Internet Law Commons^™

A New Common Law Of Web Scraping, Benjamin L.W. Sobel

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The Clearview AI facial recognition scandal is a monumental breach of privacy that arrived at a particularly inopportune time. A shadowy company reportedly scraped billions of publicly-available images from social media platforms and compiled them into a facial recognition database that it made available to law enforcement and private industry. To make matters worse, the scandal came to light just months after the Ninth Circuit’s decision in hiQ v. LinkedIn, which held that scraping the public web probably does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Before hiQ, the CFAA would have seemed like the surest route to …

The Rule Of Technology: How Technology Is Used To Disturb Basic Labor Law Protections, Tammy Katsabian

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Much has been written on technology and the law. Leading scholars are occupied with the power dynamics between capital, technology, and the law, along with their implications for society and human rights. Alongside that, various labor law scholars focus on the implications of smart technology on employees’ rights throughout the recruitment and employment periods and on workers’ status and rights in the growing phenomenon of platform-based work. This Article aims to contribute to the current scholarship by zooming out and observing from a bird’s-eye view how certain actors use technology to manipulate and challenge basic legal categories in labor today. …

Bertillonage In An Age Of Surveillance: Fourth Amendment Regulation Of Facial Recognition Technologies, David C. Gray

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

The Fourth Amendment is a closed hydraulic system. As a general rule, if government conduct is deemed a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, then agents must secure a warrant from a detached and neutral magistrate before engaging in that conduct. There are exceptions, of course, but they just shift the pressure into another valve. Officers who conduct searches based on their own initiative must show not only probable cause, but also good reasons why, in their circumstances, they were not required to get a warrant.

One consequence of these Fourth Amendment hydraulics is a reluctance on the part of the …

Covid-19: Legal Framework For Vaccine Distributions And Mandates, Dana B. Taschner, Ashley Atwood

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has created heightened turmoil for at-risk populations, solidified laws allowing the use of mask mandates, raised legal issues surrounding vaccine mandates, and presented the new issue of a vaccine passport. As a nation, we have failed to implement vaccination schemes that properly protect vulnerable populations. Specifically, the homeless population has been overlooked, creating an additional layer of hardship, and contributing to greater community spread. This article contemplates the various methods by which an equitable vaccination scheme could have been achieved and the division of powers that created complications.

Additionally, the legality of vaccine mandates is discussed, and …

Q: Can Booking.Com Be Trademarked? A: Booking.Yeah, Samantha Favela

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

By choosing a generic Internet domain as a brand name, that brand can hit the Internet jackpot. But the popularity and use of a generic domain name creates tension with trademark law. While companies want to be easily found on the Internet, they also want to protect themselves from competitors. This Case Note argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States Patent & Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V. is the best possible outcome in protecting brand’s rights and balancing trademark law principles. Through the analysis of past cases, the Supreme Court decision in Booking.com itself, and trademark law principles, …

The Art Of Dodging Bullets: How Covid-19 Drug Manufacturers And Providers Plan To Escape Tort Liability, Ruan Meintjes

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fifth Circuit, Fourth Amendment, And The Third-Party Doctrine: Two Takeaways From The Court’S First Ruling On Bitcoin Privacy, Daniel Penn

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trump’S Twitter Tension: Is Social Media A Modern Restriction On Government Employees?, Caylee Phillips

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Signed, Sealed, Patented?: A Look At The United States Postal Service’S Patent Application For Implementing Blockchain Technology In Mobile Voting Systems, Ethan Todd

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright, Pandemics, And Emergencies: When Desperate Times Dictate Contextual Responses, Caroline L. Osborne

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

This article explores fair use, the library exception, the first sale doctrine, and controlled digital lending as responses to copyright in the context of permitting libraries to digitize materials existing exclusively in print in their collection for use in teaching, research, and scholarship by students, faculty, and other patrons. Also included is a decision matrix to be employed as a tool for analysis in making the decisions as to digitization of print resources in response to instances of emergencies.

