Science and Technology Law Commons^™

The Free Content Illusion, Jonathan M. Barnett

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Conventional scholarly wisdom tends to discount the importance of copyright as a tool for delivering remuneration to the artists that sustain the digital creative ecosystem or as an enabling mechanism that facilitates the licensing, distribution, and financing transactions that constitute the economic infrastructure of the media and entertainment industries. This position runs counter to the evolution of digital content markets, which have experienced renewed investment and growth concurrently with the development of technological tools that have enabled content owners to correct for the “copyright deficit,” regulate access, and extract payment from platforms and users. This result conforms to standard economic …

Transforming Blood Management Systems In Developing Countries Through Technological And Artificial Intelligence-Driven Innovations, Sandeep Bhargava, Shaun Aaron Abram, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

It is critical to ensure the safe and quality supply of blood among various stakeholders; however, this remains a significant challenge in today’s world, especially in developing countries. These countries face severe problems, including blood shortages, fragmented regulatory frameworks, and inconsistent quality control measures. To tackle these challenges, countries like India are trying to implement the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and its derivative platforms to transform blood collection, testing, storage, and distribution by enabling interoperability, real-time compliance monitoring, automated donor screening, optimized inventory management, and advanced component separation. The article argues that developing countries must adopt both regulatory reform …

The Case For Ai Authorship In Copyright Law, Cheng Lim Saw, Duncan Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Today, with generative AI, literary and artistic works can be created almost effortlessly. There is at present intense debate as to whether works generated by AI – broadly categorised as “AI-assisted” and “AI-generated” works – ought to attract copyright protection. AI-assisted works are those that involve some degree of human intervention. Where AI-generated works are concerned, however, such works are created autonomously by the AI itself with minimal (de minimis) input from an identifiable human being. Presently, it is generally accepted that AI-generated works do not attract copyright protection for want of a human author. This article examines whether it …

Contracting Liability For Generative Ai, Taorui Guan

University of Richmond Law Review

Generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) is straining the boundaries of long-established secondary liability doctrines in copyright law—including contributory infringement, vicarious liability, inducement, and statutory safe harbors. Courts and policymakers have yet to adapt these doctrines to the challenges that AI’s massive scale, decentralized development network, and opaque “black box” architectures pose, creating considerable legal uncertainty. In response, leading AI providers increasingly rely on contractual solutions—embedding warranties, indemnifications, liability caps, and other provisions into user agreements—seeking to allocate infringement risks preemptively. These evolving contractual approaches both draw upon and diverge from classic doctrines, offering novel insight into how the pressure of generative …

Transformative Technology And Shortening The Statute Of Limitations Applicable To Taxpayers, Jay A. Soled, Leslie Book

University of Richmond Law Review

When it comes to submitting tax returns and paying taxes, most taxpayers understand the nature of their civic duties and do so dutifully, if not willingly. However, many taxpayers fail to grasp why the IRS has such an elongated time period—namely, three years— to audit their tax returns and propose an assessment. Indeed, when the IRS exercises its oversight authority, records may no longer be available, and memories may be dulled. Since the original institution of the three-year tax assessment limitations period nearly a century ago, tremendous technological strides have been made. Indeed, over ninety percent of income tax returns …

(Re)Individualizing Criminal Law, Itay Ravid

Faculty Publications

Criminal law purports to care about the individual culpability of those committing crimes. Individual mental states or defenses based on one’s beliefs are considered foundational to moral responsibility and criminal conviction. The expansion of algorithmic risk assessment tools in the criminal legal system, however, threatens these principles, changing the criminal law subject from an autonomous individual to merely a predicted object. This Article argues that risk assessment tools—now functioning as gatekeepers at both the entry and exit stages of the criminal process, from predictive policing to compassionate release eligibility—have shifted the criminal system away from its foundation in individual culpability. …

“I Like My Eighteenth Century Fresh”: Geofence Warrants, General Warrants, And The Evolving Fourth Amendment, Alexa M. Mascaró

University of Miami Law Review

Almost 250 years ago, our Founding Fathers fought to create a nation free from the confines of British imperial rule. Outrage over governmental intrusions enabled by suspicionless general warrants and writs of assistance galvanized an American polity determined to prevent the abuses that had come to define colonial life. The Fourth Amendment was enacted as a response to executive overreach, and it was deeply informed by the fraught history that led to its adoption—a history that is still used by courts today to define constitutional protections.

