Internet Law Commons^™

Mad Men Posing As Ordinary Consumers: The Essential Role Of Self-Regulation And Industry Ethics On Decreasing Deceptive Online Consumer Ratings And Reviews, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 462 (2013), Lucille M. Ponte

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Technology provides consumers with new ways to avoid advertisements, such as fast forwarding through TV commercials and using filtering software to block pop-up ads. Accordingly brand sponsors and their advertising marketing firms have sought alternative methods to pierce through consumer resistance to ads. Social media offers an optimal platform to reach millions of consumers on a nearly daily basis who interact and often rely heavily on the reviews and rankings of fellow consumers. However, many of today’s branding campaigns now mask sponsored ads as ordinary consumer reviews or “Like” and “Don’t Like” responses to a service or product. Unbeknownst to …

The Emerging Reality Of Social Media: Erosion Of Individual Privacy Through Cyber-Vetting And Law’S Inability To Catch Up, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 551 (2013), Saby Ghoshray

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The rise of social media means that data about a large number of people is available in public and quasi-public digital locations. Employers, keen on taking advantage of this additional data to decrease the risk associated with an offer of employment, are engaging in “cyber-vetting”—non-consenting social media searches conducted by third parties or the employers themselves. To the extent that current law applies to this practice, the regulation it provides is weak and attacks only part of the problem. Left unchecked, cyber-vetting has the potential to fundamentally alter the scope of prospective employees’ rights. This article surveys the legal and …

How The Internet Has Removed The Historical Rationale For "Non-Analogous Arts", 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 68 (2013), Hal Milton

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The growth of the Internet has affected countless aspects of daily life, including the patent system. Internet-based legal research has grown considerably, given the convenience of general search agents such as Google, legally-focused search agents such as Westlaw and Lexis, and patent-focused search agents such as the PAIR system of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. These legal research tools have not only made it easier to find prior art, they have also expanded the volume of information that is available to one of ordinary skill in the art. Consequently, the traditional rules of so-called “analogous arts” are changing. …

Memetic Theory, Trademarks & The Viral Meme Mark, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 96 (2013), Shontavia Jackson Johnson

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

This Article proposes that memetic theory is a useful lens through which to view trademarks, particularly as there has been a rise in the number of applications for culturally-driven words and catchphrases in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Memetic theory, or memetics, is a scientific field related to how units of information evolve and replicate. These units of information, called memes, undergo a process of natural selection comparable to that of genes. To survive as trademarks, memes must not only exist in the proper form, but they must also subsist in an environment where replication, variation, and selection …

Copyright Trolls, Defining The Line Between Legal Ransom Letters And Defending Digital Rights: Turning Piracy Into A Business Model Or Protecting Creative From Internet Lawlessness?, 13 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 170 (2013), Luke S. Curran

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The scarlet letter of the term “troll” has long been affixed to the lapel of businesses within the patent context. This pejorative term, however, has had little relevance or widespread public recognition within the domain of copyright law until 2010. Since the awakening of the “copyright troll,” several non-author rights holders have recently adopted and propagated a substantially modified version of this sue-to-settle paradigm within the context of copyright law while introducing it to the scale of mass-litigation. Further, the amorphous term “copyright troll” traditionally characterizes a business practice of acquiring unenforced copyrights that are being infringed upon through various …

Head In The Clouds, Feet Firmly Grounded In Physical Proof: Emphasis On The Tangible In Actions Against Internet Search Engines And Aggregators, Briehan Moran

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Gmonopoly: Does Search Bias Warrant Antitrust Or Regulatory Intervention?, Andrew Langford

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Internet Is Not A Super Highway: Using Metaphors To Communicate Information And Communications Policy, Kristen Jakobsen Osenga

Law Faculty Publications

Do metaphors influence our information policy preferences? Professor Osenga thinks so, which makes it especially important to choose the right one, as a metaphor is often the primary tool the general public uses to understand information policy. Using a five-point rubric, she evaluates, among others, understanding the Internet as “tubes,” “highway,” “space (cyberspace),” “coffee shop/bar” and “cloud.” Osenga finds them all lacking in important ways. However, she believes the metaphor of the Internet as “ecosystem” is very promising and deserves to be further developed.

