readings

Law and the World Wide Web
Legal 491s
Ethan Katsh (katsh@legal.umass.edu)
Teaching assistant: Alissa McLean (amclean@student.umass.edu)
Tuesday / Thursday 1 - 2:15
Course web site: http://www.umass.edu/cyber

Main text is Belia, Berman and Post, Cyberlaw: Problems of Policy and Jurisprudence in the Information Age (St.Paul: West, 2003)

1/29/04
Course Introduction

2/3/04
What is new about cyberspace? How is cyberspace linked to law? In general, the issues, conflicts and challenges we shall look at this semester can be categorsize as follows:

Assignment

a. Read George Will, Newsweek article, April, 2001
b. Important: please go to http://ecommercecenter.bna.com/ and subscribe to Michael Geist's Internet Law News.
c. Bellia, pp. 1-2, 14-22
d. Read one of the following:

1. When is a virtual commercial product different from a tangible commercial product? go to http://www.juliandibbell.com/playmoney/2003_10_01_playmoney_archive.html and scroll down to October 17th, 2003 entry. Then read December 23, 2003 entry at http://www.juliandibbell.com/playmoney/index.html
2. Is an ebook a book? Random House v. Rosetta Books (2001)
3. When is an auction not an auction? Gentry, Et Al. V. Ebay, Inc., Et Al (2000)
4. When is a lottery not a lottery? Neulevel v. Amazon Books (2001)
5. When is property not property? Zurakov v. Register.com (2001)
6. When is arbitration not arbitration? ICANN dispute resolution policy
7. When is speech not speech?  Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000); Bernstein v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 176 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1999);

Additional reading:

Jack Balkin, "Digital Speech and Democratic culture: A Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society" 

2/10/04
Cyberspace and legal methods, processes, institutions and doctrines

Hamidi handout
Reading:  Bellia, pp. 23-38, 38-86
http://www.faceintel.com/

2/12/04
ICANN and domain names: designing legal authority in cyberspace

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 318-334, 363-373
http://does-not-exist.net/icann-primer/ICANNprimer.htm
http://www.caslon.com.au/icannprofile1.htm

Additional readings:

History of domain names
Jay P. Kesan and Rajiv Shah, "Fool un Once, Shame on You - Fool us twice, Shame on Us: What We Can Learn Fromthe Privatization of the Internet Backbone and the Domain Name System," 79 Washington University Law Quarterly 89 (2001)(LEXIS)(SSRN download)

2/17/04
ICANN and domain names: designing dispute resolution for cyberspace

Reading:  ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, Use the database at http://udrp.lii.info to find and read five UDRP decisions

2/19/04
ICANN, legitimacy and public participation

Readings: John Palfrey, The End of the Experiment
Andrew McLaughlin, The Virtues of Deliberative Policymaking: A Response to "Public Participation in ICANN

2/24/04
Internet Service Providers: a substitute for the state?

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 500-545

Additional reading: Johnson and Post, "Law and Borders"

2/26/04
Whose rules apply in cyberspace? Russians in Las Vegas and Yahoo in France 

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 142-168, 217-225

3/2/04
Taxation, gambling and prescription drugs

Readings: New York v. World Interactive Gaming Corp., 185 Misc. 2d 852, 714 N.Y.S.2d 844 (N.Y. County Sup. Ct. 1999) (finding that state and federal law prohibit offer of Internet gambling to New York residents) [an alternate source]

Arthur J. Cockfield, "Transforming the Internet into a Taxable Forum: A Case Study in E-Commerce Taxation," Minnesota Law Review Minnesota Law Review, 85 Minn. L. Rev. 1171 (2001).

3/4/04
Online dispute resolution

Readings: Excerpts from Katsh and Rifkin, Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace
Julian Dibble, A Rape in Cyberspace, The Village Voice, 12/21/93, pp. 36-42 (1993)

3/9/04
Online Dispute Resolution

Virtual guest: Colin Rule - Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay

Reading: Excerpts from Rule, Online Dispute Resolution for Business

3/11/04
Technology and lawyers: Will technology make lawyers obsolete? Should 15 year olds be allowed to give legal advice online?

Reading: Michael Lewis, "Faking It," New York Times, July 15, 2001
http://www.elawyering.org/
http://www.judgelink.org/

Additional reading: Herbert Kritzer, "The Professions Are Dead, Long Live the Professions: Legal Practice in a Postprofessional World" 33 Law & Society Rev. 713 (1999).

3/23/04
Technology and lawyers: How do lawyers use technology? Delivering legal services online

Reading: Lauritsen, Lawyering for Tomorrow
Lauritsen, Oh Say, Can You C? Preparing for a New Era of Legal Commerce

3/25/04
Online law schools

3/30/04
Copyright: goals, history and the lessons of Mickey Mouse

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 275-309

3/31/04
Copyright: Software code v. legal code

4/6/04
No class

4/8/04
Technology and the boundaries of free speech: Pornography and obscenity

Bellia, pp. 394-463 and selected First Amendment cases

4/13/04
No class

4/15/04
Annoying speech (spam) and hate speech

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 385-392

4/20/04
Privacy

Reading:

4/22/04
No class

4/27/04
Privacy

4/29/04
Privacy

5/4/04
Project presentations

5/6/04
Project presentations

5/11/04
Project presentations

5/13/04
Last day of classes

Reading:  Bellia, pp. 641-688