Blog Posts
A.I. Think, Therefore I Am: Ownership and Copyrights over A.I.-Generated Artworks
Nov. 15, 2022—By Sallie Hatfield Earlier this year, a digital artwork created through an Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) program won first place in a digital art competition in Pueblo, CO. The artist explained that he created it by submitting terms to a computer program called Midjourney. While he did not misrepresent his methods, even signing the piece “Jason...
Football’s Most Wanted: The (Many) Cases Against Washington Commanders Owner Dan Snyder
Nov. 13, 2022—By Nic Vandeventer On November 10, the Office of Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (“OAG”) announced that it had an initiated a civil suit against Dan Snyder, the Washington Commanders, the NFL, and Commissioner Roger Goodell.[1]The suit alleges that Snyder, Goodell, the team, and the NFL colluded to mislead D.C. consumers regarding an ongoing...
Labeling Looted Art: New York’s Legislative Step Towards Ethical Curation
Nov. 8, 2022—By Charlotte Yates A recent New York state law requires museums to clearly label art that was looted by Nazis in 1933-1945.[1] The law takes effect during a time of increased public scrutiny towards museum art acquisition and the equities implicated by museums’ curation practices.[2] “Provenance,” or “the ownership history of an artwork, from when...
Data Privacy in the Femtech Industry
Nov. 8, 2022—By Mary Maas Every day, millions of women provide period-tracking apps such as Clue and Flo with intimate information about their bodies. In return, the apps offer algorithmic predictions that help users track, monitor, and improve their health. But is the convenience of these predictions worth the loss of privacy? Smartphone apps like Clue and...
Our Fourth Amendment Privacy Is Not For Sale
Sep. 7, 2022—By Kyle C. Bailey *Note: the original publication date was July 2020. Introduction There is a spy in your pocket. The mobile applications on your smartphone continuously track your exact location, and the information is not kept secret.[1] Instead, the apps send your location to numerous companies, up to 14,000 times a day.[2] The companies...
Decentralizing Patent Communication: Towards a Network Paradigm of the Patent System
Aug. 27, 2022—By Or Cohen-Sasson United States patent law requires the publication of a patent application 18 months after its filing date. Yet in practice, approximately 50% of applicants publish their applications much sooner.[1] Early publication does not expedite the examination process, nor does it grant any special patent rights. Early publication thus seems like an odd...
Coca-Cola Curses: Updating Dangerous Speech for Postcolonial Contexts
Aug. 6, 2022—By Brittan Heller[1] The Atlantic Council June 2022 Postcolonial environments pose unique moderation challenges for social media, as traditional understandings of hate speech fail to provide the resources to understand its usage in a postcolonial context. I saw this firsthand during my fieldwork in Kasese, Uganda, where I worked to create a lexicon of localized...
Toward Textual Internet Immunity
Mar. 23, 2022—By Gregory M. Dickinson Internet immunity doctrine is broken. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, online entities are absolutely immune from lawsuits related to content authored by third parties. The law has been essential to the internet’s development over the last twenty years, but it has not kept pace with the...
“Levitating” Lawsuit: Blatant Rip-off or Bogus Claim?
Mar. 22, 2022—By John Scott The music industry is watching Dua Lipa with bated breath – and for once, not because she’s a phenomenal performer. Instead, attention is on the UK singer because she was hit with two lawsuits on March 1st and 4th claiming copyright infringement in her hit song “Levitating”.[1] The March 1 lawsuit –...
Setting the Goal Posts: The Titans, Nashville, and State of Tennessee Negotiate a New Stadium
Mar. 22, 2022—By Tilghman Kazmierowicz (Kaz) The Tennessee Titans are contractually due for a new stadium. The current Nissan Stadium lease agreement with the city requires a “first-class stadium”, clarified by Mayor John Cooper to mean “the median of the most recent half-dozen stadiums that have been built.”[1] Nissan Stadium is one of the oldest stadiums in...