In the digital age, the rapid speed of technological innovation has created a precarious …

Adaptable Ai Apprentices: Law Practice Sidekicks, Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

University of Miami Law Review

Two case studies involving motorcycle-accident negligence and administrative law in the context of drone regulation violations explore the transformative potential of generative AI in legal practice. Four AI engines—DeepSeek, Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok—were asked to analyze transcripts of client interviews by identifying legal claims and assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

The results demonstrate that current AI technology effectively processes natural-language client interviews, identifies viable legal theories, and assesses claim strengths and weaknesses in both tort and administrative law contexts. The AI systems demonstrated proficiency in parsing legal theories and citing relevant statutes and administrative regulations, though case citations were frequently …

Patent Pending: How The Current Patent Utility Requirement Hinders Biotechnological Innovation, Madison Drlik

Journal of Law and Health

The legal system is always playing catch up to adapt to new legal landscapes, doctrines, and technology; however, patent law needs help to compete with biotechnological research in the race towards innovation. Biotechnological research in the realm of human health and medicine often involves the use of therapeutic drugs. The field of healthcare biotechnology takes biological systems and processes and generates novel, creative solutions to a number of human health conditions. However, the translation process for a new drug, therapy, or process is long and expensive which requires investors to help the researchers and scientists move their creations from inception …

Unlocking The Benefits Of Transparent And Reusable Science For Climate Risk Management, Adam B. Pollack, Lisa Auermuller, Casey D. Burleyson, Jentry Campbell, Madison Condon, Courtney Cooper, Matteo Coronese, Sönke Dangendorf, James Doss-Gollin, Prabhat Hegde, Casey Helgeson, Robert E. Kopp, Jan Kwakkel, Corey Lesk, Justin Mankin, Robert E. Nicholas, Jennie Rice, Samantha Roth, Vivek Srikrishnan, Moira Scheeler, Nancy Tuana, Chris Vernon, Mengqi Zhao, Klaus Keller

Faculty Scholarship

People around the world seek climate risk information to guide their decisions. For instance, projections about future flood risk inform where households choose to live, how lenders manage credit risks, and which communities receive federal funding. Yet data limitations and fundamental validation challenges raise important concerns about the reliability of such projections. The principles of transparency and reusability help address these concerns by enabling scrutiny of assumptions and methods, development of foundational data and tools, and consistent application of evaluation standards. While there is ongoing debate about how much transparency commercial climate risk services should provide, many expect noncommercial actors …

Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence For Lawyers: Shall We Play A Game? The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence And The First Cases, Cliff Mckinney

Arkansas Law Notes

In the 1983 movie WarGames, a young computer hacker accidentally accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to run nuclear war simulations. Four decades after WarGames, lawyers are now facing similar challenges of learning to use and communicate with artificial intelligence––hopefully without destroying the world. Artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, are quickly being incorporated into legal practice. These systems can draft documents, perform analysis, and support other legal tasks. While lawyers adjust to these new technologies, courts and regulatory authorities are actively developing appropriate frameworks to guide and supervise the use of these tools within the …

When Ownership Meets Licensing–New Normative Expectations And The Need For Nft Categorization: All Your Projects “Are” Belong To Us, Charles Belle

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The current treatment of all NFTs in legal scholarship as identical digital assets fundamentally misunderstands their varied applications and the new normative expectations they create. The Moonbirds controversy of 2022, where a creator’s unilateral license change affected nearly 20,000 token holders, exemplifies the crisis: token holders believed they owned digital assets that could be controlled and commercialized, but existing copyright frameworks treat NFTs merely as licenses subject to creator discretion. Picture for Profile (PFP) Projects—community-based NFT collections involving thousands of tokens often with governance and commercial rights—combine concepts of possession, community governance, and commercialization in ways that challenge traditional intellectual …

From Prompt To Clone: Copyright Challenges In Ai Model Distillation, Claudia Philipp

