Give It Back: Title in Digital Property, in The Cambridge Handbook of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of Commercial Law and Technology (Stacy-Ann Elvy & Nancy S. Kim eds., 2025)

The Cambridge Handbook of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of Commercial Law and Technology is a timely and interdisciplinary examination of the legal and societal implications of nascent technologies in the global commercial marketplace. Featuring contributions from leading international experts in the field, this volume offers fresh and diverse perspectives on a range of topics, including non-fungible tokens, blockchain technology, the Internet of Things, product liability for defective goods, smart readers, liability for artificial intelligence products and services, and privacy in the era of quantum computing. This work is an invaluable resource for academics, policymakers, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the social and legal challenges posed by technological innovation, as well as the role of commercial law in facilitating and regulating emerging technologies.https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/fac_books/1204/thumbnail.jp

The Grass Is Not Always Greener: How the Legalization of Recreational Cannabis Across the United States Is at Odds with Incarceration and Continued Punishment

Whether you call it Mary Jane, skunky funky, green, ganja, reefer, or just plain-old cannabis, this special green plant doused in purple and orange accents has become a popular topic of discussion within the legal community and American culture. Cannabis has been held in “high” regard for its scientific advances in the medical industry, alongside its recreational usage, enjoyed by laughs and giggles, munchies, and plenty of water, leading to a wave of medical and recreational legalization. Incentives for legalization come at the onset of promising medical research, economic growth motives, and social justice, reflecting upon a comprehensive approach that seeks to address the injustices of past criminalization. However, regardless of its legalization, the burden of punishment and suffering has yet to be alleviated. Some states still house recreationally legal. Other states further include incarcerated individuals whose sentencing length included past conduct for simple possession prior to being legal. Although the Executive Branch has responded by pardoning individuals for simple possession, incarcerated and freed Americans are still being punished at the federal level through sentencing discrepancies. Thus, there are many questions to be asked and potential solutions to be addressed when pushing for recreational legalization across the United States, further encompassing states where it is already legal. As the push for recreational cannabis becomes more prevalent within the United States, these problems will predictably build upon themselves and be an ongoing conversation while seeking a solution for years to come. Even those who have been fully pardoned with expunged criminal histories face challenges in this new world after being targeted and unjustly spending years behind cold prison bars. This paper seeks to shed light on those issues and address a solution in the interest of social justice to alleviate further punishment on those within states where cannabis is now recreationally legal and address the injustices within state and federal prison systems. The world of recreational cannabis still has its issues, and advocates for its push toward legalization cannot sing Kumbaya just yet. There is still plenty of work to be done. Regardless of its legalization, the grass is not greener on the other side. At least not yet

Faking It: A Proposed Solution to Counter Nonconsensual Pornographic Deepfakes

2024 Louise A. Halper Award Winner for Best Student Note. Deepfakes have become popular due to their user-friendly nature and accessibility, allowing anyone to create one by installing deepfake software programs on their phones or laptops. Deepfake software programs allow creators to create hyper-realistic multimedia featuring anyone whose image they can find. Some industries have drawn positive uses from deepfakes; however, deepfakes also create harms that can have detrimental effects on people’s mental health, employment, and reputation. Women and children, including those without a large online presence, have become the target for nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes. Congress has yet to pass a federal bill that encourages online service providers to properly regulate its platform and prevent the spread of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes. Due to the lack of federal law, some states have attempted to address the issue by imposing criminal and civil penalties. But current state laws do not go far enough in protecting women and children because they take a reactive approach in which the harms of the deepfakes have already taken place. This Note discusses federal bills and amendments as possible solutions, but further proposes that a public-private partnership with deepfake software program creators would bring the most effective solution. A public–private partnership with deepfake software companies would serve as a preventative measure while also ensuring clear legal recourse for victims

FTC v. Amazon: A Turning Point for Antitrust Law?

