Singularity Law

I am pleased to announce that a new wiki dedicated to Information Technology Law has recently been launched. It is being hosted by the folks that operate Wikipedia and numerous other wikis, and that means that if you are familiar with Wikipedia, the ITLaw wiki will look familiar and operates in exactly the same way.
For [...]

When it rains it pours!
Over the summer I completed another law review article, which will appear in Volume 60, Issue 1 of the Administrative Law Review (Winter 2008), published by American University’s Washington College of Law. The title of the article is “The FTC, the Unfairness Doctrine and Data Security Breach Litigation: Has the Commission [...]

A law review article I recently finished titled “Tort Liability for Vendors of Insecure Software: Has the Time Finally Come?” has been accepted for publication in Volume 67, Issue 2 of the Maryland Law Review (Winter 2008). The current draft of the article is now available for downloading here.
The abstract of the article is reprinted [...]

As the number of data security breaches continues to increase, and the number of persons who have their personal information exposed reach over 100 million, you would think these victims would have some remedy for the time and effort they have to go through to get their lives back in order. Yet, the cases have [...]

For many years (probably since fair use began), copyright owners have viewed fair use as some sort of government sponsored piracy of their creative efforts. But since a copyright has never been viewed as a monopoly, and the rights granted are constrained by the constitutional grant, fair use has always been viewed as part [...]

A recent story on News.com indicates that record companies are investing in merchandising, artist management, touring and other companies to boost their slumping revenues from CD sales. Universal Music and Warner Music Group have announced investments in companies specializing in artist management and Web networking.
Whether they can successful do so is still an open [...]

Fifth Epoch (2001-20??)
The dot com bust had an enormous impact on the computer industry, as well as those lawyers who serviced that industry. Funding for start-ups disappeared, initial public offerings dried up, and a large percentage of the Internet industry found itself struggling to survive. Lawyers found themselves working more on bankruptcies, mergers [...]

Fourth Epoch (1993-2001)
By the early 1990s, the Internet was old-hat to computer professionals, but virtually unknown to the general public. The system began in 1969 as the ARPANet. It was “designed to enable computers operated by the military, defense contractors, and universities conducting defense-related research to communicate with one another by redundant channels [...]

Third Epoch (1982-1993)
Toward the end of the 1970s, advances in semiconductor technology permitted the development of the first inexpensive, relatively small computers – ushering in the personal computer era. Most of the early companies have been long forgotten – such companies as IMSAI, Cromemco and Osborne. One company, literally started in a garage, [...]

Second Epoch (1969-1982)
IBM’s announcement, which launched the worldwide software industry,1 ushered in the Second Epoch of Computer Law. During this second time period contracting issues became increasingly important, as companies had to develop a new body of licenses and other contracts to deal with the myriad transactions taking place.
In addition, technology allowed companies to [...]