Internet Intermediary Law Slides from Stanford Guest Lecture

By Eric Goldman

I recently guest-lectured at an Internet Law course at Stanford, run by Jennifer Granick and Richard Salgado. My slides.

Jennifer asked me to cover 47 USC 230 and 17 USC 512 in a single session. I know other Internet Law professors combine the topics, but I normally don’t in my Internet Law course. When I cover online copyright liability, I discuss Section 512 as a defense to secondary copyright infringement. Later, I talk about publication torts, including defamation, and then talk about Section 230 as an Internet exceptionalist approach to publication torts based on third party content. I do have a wrapup slide at the end of my Section 230 (included in the slides linked up) that contrasts Sections 512 and 230, but I have never taught them together. I thought it worked out nicely, and it gave me a chance to show different ways plaintiffs are attacking UGC websites. Check it out.