Media
Driving Under the Influence…of a Cell Phone
The United States wireless industry is fully taking advantage of its recent big break, with colorful ear buds and trendy covers being hauled in by the dozen. Over thirty states have outlawed driving with hand-held cell phones and have replaced them with hands-free devices instead [1]. Studies, however, continue to prove that the hands-free substitution [...]
Pitfalls of eBooks and Why They Don’t Matter
With the release of Apple Inc.’s iPad, another chapter is being written in the history of digitized media. Specifically, the iPad continues the work done by products such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, in furthering the development of the eBook market. By definition, eBooks, also known as digital books, are e-texts [...]
It’s Your World Wide Web
It’s your World. It’s wide. It’s the Web. What you choose to do with it is all up to you. Read what some people have done with the Internet’s features to impact the world we live in.
Guns, Germs, Steel, and An Alternative Explanation for Eurasian Hegemony
After 1492, Europeans were able to conquer and subjugate the people of the New World because of their access to gun technology, germs to which Native Americans were not immune, and steel manufacturing, a fact that few students of history question. But why wasn’t it the Native Americans with access to these fateful resources? Why [...]
Social Networking: From Fantasy to Facebook
Social networking websites offer a large degree of “control” by which individuals shape their digital image: users can select a precise moment in time to act as their symbolic representation; what personal information to offer; who can view this information; and even restrict information to specific users. Larger social forces, however, inform all of these decisions. Perhaps it is best to step back and ask the following question: how does an individual determine the correct course of action for any of these options?
Cyberlaw – Evolution, Revolution or Retrofit?
In Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse, Chicago-area appeals judge, Frank Easterbrook mocks the idea that there can be such a thing as “Property in Cyberspace” or cyber-law in general, which he compares to the law of the horse.As Easterbrook explains, there is all kinds of law involving horses: racing commissions regulations, contracts over stud fees and veterinary malpractice, yet nobody claims to be a “horse lawyer,” Similarly, as Professor Lawrence Lessig explains, Easterbrook’s view is that the law of cyberspace is nothing more than “torts in cyberspace, contracts in cyberspace, property in cyberspace, etc.” There is no “cyberlaw” any more than there is horse law. Lessig disagrees, explaining “there is an important general point that comes from thinking in particular about how law and cyberspace connect;” specifically, “the limits on law as a regulator” and the “techniques for escaping those limits.”Lessig claims cyberlaw is valuable because all law can draw from its lessons. In this article I will, using the “commodification of music” as a case study, argue Lessig is correct. And whether we can learn from these lessons is one of the central legal, cultural and policy questions facing the Internet, and society, today.
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