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

This paper examines the legality of model distillation in the context of large language models (LLMs), where smaller “student” models are trained by mimicking the outputs of larger, proprietary “teacher” models. As artificial intelligence continues to advance rapidly, the legal framework surrounding patent, and contract law is being tested. Specifically, the paper explores whether current U.S. copyright law offers sufficient protection for frontier LLM developers and whether practices like unauthorized distillation amount to infringement. By analyzing model architecture, training data, behavioral mimicry, and reverse engineering under prevailing legal doctrines—including fair use, terms of use enforcement, and recent litigation—the paper finds …

Codifying Command: Integrating Ai Into Corporate Boards, Kennedy Kelley

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Corporate law in the United States requires that boards of directors be composed of human individuals, prohibiting artificial intelligence (AI) from serving in a directorial role. Statutes such as Delaware General Corporation Law §141(b) mandate that directors be natural persons, while fiduciary duty doctrines, liability structures, and regulatory frameworks presuppose human oversight and accountability. This paper argues that such legal constraints are increasingly outdated and should be reformed to permit AI to serve as a board member, alongside natural persons, with full decisionmaking authority. As AI systems become more capable of complex, datadriven reasoning, corporations should not be barred from …

Center For Biological Diversity V. U.S. Bureau Of Land Management, Erika C. Rader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt. marks the Ninth Circuit’s second time considering the Willow Project, which plans to drill oil in Alaska. Environmental plaintiffs brought a series of claims under NEPA, the Reserves Act, ANILCA, and the ESA to stop or stall the Project. Plaintiffs focused on the BLM’s use of a “full field development standard” in assessing alternatives to the Project. Despite the range of claims, the Ninth Circuit allowed the Project to move forward, but on remand required the BLM to explain its reasoning for departing from the full field development standard …

Private Money: Stablecoins, Bitcoin, And The Genius Act, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Cryptocurrency has been legalized in the United States. The 2025 GENIUS Act provides a sensible regulatory framework for cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange while avoiding predicted monetary chaos. The Act correctly distinguishes between volatile fiat cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which are unsuitable as payment mechanisms, and stablecoins backed by traditional currencies and reserves.

Historical analysis spanning American monetary systems from the “free banking era” before 1860 through modern digital payments demonstrates that private money has long coexisted with government currency but requires appropriate regulation to prevent bank runs, fraud, and monetary instability. The GENIUS Act addresses key cryptocurrency risks—technological failures, …

Masthead

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

Hallucinated Legal Presentations In Civil Trial Courts, Jeffrey Parness

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Increasingly, hallucinated legal presentations are being discovered and sanctioned in U.S. federal and state civil trial courts. Such presentations encompass papers that are signed, filed, submitted, or advocated, which contain nonexistent legal sources, whether case precedents, statutes, court rules, administrative regulations, or otherwise. These presentations may be discovered by judges, presenting lawyers, opposing lawyers, unrepresented parties, or witnesses.

Kidfluencer Protection: Illinois’ Attempt At Expanding Its Version Of The Coogan Law., Genevieve Sloan

American University Business Law Review

On July 1, 2024, Illinois enacted pioneering legislation, which expanded its child labor laws to “[m]inors featured in vlogs.” This legislation marks the first successful attempt at protecting the finances of children in the business of social media influencing. Over the past several years, society has started recognizing the dangers of the otherwise lucrative child influencer industry, notably children’s lack of legal entitlement to their earnings.

Accordingly, the Illinois legislation began inspiring similar child labor laws in other states. This Comment analyzes whether Section 95 and Section 100 of Illinois’ Child Labor Law of 2024 maintain parental autonomy and adequately …

Reporting Materiality Under The Sec Cybersecurity Disclosure Rules: How Corporate Boards Balance Duty And Risk For Cyber Threats And Incidents, Deborah Slattery-Pereira

American University Business Law Review

The Security Exchange Commission’s (SEC) cybersecurity rules require that public companies disclose a material cyber threat or incident and the impact of the incident on the company’s business Corporate boards must disclose any cyber-related information that would affect a reasonable shareholder’s investment decisions. These rules delegate to the corporate board and management the decision of which cybersecurity events qualify as material to investors. Directors and officers must also decide when and how to disclose to the SEC, and what information to report.

The SEC Cybersecurity Rules increase compliance and litigation costs for public companies, as shareholders can use this information …