Science and Technology Law Commons^™

"Alexa, Can You Buy Whole Foods?": An Analysis Of The Intersection Of Antitrust Enforcement And Big Data In The Amazon-Whole Foods Merger, Marc J. Veilleux Jr.

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Brief Introduction To Digital Art & Blockchain, Jessica Bookout, Lauren Cimbol, Shannon Leigh Collins, Devin L. Newman

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Introductions, Julia Spivak, Tonya M. Evans

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel 1: Digital Art And Digital Collectibles, Ross Blum, Steve R. Schindler, Amy Whitaker, Elena Zavelev, Christopher Buccafusco

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel 2: Art Law And Blockchain, Tonya M. Evans, Derek Fincham, Katya Fisher, Jeanne Schroeder

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Shared Value Over Fair Use: Technology, Added Value, And The Reinvention Of Copyright, Amy Whitaker

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The protection of fair use in the arts has become an inflexible binary. Either artist Shepard Fairey has permission to use the Associated Press photograph of Barack Obama to create the Hope Poster, or he has stolen the image in violation of copyright. This legal framework is rigid, inaccurate, and creatively unsafe. Yet it is the interpretation, not the doctrine itself, that needs shifting. The copyright statute already includes an overlooked "value" test that can more accurately reflect collaboration and sampling in the digital age. And yet instead, some scholars have responded to digital copying by suggesting we throw out …

Is It Reasonable To Block Unreasonable Advertisements? An Examination Of The Legality Of Ad-Blockers, Andrew Steele

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Interstitial Space Law, Melissa J. Durkee

Scholarly Works

Conventionally, customary international law is developed through the actions and beliefs of nations. International treaties are interpreted, in part, by assessing how the parties to the treaty behave. This Article observes that these forms of uncodified international law—custom and subsequent treaty practice—are also developed through a nation’s reactions, or failures to react, to acts and beliefs that can be attributed to it. I call this “attributed lawmaking.”

Consider the new commercial space race. Innovators like SpaceX and Blue Origin seek a permissive legal environment. A Cold-War-era treaty does not seem adequately to address contemporary plans for space. The treaty does, …

Law And The Blockchain, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

All contracts are necessarily incomplete. The inefficiencies of bargaining over every contingency, coupled with humans’ innate bounded rationality, mean that contracts cannot anticipate and address every potential eventuality. One role of law is to fill gaps in incomplete contracts with default rules. The blockchain is a distributed ledger that allows the cryptographic recording of transactions and permits “smart” contracts that self-execute automatically if their conditions are met. Because humans code the contracts of the blockchain, gaps in these contracts will arise. Yet in the world of “smart contracting” on the blockchain, there is no place for the law to step …

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Jonathon Penney, Danielle Citron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …

Privacy And Legal Automation: The Dmca As A Case Study, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computing capacity, and big data analytics are creating exciting new possibilities for legal automation. At the same time, these changes pose serious risks for civil liberties and other societal interests. Yet, existing scholarship is narrow, leaving uncertainty on a range of issues, including a glaring lack of systematic empirical work as to how legal automation may impact people’s privacy and freedom. This article addresses this gap with an original empirical analysis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which today sits at the forefront of algorithmic law due to its automated enforcement of copyright …

The Science, Law, And Politics Of Canada's Pathways To Paris: Introduction To Ubc Law Review's Special Section On Climate Change And Canada, Jason Maclean, Meinhard Doelle, Chris Tollefson

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This brief essay introduces two articles comprising a special section of the UBC Law Review on climate change law and policy in Canada.

Developing Product Label Information To Support Evidence-Informed Use Of Vaccines In Pregnancy, Terra A. Manca, Janice E. Graham, Ève Dubé, Melissa Kervin, Eliana Castillo, Natasha S. Crowcroft, Deshayne B. Fell, Michael Hadskis, Jaelene M. Mannerfeldt, Devon Greyson, Noni E. Macdonald, Karina A. Top, On Behalf Of The Canadian Vaccine Product Monograph Working Group

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Background: Product labelling information describing the use of vaccines in pregnancy continues to contain cautionary language even after clinical and epidemiological evidence of safety becomes available. This language raises safety concerns among healthcare providers who may hesitate to recommend vaccines during pregnancy.

Purpose: To develop clear evidence-based language about vaccine safety and effectiveness in pregnancy for inclusion in vaccine product labels.

