and eight other groups: humans in the jurisdiction, humans outside the jurisdiction, corporations, unions, non-human animals, the environment, humans living in the near future, and humans living in the far future. Roughly one-third of participants endorsed granting personhood and standing to sentient AI (assuming …

Gdpr, Pipl & Lgpd: Privacy Regulations & Policies Across The Globe, Raymond H. Geistel

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Several privacy laws around the world are adopting similar regulations to the GPDR; this has effects on privacy policies of companies providing services in across multiple countries & continents. While these regulations share many attributes, their differing requirements can make things difficult for companies regarding said policies. Automation could be a potential solution to both analyze and compare regulations from different nations & international organizations, analyze and monitor privacy policy adherence to said regulations.

Building Legal Datasets, Jerrold Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Data-centric AI calls for better, not just bigger, datasets. As data protection laws with extra-territorial reach proliferate worldwide, ensuring datasets are legal is an increasingly crucial yet overlooked component of “better”. To help dataset builders become more willing and able to navigate this complex legal space, this paper reviews key legal obligations surrounding ML datasets, examines the practical impact of data laws on ML pipelines, and offers a framework for building legal datasets.

The Dangers Of Doxing And Swatting: Why Texas Should Criminalize These Malicious Forms Of Cyberharassment, Hannah Mery

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Absolute Publishing Power And Bulletproof Immunity: How Section 230 Shields Internet Service Providers From Liability And Makes It Impossible To Protect Your Reputation Online, Victoria Anderson

Seattle University Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Pure Sovereignty In Cyberspace, Kevin Jon Heller

International Law Studies

States currently endorse three different positions concerning the international wrongfulness of cyber operations that penetrate computer systems located on the territory of another state but do not rise to the level of a use of force or prohibited intervention. The first position is that such low-intensity cyber operations are never wrongful, because sovereignty is a principle of international law, not a primary rule that can be independently violated. The second is that low-intensity cyber operations are always wrongful, because sovereignty is a primary rule of international law that is violated by any non-consensual penetration of a computer system located on …

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 …

Big Tech In A Small Pond: How The Internet Economy Became So Concentrated And What Sector-Specific Regulation Can Do To Reel It In, Andy Wilson

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

While the early days of the internet were marked by a proliferation of new internet platforms offering different services, over time much of the sector became dominated by the handful of internet giants we know today. Discomfort with the outsized role that these enormous companies play in the daily lives of billions has driven a growing consensus that they need to be reined in, culminating in federal and state agencies launching a slew of antitrust suits against Google and Facebook in late 2020. These renewed antitrust efforts will likely be insufficient to address competitive harms in the internet economy, given …

The Paradox Of Free Speech In The Digital World: First Amendment Friendly Proposals For Promoting User Agency, Nadine Strossen

Articles & Chapters

The United States Supreme Court has continued a speech-protective trend dating back to the 1960s, safeguarding even the most controversial speech from government regulation, including speech that critics of this trend label with the stigmatizing terms "hate speech," "disinformation," "misinformation," "extremist speech," and "terrorist speech." In contrast, as dominant online platforms have become increasingly important forums for both individual self-expression and democratic discourse, the platforms have been issuing and enforcing increasing restrictions on their users' speech pursuant to each platform's content moderation policies. These restrictions often suppress speech that the U.S. Constitution bars government from suppressing. As private sector entities, …

Schrems's Slippery Slope: Strengthening Governance Mechanisms To Rehabilitate Eu-U.S. Cross-Border Data Transfers After Schrems Ii, Edward W. Mclaughlin

Fordham Law Review

In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the Privacy Shield Framework, the central data governance mechanism that once governed cross-border data transfers from the European Union (EU) to the United States. For the second time in five years, Europe’s top court invalidated the primary method of cross-border data transfers. Both times the CJEU found that the United States’s surveillance laws were, and remain, overbroad and fail to provide EU citizens with protections that are essentially equivalent to those guaranteed under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in light of the Charter of Fundamental …

A Comparative Study Of Dark Patterns Across Mobile And Web Modalities, Johanna Gunawan, Amogh Pradeep, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Dark patterns are user interface elements that can influence a person's behavior against their intentions or best interests. Prior work identified these patterns in websites and mobile apps, but little is known about how the design of platforms might impact dark pattern manifestations and related human vulnerabilities. In this paper, we conduct a comparative study of mobile application, mobile browser, and web browser versions of 105 popular services to investigate variations in dark patterns across modalities. We perform manual tests, identify dark patterns in each service, and examine how they persist or differ by modality. Our findings show that while …

Unilateral Cyber Sanctions: Between Questioned Legality And Normative Value, Iryna Bogdanova, Maria Vasquez Callo-Muller

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The current legal vacuum regarding binding international norms regulating malicious conduct in cyberspace has paved the way for the emergence of a unilateral tool: cyber sanctions. They have already been introduced by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding their obvious importance, their interrelations with international law- especially international economic law-have remained largely unexplored in academic research. This gap is perplexing given the fact that the existing unilateral cyber sanctions have been formulated in such a way as to be prone to misuse. In particular, they bear a significant potential to disrupt economic relations and undermine …

Joint Submission Of Ip Scholars, Re. Consultation On A Modern Copyright Framework For Artificial Intelligence And The Internet Of Things, Carys Craig

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Ada Title Iii: How Congress And The Department Of Justice Can Solve Predatory Litigation, Sarah E. Zehentner

Brooklyn Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to afford equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Title III of the ADA, specifically, was enacted to afford disabled individuals equal access to places of public accommodation. When the ADA was enacted, the internet was still in its infancy and Congress did not contemplate the need for governing accessibility to websites of public accommodations. Today, the internet has become embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives, yet there are still millions of disabled individuals who are unable to equally access the websites of American businesses. With the ADA being …

Submission To Canadian Government Consultation On A Modern Copyright Framework For Ai And The Internet Of Things, Sean Flynn, Lucie Guibault, Christian Handke, Joan-Josep Vallbé, Michael Palmedo, Carys Craig, Michael Geist, João Pedro Quintais

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

No abstract provided.