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Category Archives: Internet Law

Treaty Draft Makes ISPs Liable for Illegal Content

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

PC World reports that a draft treaty leaked from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks would make ISPs liable for civil damages for user-generated uploads and downloads of copyrighted content.  According to PC World, the draft treaty would require ISPs to take affirmative steps, such as terminating violators’ accounts, to avoid being liable for their users’ [...]

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“Astonishing” Criminal Liability for YouTube Video

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

In another European case I’ve blogged about before (here, here, and here), yesterday an Italian court convicted three Google executives of criminal privacy violations in a case arising out of a 2006 YouTube video of the bullying of an autistic boy, posted to YouTube by his abusers.  The court imposed suspended three- to six-month sentences on [...]

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Playing the China Card

Monday, February 8, 2010

In a speech a few weeks ago Hillary Clinton criticized China and other nations for their Internet censorship, warning that what she called an “information curtain” might prevent the citizens of such countries from the free flow of information.  Her speech came shortly after Google reported it was the victim of computer hacking that it [...]

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Judicial Restraint

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Yesterday the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reversed Matt Zubiel’s conviction of attempting to disseminate matter harmful to a minor, ruling that M.G.L. c. 272, § 31’s definition of matter “does not encompass electronically transmitted text, or ‘online conversations.’”  Zubiel, age 25, engaged in instant messaging with “Melissa QT1995,” who he believed to be a 13-year [...]

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Google Street View in the News

Friday, February 5, 2010

Vancouver property owners and an arbor service have been charged with illegal removal of trees from the owner’s property.  A Vancouver bylaw requires property owners receive a permit to remove trees greater than 20 cm in diameter, and the owners have been charged with the unpermitted removal of over 20 trees.  The penalty for each [...]

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More Threatening Than Underwear Bombers

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Here’s a chilling story (“In Digital Combat, U.S. Finds No Easy Deterrent”) about the U.S.’s vulnerability “to a sophisticated cyberattack aimed at paralyzing the nation’s power grids, its communications systems or its financial networks.”   The –Pentagon war game, modeled on recent attacks on Google and other companies, left its participants “dispirit[ed]–

The enemy had all the [...]

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‘Tis the Season for Sales Taxes

Friday, November 27, 2009

The New York Times acknowledged Black Friday (when did the Thanksgiving Day Plus One shopping extravaganza acquire that name?  Is it so named because it’s the day that puts retailers into the black for the year?  I would call it “Shopping Orgy Day”) with an editorial calling for online retail sales to be taxed.  (Yes, [...]

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