Methods: We conducted a three-stage consensus-methods project with stakeholders, including: healthcare providers, vaccine regulators, industry representatives, and experts in public health, communication, law, ethics, and social sciences. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we held a nominal group technique (NGT) …

Pharmaceutical Drugs Of Uncertain Value, Lifecycle Regulation At The Us Food And Drug Administration, And Institutional Incumbency, Matthew Herder

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Policy Points

• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has in recent years allowed onto the market several drugs with limited evidence of safety and effectiveness, provided that manufacturers agree to carry out additional studies while the drugs are in clinical use.
• Studies suggest that these postmarketing requirements (PMRs) frequently lack transparency, are subject to delays, and fail to answer the questions of greatest clinical importance. Yet, none of the literature speaks directly to the challenges that the FDA—as a regulatory institution—encounters in enforcing PMRs.
• Through a series of interviews with FDA leadership, this article analyzes and situates those challenges …

Atrocity Prevention In The New Media Landscape, Rebecca Hamilton

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Journalists have traditionally played a crucial role in building public pressure on government officials to uphold their legal obligations under the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. But over the past twenty years there has been radical change in the media landscape: foreign bureaus have been shuttered, young freelance journalists have taken over some of the work traditionally done by experienced foreign correspondents, and, more recently, the advent of social media has enabled people in conflict-affected areas to tell their own stories to the world. This essay assesses the impact of these changes on atrocity prevention …

Towards A New California Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access To Digital Assets Act, Michael T. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

California enacted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (the California RUFADAA) to govern the disclosure (or nondisclosure) of digital assets when a California resident dies. Digital assets include not just emails and social media accounts but may also include online files and assets, digital currencies, domain names, and blogs. The California RUFADAA ostensibly governs the disclosure of digital assets only when a California resident dies, and it, therefore, does not govern the scenario when a California resident becomes incapacitated and can no longer handle his or her digital assets. This scenario is likely to become more common …

The Value Of Deviance: Understanding Contextual Privacy, Timothy Casey

Faculty Scholarship

Recent decisions by the Supreme Court in Carpenter v. United States and the Illinois Supreme Court in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation signal a shift in the traditional understanding of what exactly is protected by a privacy interest. Carpenter distinguished between a police officer’s observation of a suspect’s location and a perpetual catalogue of a person’s movements obtained through cell site location information (CSLI). The pervasive and vast quantity of information from CSLI exposed a protected privacy interest. In Rosenbach, the Illinois Supreme Court found the unique and personal quality of biometric information meant that consent and disclosure requirements …

Computational Experimentation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

Experimentation conjures images of laboratories and equipment in biotechnology, chemistry, materials science, and pharmaceuticals. Yet modern day experimentation is not limited to only chemical synthesis, but is increasingly computational. Researchers in the unpredictable arts can experiment upon the functions, properties, reactions, and structures of chemical compounds with highly accurate computational techniques. These computational capabilities challenge the enablement and utility patentability requirements. The patent statute requires that the inventor explain how to make and use the invention without undue experimentation and that the invention have at least substantial and specific utility. These patentability requirements do not align with computational research capabilities, …

Automation And Predictive Analytics In Patent Prosecution: Uspto Implications And Policy, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial-intelligence technological advancements bring automation and predictive analytics into patent prosecution. The information asymmetry between inventors and patent examiners is expanded by artificial intelligence, which transforms the inventor-examiner interaction to machine-human interactions. In response to automated patent drafting, automated office-action responses, "cloems" (computer-generated word permutations) for defensive patenting, and machine-learning guidance (based on constantly updated patent-prosecution big data), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should reevaluate patent-examination policy from economic, fairness, time, and transparency perspectives. By conceptualizing the inventor-examiner relationship as a "patenting market," economic principles suggest stronger efficiencies if both inventors and the USPTO have better information …

Data-Centric Technologies: Patent And Copyright Doctrinal Disruptions, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

Data-centric technologies create information content that directly controls, modifies, or responds to the physical world. This information content resides in the digital world yet has profound economic and societal impact in the physical world. 3D printing and artificial intelligence are examples of data-centric technologies. 3D printing utilizes digital data for eventual printing of physical goods. Artificial intelligence learns from data sets to make predictions or automated decisions for use in physical applications and systems. 3D printing and artificial intelligence technologies are based on digital foundations, blur the digital and physical divide, and dramatically improve physical goods, objects, products, or systems. …