Cyberlaw

I want to highlight a forthcoming article by Professor Anupam Chander: "The Racist Algorithm?" Michigan Law Review (2017 Forthcoming)

The legal dispute between the FBI and Apple over a locked iPhone is clouded in technical details that are hard for many to understand, an unclear area of law, and a terrible tragedy in San Bernardino that provokes unease and fear.

To make matters worse, the FBI and Apple are engaged in a very public battle using open letters, blog posts and hearings before Congress with terms like patriotism, marketability and backdoors.

At UC Davis School of Law, students and faculty work together to organize some amazing events. 

Yale University Press has just published The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds the World Together in Commerce. The book has been hailed as a "tour de force" by leading trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, a "must read" by Senator Chris Coons, and "engaging" and "important" by Ricardo Ramírez-Hernández, Chair of the Appellate Body, World Trade Organization.

The hardcover is available from Amazon here, as is a Kindle version.

Should dictators fear, or welcome, the Internet?  I grapple with this question in a new essay, Jasmine Revolutions, forthcoming in the Cornell Law Review.  The draft of the paper is available here.

Here is the abstract for the paper:

California has understandably taken a lead in protecting individuals online, for example, in its privacy breach notification law. Now it targets a common tactic for harassing individuals in today's Internet era--impersonating someone.

SB 1411 creates a new section of the California Penal Code, which bars the online impersonation of another person for the purpose of harming someone.

Harvard University Press just sent me a copy of the new book, The Offensive Internet, edited by University of Chicago law professors Saul Levmore and Martha Nussbaum (each of whom also contributes a chapter in the book).  

The book is an important antidote to the often Panglossian approach of early cyberspace enthusiasts.

Viacom sued YouTube for hosting material that Viacom claims infringes Viacom’s copyright. Yesterday, the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York handed down a summary judgment siding with YouTube.

The BBC reports that the Internet has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Some, such as the Italian version of Wired magazine, have championed the Internet's nomination for helping advance "dialogue, debate and consensus."

It may seem laughable to give a Peace Prize to a communications medium, but there is reason to take the nomination seriously.