Pass Parallel Privacy Standards Or Privacy Perishes, Anne T. Mckenna

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hackback: Permitting Retaliatory Hacking By Non-State Actors As Proportionate Countermeasures To Transboundary Cyberharm, Jan E. Messerschmidt

National Security Law Program

Cyberespionage has received even greater attention in the wake of reports of persistent and brazen cyberexploitation of U.S. and Canadian firms by the Chinese military. But the recent disclosures about NSA surveillance programs have made clear that a national program of cyberdefense of private firms' intellectual property is politically infeasible. Following the lead

of companies like Google, private corporations may increasingly resort to the use of self-defense, hacking back against cross-border incursions on the Internet. Most scholarship, however, has surprisingly viewed such actions as outside the ambit of international law. This Note provides a novel account of how international law …

Access Denied: The "Facebook Law" And Illinois' Evolving Workplace Protections, Steven A. Montalto

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Illegal Process: Basic Problems In The Making And Application Of Censorship, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay is a response to Derek Bambauer's article Orwell's Armchair, which proposes "[a] statute enabling censorship of Internet material." Bambauer's theory is process-oriented: it focuses on the institutions that engage in censorship and the procedures that they follow. Accordingly, the essay examines his arguments through the lens of the canonical Legal Process text: Hart and Sacks' The Legal Process. A series of notes and queries inquire whether his proposed statute would limit censorship, regularize it, or legitimate it.

Adequate Attribution: A Framework For Developing A National Policy For Private Sector Use Of Active Defense, Shane Mcgee, Randy V. Sabett, Anand Shah

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

From Peer-To-Peer Networks To Cloud Computing: How Technology Is Redefining Child Pornography Laws, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article traces the history of the child pornography laws and sentencing policy in Part I. Part II explains the technologies that have caused some of the current controversies, and then Part III describes how these technologies have blurred the offenses. Finally, Part IV makes suggestions as to how the law could better reflect technology and comport with a refined harm rationale. Courts, legal scholars, and medical experts have explained the harm includes the sexual abuse captured in the images and the psychological injury the victim endures knowing the images are being viewed. This Article further develops the harm rationale …

The Anonymous Internet, Bryan H. Choi

Publications

This Article argues in favor of regulating online anonymity, not from the standpoint that doing so will prevent harmful abuses or improve security, but instead that refusing to do so will ultimately harm other liberty interests. One principle that has emerged from cyberlaw scholarship is that we should safeguard the Internet’s "generativity"— a key attribute representing the latitude and plasticity with which a technology (like the Internet) can be adapted to perform new, unanticipated uses—because generativity is the root source of the Internet’s unique vitality. Yet, if we want regulators to leave generativity alone, we must offer them another point …

Can We Really Ascribe A Dollar Amount To Interpersonal Communication? How Phonedog V. Kravitz May Decide Who Owns A Twitter Account, Robert J. Kolansky

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian

Journal Articles

Intellectual property regimes operate in the shadow of the First Amendment. By deeming a particular activity as infringing, the law of copyright, trademark, and the right of publicity all limit communication. As a result, judges and lawmakers must delicately balance intellectual property rights with expressive freedoms. Interestingly, each intellectual property regime strikes the balance between ownership rights and free speech in a dramatically different way. Despite a large volume of scholarship on intellectual property rights and free speech considerations, this Article represents the first systematic effort to detail, analyze, and explain the divergent evolution of expression-based defenses in copyright, trademark, …

Striking A Balance Between Privacy And Online Commerce, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

It is becoming commonplace to note that privacy and online commerce are on a collision course. Corporate entities archive and monetize more and more personal information. Citizens increasingly resent the intrusive nature of such data collection and use. Just noticing this conflict, however, tells us little. In "Informing and Reforming the Marketplace of Ideas: The Public-Private Model for Data Production and the First Amendment" Professor Shubha Ghosh not only notes the tension between the costs and benefits of data commercialization, but suggests three normative perspectives for balancing privacy and commercial speech. This is valuable because without a rich theoretical framework …

What Alex Kozinski And The Investigation Of Earl Bradley Teach About Searching And Seizing Computers And The Dangers Of Inevitable Discovery, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

This paper tells two stories. One concerns the investigation of a Delaware physician named Earl B. Bradley that resulted in a conviction and sentence of fourteen consecutive life terms for the sexual abuse of children. The other concerns the computer problems, both judicial and extra-judicial, of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Though in a sense unrelated, they share lessons about the practicalities of computers and their search that are worth telling. As courts continue to struggle with how to cabin the searches of computers in order to minimize privacy intrusion …

"C U In Crt": Legal Aid Straight To Your Phone, Jessica Ratner

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.