The United States is experiencing crippling economic inequalities that harken back to the Gilded Age. For the first time, legal scholars have turned to antitrust law to reverse this alarming trend. These scholars, including current Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, are testing this ambitious theory in the E-commerce industry. E-commerce is a market largely dominated by one company: Amazon. With its dominance, Amazon lures small businesses into its third-party seller marketplace, where it controls those business’s prices and punishes those that resist. Lina Kahn’s FTC has formally launched its litigation campaign against Amazon, claiming that the company has violated Section Two of the Sherman Act and Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. After tracing antitrust’s evolution, discussing the parties’ claims and evaluating their theories, this Note will determine the Commission’s odds for success and promote a theoretical middle ground that the Commission can use if it argues the case in October 2026

The Small Business Dilemma

Small businesses face a unique and challenging dilemma in today’s business landscape. On the one hand, they are typically and rightfully considered the more powerful party in their contractual relations with consumers, thus prompting a need to protect consumers against unfair contractual terms. On the other hand, when engaging with larger businesses, small businesses typically find themselves in the position of the weaker, more vulnerable party, possibly in need of greater protection themselves from unfair terms. This Article addresses the inherent dilemma faced by small businesses and argues that the prevailing perception of businesses as sophisticated and experienced, based exclusively on their categorization as “business parties” unjustly disregards the economic and market realities they encounter

Booze, Bars, and Bias: Anti-Blackness in Liquor Licensing Enforcement

This Article explores the disharmonious and disturbing influence of race in the enforcement of liquor licenses. Across the length and breadth of this nation, attentive Black revelers bear witness to an all-too-familiar trend signified by the disproportionately frequent closures of Black entertainment businesses. This Article argues that the punitive disposition toward Black entertainment businesses is not just a contemporary phenomenon; rather, it is a set of practices rooted in centuries of exclusion and regulatory abuse. Over the past two centuries, state liquor licensing agencies have emerged as contentious battlegrounds where legal, social, and economic factors converge—often to the detriment of the very businesses they were intended to regulate. Throughout the colonial, post-revolutionary, and antebellum eras, state boards and commissions used liquor license regulations to maintain systems of control and preserve the racialized status quo. By unveiling these historical and ongoing practices, this Article reconceptualizes how legal reform might rectify the structural obstacles that disproportionately affect Black entertainment businesses. Additionally, this Article challenges the perception of drinking establishments as trivial or controversial by highlighting their significance as profound sites for meaning-making, cultural production, and reclamation. This exploration presents an emic perspective that counters the negative and inaccurate stereotypes often associated with spaces of Black entertainment, leisure, and recreation

Clean Data: Recursion as Pollution in Environmental AI

If “data is the new oil,” then corruption in the data used to train artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes a new form of pollution. Environmental AI has traditionally been discussed in terms of its indirect effects on the environment—the irony of burning power, processor cycles, and heat to produce solutions to stop and heal environmental damage. But there is a deeper problem. When environmental AI suggests interventions, its outputs are written onto the landscape. If that landscape is then read as data to retrain AI, there is a risk of model collapse and catastrophic forgetting, as the snake devours its own tail. This article discusses the difficulty in fit between current legal regimes governing AI and the use of AI in the environmental space and then further details the problems of model collapse in the context of environmental AI

Cross-Examination and the Right to (College) Education: An Analysis of the Substantive and Procedural Rights

If the marketplace of ideas provides the basis for our growth and self-determination as a society, college campuses are the factories in which those ideas are cultivated, tested, and manufactured. Equally important, they are often the chief mechanism by which individual students are given the tools to meaningfully participate in the political process, in civic and social institutions, and the ability to chart socially mobile and economically independent lives. Yet federal courts have never recognized a student’s liberty interest in their education. Adopting a framework initially posited by Professor Matthew Shaw, this Note advocates that students retain a substantive due process property interest in a post-secondary education. Next, the Note addresses an equally compelling issue: once a student’s property interest in her education has been recognized, what procedural protection does a university owe her when adjudicating an allegation of some non-academic misconduct? The Note specifically argues in favor of an accused student’s limited right to cross-examination. Applying existing theory and current caselaw, the solutions reconcile a student’s property interest under one single doctrinal framework and provide a uniform set of procedural rules universities should follow in determining whether the student’s interest in remaining in school should be forfeited. The Note provides both students and their universities with a more stable, more predictable procedure for vindicating individual student rights and protecting education institutions as a whole