Internet Law Commons^™

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.

Symposium: Regulatory Capture And Technological Entrepreneurship: Protecting Consumer Interests?, Robert Anderson, John G. Shearer, Christopher Koopman, Makan Delrahim, Erik Syverson, Babbette Boliek

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Sharing Economy And Consumer Protection Regulation: The Case For Policy Change, Christopher Koopman, Matthew Mitchell, Adam Thierer

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

In this Paper, we discuss the central benefit of the sharing economy thus far: it has overcome market imperfections without recourse to regulatory bodies prone to capture by entrenched firms. As an introduction to the various issues surrounding this ongoing debate, we begin with an explanation of the sharing economy. Then we review the traditional “consumer protection” rationales for economic regulation and explain why many regulations persist even though their initial justifications are no longer valid. We argue continued application of these outmoded regulatory regimes is likely to harm consumers. In the last section, we explain how the Internet and …

Fairness, Trust And Security In Online Dispute Resolution, Noam Ebner, John Zeleznikow

Journal of Public Law and Policy

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 …

Big Data Blacklisting, Margaret Hu

Faculty Publications

“Big data blacklisting” is the process of categorizing individuals as administratively “guilty until proven innocent” by virtue of suspicious digital data and database screening results. Database screening and digital watchlisting systems are increasingly used to determine who can work, vote, fly, etc. In a big data world, through the deployment of these big data tools, both substantive and procedural due process protections may be threatened in new and nearly invisible ways. Substantive due process rights safeguard fundamental liberty interests. Procedural due process rights prevent arbitrary deprivations by the government of constitutionally protected interests. This Article frames the increasing digital mediation …

Paying For Nude Celebrities: Testing The Outer Limits Of Roommates.Com, Accusearch, And Section 230 Immunity, Christian Kaiser

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The Internet is a powerful tool that promotes commerce, free thought, and free speech. It is these exact values that Congress sought to solidify when it passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Internet also has a dark side, which is filled with obscenities, pornography, and illegal activity. In order to protect positive values and activities on the Internet, Congress decided to incentivize websites to police the content posted by their users. This was done by providing broad immunity from lawsuits based on content posted by third parties. But this immunity is not absolute. In the Fair Housing …

Second Annual Report, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington continues to pick up steam in our second year. We have hosted national policy discussions, collaborated directly with policymakers on open data and other issues, and continue to develop strong, method-based interdisciplinary research.

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 …

Establishing Russia's Responsibility For Cyber-Crime Based On Its Hacker Culture, Trevor Mcdougal

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.

Keeping Pace: The U.S. Supreme Court And Evolving Technology, Brian Thomas

Politics Summer Fellows

Contemporary mainstream discussions of the Supreme Court are often qualified with the warning that the nine justices are out of touch with everyday American life, especially when it comes to the newest and most popular technologies. For instance, during oral argument for City of Ontario v. Quon, a 2010 case that dealt with sexting on government-issued devices, Chief Justice John Roberts famously asked what the difference was “between email and a pager,” and Justice Antonin Scalia wondered if the “spicy little conversations” held via text message could be printed and distributed. While these comments have garnered a great deal of …

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.

Yesterday Once More: Skeptics, Scribes And The Demise Of Law Reviews, Bernard J. Hibbitts

Akron Law Review

Readers of the present collection of commentaries in this Special Issue of the Akron Law Review will recognize these points. They are all criticisms of the system of electronic self-publication that I proposed in my Web-posted article Last Writes? Re-assessing the Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace. But they are also recognizable from another context. Five hundred years ago, every one of them was leveled at the scholarly proponents of commercial printing.

Scholarly Legal Monographs: Advantages Of The Road Less Taken, William G. Ross

Akron Law Review

Although many of Professor Bernard J. Hibbitts's criticisms of law reviews in the accompanying article may be excessive, Hibbitts's arguments for the advantages of self publication on the Web are provocative. Although I do not believe that self publication is likely to replace law reviews during the foreseeable future, Hibbitts almost surely is correct in predicting that increasing numbers of law professors will use the Web as an alternative to traditional modes of publication.

Hibbitts, however, has overlooked another alternative to the traditional law review books. This is not surprising, since legal academics traditionally have disseminated their scholarship through law …

Review Of Hibbitts's Last Writes?, Trotter Hardy

Akron Law Review

Professor Hibbitts's review of the history of law reviews was interesting. For me, the most notable part of that history was his placing the law review in context, not only of the times and the desire of law faculty to be recognized as part of the academic world, but of technology. He points out that declining costs in the print publishing world helped fuel the growth of law reviews. I do not know the history of publishing well enough to know whether the 1890s (the beginning period of law review formation) was a watershed time, but surely publishing costs do …

Reassessing Professor Hibbitts's Requiem For Law Reviews, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Akron Law Review

The details vary from law review to law review, but typically, an accepted article is edited three times, once for technical compliance with the Bluebook manual of citation, once for substance and clarity, and again by a senior editor. Every citation is checked to confirm that it supports the proposition for which it is offered. The author sees the article at least twice during the process, once after the manuscript has been edited, and again at the galley or page proof stage.

Next, the article is typeset (increasingly, this simply means that a word processing file submitted by the author …

Swift, Modest Proposals, Babies, And Bathwater: Are Hibbitts's Writes Right?, Thomas R. Bruce

Akron Law Review

That is one of the reasons I fidget a bit as I read Last Writes?. I think that doing what Hibbitts proposes and more to the point, doing it well will be rather more work than he lets on, and will be anything but immediate. It will be a difficult kind of work, the thorny, self critical kind that law schools generally avoid like the plague. While Hibbitts does an excellent job of outlining the possible objections to his "modest proposal," I think that he underestimates the tenacity of the existing culture. I also think he misses some of the …

Self-Publication On The Internet And The Future Of Law Reviews, Gregory E. Maggs

Akron Law Review

This essay presents a different vision of the future. Part I explains why law reviews might continue to exist even after self-publication on the Internet becomes the norm. It suggests that law reviews could still perform many of the functions they currently perform, even it they get out of the business of publishing. Part II then argues that law schools should favor the continued existence of law reviews. It explains that law reviews stimulate and enrich the students who volunteer to serve on them, and that developments on the Internet will make the law review experience even more valuable. Part …

Eliminate The "Middle Man"?, Richard Delgado

Akron Law Review

The Editors of the Akron Law Review have asked me what I think of Bernard Hibbitts's suggestion that legal scholars do away with the law review as an institution and publish their work directly on the Internet, as he has done.

I like the idea of publishing one's work directly on the Internet. Self- publishing has a long and honorable history. Indeed, our early colonial patriots surreptitiously typeset tracts and pamphlets like Common Sense in homes and small back-alley print shops and distributed them themselves a method that could be likened to today's desktop and Internet publishing. Even in our …