Jun

28

The Right to Violent Video Games

Posted by: | June 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children.  In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 1 (2011), the Court held that the First Amendment right to free speech protects the video games.  As I predicted last November in a blog post on the [...]

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Apr

11

That’s the Same Combination I Have on My Luggage!

Posted by: | April 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

Quick, which service do you think has the most strict password requirements I’ve ever encountered? My bank? Mutual funds? My law firm network login? Credit cards? Paypal? Email providers? Configuring my home server for remote access? Electronics sites like newegg.com and amazon.com? Westlaw and Lexis? No. Not any of those. There is a service that, [...]

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Dec

20

New Law Review Comments Cover Social Networking, Wind Farms, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Open Records Law, and Purchase Money Security Interests

Posted by: | December 20, 2010 | 1 Comment

Now available online, the recently published student comments in the Marquette Law Review cover a wide range of topics.  They include Nathan Petrashek’s comment on the impact of online social networking on Fourth Amendment privacy.  Since social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace attract both criminals (e.g., sexual predators, identity thieves) and the police who investigate [...]

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Sep

28

Can You Be Forced to Turn Over Your Social Network Passwords in a Civil Case?

Posted by: | September 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

Let’s say you’re the plaintiff in a civil case against a neighbor, an employer, or a company you’ve done business with. One of the many pains of litigation is the discovery process–the process whereby each side collects information that it believes will help it win the case. Discovery can come in many forms, such as [...]

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May

24

Can Google-TV Help Liberate Cable-TV?

Posted by: | May 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Tech nerds and media junkies have been buzzing lately about Google’s announcement that it will soon rollout Google-TV — a new device/platform that will turn people’s televisions into portals for online video and other web content. Google representatives unveiled the project last week at a developers conference where they staged a Steve Jobs-like showcase that [...]

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May

12

Truth in Googling: Is Unfair Competition the Answer?

Posted by: | May 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment

In my freshman year of college, a long-time friend of mine and I decided to drive down to Chicago.  Shortly before heading to the Cadillac Palace to claim our seats for a comedy act performing there that night, my companion, being an Asian-food connoisseur, steered our walk downtown towards a Japanese restaurant in River North.   [...]

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Mar

1

To Zone or Not to Zone

Posted by: | March 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment

After my property ASP, I ended up in an interesting conversation about zoning. I know nothing about zoning both because I am a 1L and because I am from Houston, the only city in the country (to my knowledge and pride) without zoning. As I listened to a few anectdotes and told a few of [...]

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Feb

17

Does Google Buzz Violate COPPA?

Posted by: | February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Danielle Citron over at Concurring Opinions invited me to write a guest post expanding on a comment I wrote yesterday on her post on the Google Buzz story. I’m reposting it here with more of the links enabled, which got lost in translation: Google’s new social networking service, Google Buzz, has obviously been all over [...]

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Feb

14

Imagine this…

Posted by: | February 14, 2010 | 3 Comments

You wake up in the morning and look out your window at the snow. You go to your inventory and pick out a nice outfit and shoes. Then go into appearance and, after wearing your clothes and shoes, you quickly take off all your hair; you need to look sophisticated today. You attach a new ‘do. On second thought…

…a bit frustrated [you] remind yourself that you just won a lot of money and some fun stuff. You send a message to the coordinator, but he isn’t online. Slightly frustrated you log early that day.
A week passes. You find a new home on Sunny Paradise the sim that your neighbor moved to; she was a good neighbor before and is a good neighbor now. You find out that the sim on which you were living was reposessed because the owner was not paying the tier (taxes) on the land. Wondering where the 5,000 bucks that you paid the owner to rent your space went, you are glad that you will be getting some money coming in once you receive the contest prize.

[But you never get the money...]

[i]n real life, they would seek legal assistance, attempt to negotiate, and failing that file suit against both the real estate company and the contest coordinators, but in SL there is no law.

The tension between the realities of life and the law and the entire absence of law in the life of an avatar is what changed my mind about the law.

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Jan

22

Seventh Circuit Clarifies Application of Fourth Amendment to Searches of Computer Hard Drives

Posted by: | January 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment

While working as a life guard instructor, Matthew Mann covertly installed a video camera in a locker room in order to take footage of women changing their clothes.  After the camera was discovered and turned over to the authorities, police executed a search warrant at Mann’s home for “video tapes, CD’s or other digital media, [...]

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Dec

13

Add Judges To The List of Professionals Who Must Take Care In Using Facebook

Posted by: | December 13, 2009 | 6 Comments

Professor Lisa Mazzie posted a blog entry back in September about the use of Facebook and other social networking websites by lawyers.  The post shed light on the trouble an attorney can face when the substance of his or her webpage falls short of professional standards.  As Professor Mazzie explained, postings that “criticize” judges, “reveal” [...]

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Oct

16

What Is Going On Over at the Internet?

Posted by: | October 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

On Thursday, I drafted a blog post inspired by the recent death of 89-year-old former major league baseball player Larry Jansen. Jansen was an outstanding pitcher in National League in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and was also the primary plaintiff in an early right of publicity case.  I have found that very few [...]

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