Internet Law Commons^™

Reconciling Fair Use And Trademark Use, Margreth Barrett

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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.

Privacy As Product Safety, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Online social media confound many of our familiar expectations about privacy. Contrary to popular myth, users of social software like Facebook do care about privacy, deserve it, and have trouble securing it for themselves. Moreover, traditional database-focused privacy regulations on the Fair Information Practices model, while often worthwhile, fail to engage with the distinctively social aspects of these online services.

Instead, online privacy law should take inspiration from a perhaps surprising quarter: product-safety law. A web site that directs users' personal information in ways they don't expect is a defectively designed product, and many concepts from products liability law could …

Regulating Cyberharassment: Some Thoughts On Sexual Harassment 2.0, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Fair Use, Gideon Parchomovsky, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

For centuries, the fair use doctrine has been the main--if not the exclusive--bastion of user rights. Originating in the English courts of equity, the doctrine permitted users, under appropriate circumstances, to employ copyrighted content without the rightsholder's consent. In the current digital media environment, however, the uncertainty that shrouds fair use and the proliferation of technological protection measures undermine the doctrine and its role in copyright policy. Notably, the enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures even for fair use purposes, has diminished the ability of fair use to counterbalance a copyright …

Substitution Effects: A Problematic Justification For The Third-Party Doctrine Of The Fourth Amendment, Blake Ellis Reid

Publications

In the past half-century, the Supreme Court has crafted a vein of jurisprudence virtually eliminating Fourth Amendment protection in information turned over to third parties - regardless of any subjective expectation of privacy or confidentiality in the information on the part of the revealer. This so-called “third-party” doctrine of the Fourth Amendment has become increasingly controversial in light of the growing societal reliance on the Internet in the United States, where nearly every transaction requires a user to turn information over to at least one third party: the Internet service provider (“ISP”).

Citing the scholarship that has criticized the third-party …

Government Speech 2.0, Helen Norton, Danielle Keats Citron

Publications

New expressive technologies continue to transform the ways in which members of the public speak to one another. Not surprisingly, emerging technologies have changed the ways in which government speaks as well. Despite substantial shifts in how the government and other parties actually communicate, however, the Supreme Court to date has developed its government speech doctrine--which recognizes "government speech" as a defense to First Amendment challenges by plaintiffs who claim that the government has impermissibly excluded their expression based on viewpoint--only in the context of disputes involving fairly traditional forms of expression. In none of these decisions, moreover, has the …

No Confusion Here: Proposing A New Paradigm For The Litigation Of Keyword Advertising Trademark Infringement Cases, Rachel R. Friedman

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo! earn a majority of their profit from selling advertisements to appear next to search results. Google's coveted advertising space, however, causes nightmares for trademark holders when their trademarks are auctioned by Google to competitors as keywords to trigger the competitors' advertisements when the trademark is used as a search term. Advertisers strategically bid on trademarks of competitors to ensure that their ads appear whenever the trademark is used as a search term, instead of the advertisements of the trademark holder. For example, Nike could bid on the trademark for "Adidas," with the …

Google Books: Page By Page, Click By Click, Users Are Reading Away Privacy Rights, Kathleen E. Kubis

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Google Books will likely become the world's most extensive book and magazine search and browsing resource, library, and bookstore--combined. However, as users necessarily reveal personal identifying information through their book searches and reading habits, this service poses a significant threat to personal privacy.

Because the Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement neglects to meaningfully address user privacy, the only available privacy protections are the limited rights bestowed by the Google Books Privacy Policy and the Google Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, these Privacy Policies protect the interests of Google at the expense of users.

The enactment of federal privacy statutes, which include provisions …

Virtual Contacts In Patent Cases: How Should Internet-Related Contacts Affect The Personal Jurisdiction Analysis?, Megan M. La Belle

Scholarly Articles

In the 1990s, when the Internet was still considered novel, courts struggled with the question of how Internet-related contacts should be treated in the personal jurisdiction analysis. So when Zippo Manufacturing v. Zippo DOT Com established an apparently easy-to-apply test for deciding whether a defendant’s virtual contacts are sufficient for personal jurisdiction, many courts embraced it . To date, however, the Federal Circuit has neither adopted nor rejected the Zippo approach, leaving litigants and lower courts in patent cases with little guidance on the issue. Although a recent decision suggests that the Federal Circuit recognizes the limitations of Zippo, it …

The Canadian Public Domain: What, Where, And To What End?, Carys J. Craig

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In this article, I explore the important body of scholarship that has emerged over this time on the substance, nature, and role of the public domain. I offer some concrete definitions of the public domain in the copyright context, identify some ongoing sources of debate in the literature, and highlight some particularly significant voices in public domain discourse. In doing so, my aim is twofold: first, I mean to present a fairly comprehensive, but concise, review of this academic movement that has been directed towards substantiating and politicizing the concept of the public domain; and second, I hope to re-situate …