September 10, 2010

Law 897: The Law in Cyberspace Seminar

List of potential topics

This list is a work in progress; expect to see possible topics appearing and disappearing between now and the first day of classes. The topics overlap, and their classification into subject matter categories is somewhat arbitrary. Next to each topic, I have posted a link to something that will give you a quick and dirty introduction to one facet of the topic. There's no expectation that your assignment or paper will concentrate on that facet; rather, I'm trying to give you a very brief introduction to some of the issues raised by each of the topics. If you're signed up for the seminar and would like to suggest a topic that isn't on the list, please email it to me with an appropriate link.

Caution: Some of the linked items are less objective than others.

     

    Electronic Commerce

  1. Enforcement of terms of use -- Mark Lemley's article abstract
  2. Taxation of Internet transactions -- Institute for Local Self-reliance, New Rules Project:Internet Sales Tax Fairness
  3. Internet Gambling -- Mark Hefflinger's article for Digital Media Wire
  4. Social networks -- Megan Erickson's Social Networking Law Blog
  5. The market for online news -- Chloe Albanesius's article for PC magazine
  6. Data privacy -- Cnet news.com article by Declan McCullagh
  7. Data security and identity theft -- National Public Radio news story
  8. Anonymity and pseudonymity -- Ryan Singel's post for WIRED
  9. Online profiling -- Wall Street Journal series: What They Know
  10. Data Mining -- petition for certiorari in IMS Health v. Ayotte (1st Cir 2008)
  11. Click fraud -- Wikipedia entry
  12. Auctions -- Box P Ranch home page
  13. Internet sale of liquor and wine -- 9th Circuit opinion in Blar Star Farms v. Oliver
  14. Internet telephony -- FCC consumer fact sheet on VOIP
  15. Antitrust -- New York Times editorial
  16. Trusted identities -- White House Blog post
  17. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (18 U.S.C. § 2510 et. seq) -- dotRights video
  18. Liability for malicious software -- MSNBC News story
  19. Craigslist -- Jacqui Cheng's story for Ars Technica

    20.  

    Content Regulation

  20. Pornography, obsenity and indecency -- Jason Chen post for Gizmondo
  21. Hate speech -- Choose one: WhatReallyHappened.com , www.martinlutherking.org, SIOA online, Frosty Wooldridge at NewsWithViews.com, or Dick Masterson's blog
  22. Spam -- Spamhaus
  23. "Terrorist" speech -- Steve Lohr's blog post for the New York Times
  24. Wikileaks -- Wikileaks.org home page
  25. Cyberharrassment -- Emily Bazelon's story for Slate
  26. False or misleading advertising -- Ryan Singel's news article for WIRED
  27. Defamation -- Ted Johnson article for Variety
  28. Sexting -- City of Ontario, CA v. Quon
  29. Vote swapping -- 9th Circuit opinion in Porter v. Bowen
  30. Elementary and high school students' online speech -- Erica Goldberg's blog post
  31. Public disclosure of embarrasing private facts -- Michigan Sex Offender Registry

    32.  

    Governance

  32. Virtual worlds -- Complaint in Evans v. Linden Research
  33. ICANN's regulation of the Domain Name System -- ICANN home page
  34. Network Neutrality -- Public Knowledge's Issue Brief
  35. Cross border enforcement and extraterritorial application -- Michael Geist's blog post
  36. Government blocking or filtering of Internet sites -- Harvard Berkman Center blurb on its 2008 book: Access Denied
  37. Internet Service provider liability -- 9th Circuit opinion in Barnes v. Yahoo
  38. Search engine liability -- Greg Lastowka's article abstract
  39. Bloggers’ liability and privileges -- EFF's Bloggers' Legal Guide
  40. State regulation and the dormant commerce clause -- District court opinion in Red Earth v. USA
  41. Internet Crime -- U.S. Department of Justice 2009 Internet Crime Report
  42. Cyberterrorism -- Dennis C. Blair's 2010 testimony to the Senate Select Committeeon Intelligence
  43. Common law trespass to networks and servers -- Pamela Samuelson's column
  44. Government surveillance of online activity -- Ellen Nakashima's article for the Washington Post
  45. "Open Government" -- Join the dialog by IdeaScale
  46. Internet access for people with disabilities -- OBI Working Paper
  47. The Digital Divide -- Mark Glaser's article for PBS Mediashift
  48. German regulation of the Internet -- Kirsten Grieshaber's story for AP
  49. French regulation of the Internet -- Jared Moyya's blog post
  50. Australian regulation of the Internet -- David Braue's news story for ZDNet

    51.  

    Procedure

  51. Electronic discovery -- Practical Ediscovery blog
  52. Jurisdiction -- opinion in NBC Universal v. nbcuniversal.com (ED Va 2005)
  53. "John Doe" suits -- Amanda Becker's story for the Washington Post

    54.  

    Intellectual Property

  54. Internet business method patents -- Joe Mullin's blog post
  55. Peer-to-peer file sharing -- Jacqui Cheng's article for Ars Technica
  56. Notice and takedown under 17 USC § 512 -- Chilling Effects FAQ
  57. Fan vids -- Rebecca Tushnet's article abstract
  58. Liability for user-generated content -- Viacom's post reacting to the district court's ruling in Viacom v. Google
  59. The Google Books project -- Pam Samuelson's article abstract
  60. Archiving the web -- Archive.org home page
  61. Cybersquatting -- CADNA home page
  62. Key word advertising -- Ashley Tan's post to the MTTLR blog
  63. Open source software and the GNU general public license -- Software Freedom Law Center home page
  64. The Creative Commons -- Creative Commons home page
  65. Gripe sites -- InsideGoogle.com
  66. First amendment protection of software code -- Jeanne Fromer's article abstract
  67. Licensing online music -- Rightsflow home page
  68. Open courseware -- open.michigan educational resources
  69. Circumvention of Technological Protection -- Electronic Frontier Foundation's Unintended Consequences: 12 Years Under the DMCA

    70.  

If you are ready to sign up for your topics, you can find the signup sheet here (pdf) or here (doc).

 

Return to the seminar overview.

Return to the tentative syllabus.

Send me an email message:   jdlitman [at] umich.edu