The Path of Internet Law: An Annotated Guide to Legal Landmarks

The evolution of the Internet has forever changed the legal landscape. The Internet is the world’s largest marketplace, copy machine, and instrumentality for committing crimes, torts, and infringing intellectual property. Justice Holmes’s classic essay on the path of the law drew upon six centuries of case reports and statutes. In less than twenty-five years, Internet law has created new legal dilemmas and challenges in accommodating new information technologies. Part I is a brief timeline of Internet case law and statutory developments for Internet-related intellectual property (IP) law. Part II describes some of the ways in which the Internet is redirecting the path of IP in a globalized information-based economy. Our broader point is that every branch of substantive and procedural law is adapting to the digital world. Part III is the functional equivalent of a GPS for locating the latest U.S. and foreign law resources to help lawyers, policymakers, academics and law students lost in cyberspace

Torts as Public Wrongs

This Article is a rejoinder to the civil recourse theorist\u27s claim that tort law will be better served by retreating to the philosopher\u27s prefecture of private wrongs. A subsidiary goal of this Article is to refute John Goldberg\u27s claim that my sociologically-inspired theory of torts as public wrongs serves the interests of tort reformers rather than American consumers. In a nutshell, civil recourse theory is tort reform in disguise, not the concept of torts as fulfilling wide-ranging purposes such as the social control of corporations. If judges adopt civil recourse theory, they will be less inclined to recognize new causes of action and plaintiff classes deferring instead to legislatures. Tort law is the multi-tasker of the common law and does far more than redress private wrongs. Tort law not only redresses private wrongs, it also advances general deterrence through social control. The contemporary Toyota sudden acceleration claims and the BP oil spill are examples of how tort law tackles collective injuries impacting the consuming public, the environment, and communities. While it is unclear what role tort law will ultimately play in redressing these collective injury cases, social interests will be relevant. This Article, which makes the case that tort law can and should redress public wrongs, unfolds in six parts. Part II introduces the idea of the teleological telescope and the deontological microscope illustrating their operation in sociological theory. In this part of the Article, I explain how the grand theories of classical sociology were telescopic, but some modern theorists miniaturized their perspective to focus on the individual and the small group. Part III describes how modern tort theory has divided into competing camps based upon whether legal academics use a macroscopic or a microscopic approach. The basic distinction is that tort scholars use either a functional telescope (to study public wrongs) contextually or the philosopher\u27s microscope to understand individual cases and controversies in an abstract way. The division between macrotort and microtort theories is the functional equivalent of how these approaches play out in classical and contemporary sociological theory. Torts have a micro aspect applicable to the pressing facts of the individual case and the relationships between the parties, but they also have macro features such as general deterrence and social control that fill in the interstices between criminal and civil law and resonate our collective beliefs. Part IV comments on civil recourse theory\u27s obscurantism and its lack of fit with the empirical reality of modern tort law\u27s complexity. In this part of the Article, I discuss the civil recourse theorist\u27s misguided attempt to reduce the multiplicity of American tort law to one single true quintessence. To me, it seems that the main problem with this pure theory of tort law is its separation from social context such as gender, race, social class, power, and social change. What is important to note here is that torts often redress public wrongs, beyond the interests of the immediate parties. Part V gives my pluralistic account of torts as public wrongs. While the manifest function of tort law is civil recourse or compensation, its latent function is vindicating public wrongs. The latent function - the hidden face - of tort law is its public policy role addressing corporate misconduct from the bottom up rather than through a top-down government monolith. The key institution is the plaintiff in the role of private attorney general who seeks civil recourse but also fulfills a broader purpose of identifying and punishing reckless corporate defendants who had previously evaded the attention of the public authorities. Part VI applies my sociological theory of public wrongs to the widespread problems created by dangerously defective software. The tort law lag in addressing defective software demonstrates the need to permit tort law to evolve to address social problems

Twenty-First Century Tort Theories: The Internalist/Externalist Debate

American Association of Law Schools Torts & Compensation Systems Pane

The Effects of an Ultrafast Pulsed Laser on YBCO Thin Film Circuit Transients

Terahertz (THz) frequency light has shown promise for a wide variety of applications due to its material characterization and imaging capabilities. Its nondestructive nature coupled with its submillimeter spatial resolution provides the most value for terahertz light as an imaging tool. The application of terahertz technology has been limited by a lack of novel and powerful sources. It has been shown that that Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO), a type II superconductor, has certain properties that would allow YBCO to be an effective source for THz light. Recent microwave work has shown that when a persistent supercurrent is placed on a thin film YBCO ring and is discharged, the decelerating electrons could produce THZ electromagnetic radiation. An ultrafast femtosecond laser incident on such a YBCO ring would disrupt the superconducting mechanism of the material. A series of tests examining YBCO and its optoelectronic properties were conducted. These included ultrafast pump-probe measurements, inspection of the discharging and charging rates, and finally time-domain terahertz emission experiments. The pump-probe measurements revealed electron relaxation times in the picosecond range. While it was shown that the ultrafast laser was able to induce and discharge a super current in the thin film superconductor, it was dependent on laser fluence and had no detectable wavelength dependence. However, no THz radiation was detected with the time-domain measurement system

Cancel Carte Blanche for the Information Industries: Federalizing U.C.C. Article 2.

Warranty disclaimers, caps on damages, predispute mandatory arbitration, and anti-class action waivers constitute what I call, “no responsibility” or “rights foreclosure clauses” in computer contracts. This is the first empirical study of how the information industries, which include the 100 largest software companies and the 100 largest digital companies, deploy one-sided warranty disclaimers, caps on damages, and predispute mandatory arbitration clauses coupled with class action waivers to shift responsibility for defective software to the user communities. This gives the information industries carte blanche to release dangerously defective software without consequences. In their standard form contracts, the industries do whatever they wish by incorporating their designed terms and conditions. The software industry assert contractual rights without providing corresponding meaningful remedies for breach in their computer contracts. The net effect of these no responsibility clauses is to require users to waive their right to a judicial forum in favor of arbitration, where the stronger party is at a distinct advantage. Congress needs to enact a federal U.C.C. Article 2 reform that will invalidate no responsibility clauses, thus restoring mutuality in software license agreements