In 2002, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition held that the possession, creation, or distribution of “virtual child pornography,” pornography created entirely through computer graphics, was not a punishable offense because regualtion impermissibly infringed on the First Amendment right to free speech and did not harm real children. Only a few years after that decision, however, …
The case of Jacobsen v. Katzer is among the earliest to consider the enforceability of open source software licenses, and is therefore of key interest to the open source community. To the disappointment of that community, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that an open source project creator could …
Senator Harry Reid proposed S. 1642, an amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965. This amendment was a diluted version of his original amendment, S.A. 2314, which was proposed as an addition to the College Cost Reduction Act. Each of these amendments proposed procedures that would work to monitor copyright infringement more effectively on …
In June 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled in FEC. v. Wisconsin Right To Life (“WRTL”), by a 5-4 decision, that section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (“BCRA”) was unconstitutional. The Court’s majority, however, could not agree to why BCRA was unconstitutional. The opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts held …
Lorraine v. Markel may have a profound impact on the world of electronic evidence admissibility for its guidance to lawyers, but in the area of computer animations and simulations, it carries a mixed message. The opinion takes a progressive approach to the unfair prejudice standard, granting broad discretion to courts to admit computer animation and …
Search engines allow millions of users to locate content on the Internet, including content offered by individuals and companies who have infringed upon a copyright holder’s rights. Copyright Law’s contributory infringement doctrine presents a dilemma for search engines like Google, whose services may facilitate the infringement of copyrights by enabling users to locate such content …
In 2006, thirteen-year-old Megan Meier met a teenage boy named Josh Evans on the social networking website MySpace. The two had an amicable relationship until Josh began making derogatory comments to Megan. The correspondence ultimately resulted in her suicide. Months later, “Josh” was revealed to be the collective creation of forty-seven-year-old Lori Drew, her teenage …
Currently, Apple forces owners of the iPhone to use AT&T’s wireless network through software contained in the phone’s operating system. The practice of “unlocking” the Apple iPhone for use over any compatible wireless network raises an interesting legal question. Specifically, this Comment considers this question through analysis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), the …
The patentability of communication signals under 35 U.S.C. § 101 first came before the Supreme Court in relation to Samuel Morse’s telegraph. Contrary to the Court’s ruling in O’Reilly v. Morse, however, the Federal Circuit recently held in In re Nuijten that useful, man-made signals are unpatentable because they do not fit within any of …
In the wake of a long history of copyright decisions that have been sparse in terms of First Amendment analysis, the Tenth Circuit in Golan v. Gonzales clearly addresses the First Amendment. This Recent Development analyzes the decision in Golan and argues that while the First Amendment concerns were properly recognized, the ultimate resolution of …
