It sounds like a good Civ Pro 101 (or, perhaps, Cyberlaw 101) exam hypothetical : “Your client, Scott Roberts, a Virginia resident, purchased a Pontiac engine block from Kauffman Racing Equipment, L.L.C., an Ohio-based company that builds automotive equipment and sells it to the public. Roberts purchased the engine block after viewing it on Kauffman’s […]
Archive | Cyberspace Law
North Carolina Department of Revenue’s Demand for Amazon Customer Records Violates the First Amendment
So holds Amazon.com v. Lay (W.D. Wash., decided yesterday): Amazon pursues summary judgment as to its First Amendment claim that the DOR’s request for all information related to Amazon’s sales to North Carolina residents violates the First Amendment. The Court agrees and GRANTS the motion. The First Amendment protects a buyer from having the expressive […]
NPR’s “On Point” on the Rutgers Suicide, Cyberbullying, and Internet Crime Law
I was on the NPR program “On Point” today discussing the Rutgers suicide and criminal liability for invasions of privacy online. You can listen to the program here; I come in at the 13-minute mark. Here’s the blurb about the program from the “On Point” homepage: Tyler Clementi was eighteen years old. He closed the […]
“If You Pick a Fight in Missouri, You Can Reasonably Expect to Settle It Here”
So says Baldwin v. Fischer-Smith (Mo. Ct. App. July 6, posted on Westlaw a few days ago), in holding that a defendant whose Web page allegedly libeled a Missouri dog kennel could be sued in Missouri. (The defendant’s Web page specifically mentioned that the kennel was located in Missouri.) There’s a longstanding dispute about this […]
Viacom v Youtube, and Why it Matters:
A while back, I posted my early reaction to the SDNY’s decision in the long-running Viacom lawsuit asserting secondary copyright infringement on the part of Youtube. Here’s what I said then: The case was/is enormously important — Youtube was asserting that it was immune under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (specifically, Sec. 512(c)) from copyright […]
Robots and Cyberattacks, Both! Surrogates, the Movie
As many of our readers know, I have long been fascinated by robotics, and have a particular interest in battlefield robotics and related questions of law. I felt I was late to the cyberwarfare field – and don’t know enough about it – and so have left it for others. But robotics … well! Robotics […]
Youtube wins Viacom Lawsuit:
Judge Stanton in the SDNY has granted Youtube’s motion for summary judgment in in the long-running copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Viacom (and, in a nice soccer-related twist, The English Football Association’s Premier League was another (losing) plaintiff). [The full text of the decision is here] The case was/is enormously important — Youtube was asserting […]
Jack Goldsmith on Cyber War
This week’s The New Republic features a cover story by Harvard Law School’s Jack Goldsmith on cyberwar. (June 24, 2010.) It’s a long, serious review essay, using Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake’s new book, Cyber War, as the hook. But Jack goes well beyond a book review into the rapidly expanding literature on […]
The Future of Privacy: Facial Recognition, Public Facts, and 300 Million Little Brothers
It’s been a pleasure to blog this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation and I’d love to continue it. If you’re interested in reading more, check out our book, Wild West 2.0. It is the most-discussed Internet policy book of 2010 (Jimmy Wales called it “an invaluable guide” to the “brave new world of […]
Fixing the CDA 230 Subsidy While Preserving Online Anonymity
Thanks again for the great responses in comments. I’ve learned a lot about how people think about the Internet of 2010 and whether it fits the “Wild West 2.0” model. On Monday, we discussed why the Internet of 2010 resembles the closing of the Wild West frontier. On Tuesday, we talked about whether CDA 230 […]
Google Changed Reputation and Privacy Forever
In the early Internet, it was impossible to find isolated references to people, places, and things. Many users navigated using directories like the original Yahoo, and early search tools like Gopher (structured documents) and Archie (FTP) were limited . The search engines changed everything. Starting with Lycos and AltaVista, information was freed from obscurity. Suddenly, […]
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 Meets the Closed Frontier
By David Thompson on June 8, 2010 12:15 pm in Anonymity, Cyberspace Law, Freedom of Speech, Internet
(Thanks for the great comments! I’ll be speaking in Las Vegas this afternoon 3:45 pm today at the EduComm conference at the Mirage, Ballroom D.) Anonymous and pseudonymous speech dates back at least to the early days of the printing press. Anonymous online speech has been a powerful force for change in situations ranging from […]
The Closing of the Internet Frontier?
A gold rush. A wide-open anything-goes frontier. Prostitution. Gambling. Drugs. Lax law enforcement. Vigilantism and mob justice. Petty scammers at every turn. The subject? Not the dusty Wild West of American history, but instead the Internet of just 10 years ago. In the last decade, the Internet has gone from open frontier populated by a […]
Interesting Free Speech Question:
Ari David, who’s running for Congress against long-time incumbent Henry Waxman, raises an interesting and troubling free speech issue on his blog here. Apparently (taking everything he says to be factually correct) he hired some folks to create an iPhone app with text (not surprisingly) highly critical of Waxman — e.g., “HENRY WAXMAN… SUPPORTED Cap […]
State of the Net:
If you’re interested, Jerry Brito over at SurprisinglyFree.com, has been doing a series of interviews with legal thinkers and entrepreneurs focusing on a variety of tech issues, and he’s posted a podcast of an interview he did with me a couple of weeks ago on Net governance issues – it turned out pretty well, I […]