Abolishing The Communications Decency Act Might Sanitize “Politically Biased,” “Digitally Polluted” And “Dangerously Toxic” Social Media? ― Judicial And Statistical Guidance From Federal-Preemption, Safe-Harbor And Rights-Preservation Decisions, Willy E. Rice

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Sitting and former U.S. Presidents as well as members of the general public, financial, political and educational institutions use social media. Yet, an overwhelming majority of users, content creators, parents, “conservatives,” “progressives,” Democrats and Republicans distrust social-media owners. Some critics allege that owners “digitally pollute” platforms by encouraging users to post “corrosive, dangerous, toxic and illegal content.” Other critics assert that service providers’ purportedly objective content-moderation algorithms are biased ― discriminating irrationally on the basis of users’ political association, ideology, socioeconomic status, gender and ethnicity. Republicans and Democrats have crafted roughly twenty bills. In theory, the enacted proposals would “sanitize” …

Uncovering The “Realness” Of Cgi Influencers, Samantha Favela

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Death Of The Ai Author, Carys Craig, Ian Kerr

Articles & Book Chapters

Much of the recent literature on AI and authorship asks whether an increasing sophistication and independence of generative code should cause us to rethink embedded assumptions about the meaning of authorship. It is often suggested that recognizing the authored — and so copyrightable — nature of AI-generated works may require a less profound doctrinal leap than has historically been assumed. In this essay, we argue that the threshold for authorship does not depend on the evolution or state of the art in AI or robotics. Rather, the very notion of AI-authorship rests on a category mistake: it is an error …

The Contribution Of Eu Law To The Regulation Of Online Speech, Luc Von Danwitz

Michigan Technology Law Review

Internet regulation in the European Union (EU) is receiving significant attention and criticism in the United States. The European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) judgment in the case Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland, in which the ECJ found a take-down order against Facebook for defamatory content with global effect permissible under EU law, was closely scrutinized in the United States. These transsystemic debates are valuable but need to be conducted with a thorough understanding of the relevant legal framework and its internal logic. This note aims to provide the context to properly assess the role the ECJ and EU law play …

The Virtual Law School, 2.0, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

Just over twenty years ago I gave a talk to the AALS called The Virtual Law School? Or, How the Internet Will De-skill the Professoriate, and Turn Your Law School Into a Conference Center. I came to the subject because I had been working on internet law, learning about virtual worlds and e-commerce, and about the power of one-to-many communications, and it struck me that a lot of what I had learned applied to education in general and to legal education in particular.
It didn't happen. Or at least, it has not happened yet. In this essay I want …

Shifting Contour Of Data Sharing In Financial Market And Regulatory Responses: The Uk And Australian Models, Han-Wei Liu

American University Business Law Review

I. INTRODUCTION

Starting from Directive 2015/2366 on Payment Services in the Internal Market — known as PSD II in the European Union (EU) — countries across the world have or are contemplating a new framework to govern data sharing among different players in the financial market. “Open Banking,” as this trend is called, requires or encourages — depending on the regulatory models adopted in different jurisdictions — banks to share consumer-permissioned banking data with third parties securely, in a form that facilitates its use. The Open Banking initiatives have diffused from the EU, and the UK, to elsewhere. The current …

Esica: Securing—Not Compelling—Speech On The “Vast Democratic Forums” Of The Internet, Philip Primeau

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Developments In The Laws Affecting Electronic Payments And Financial Services, Sarah Jane Hughes, Steve Middlebrook, Tom Kierner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This survey year offered developments too numerous to cover, as often is the case. We debated which developments to include and decided to showcase different types of products and services, different providers, and different regulators. Part II views issues related to stimulus payments arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Part III reports on litigation over whether retailers must offer gift cards printed in Braille. Part IV looks at recent actions of the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") related to payment processors and others. Part V describes amendments to the "remittance" regulation promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). Part VI focuses …