The Third Wave of Internet Exceptionalism

By Eric Goldman [I initially wrote this as an editorial for our University magazine and republished that version through InformIT as well. Here’s the original unedited version I submitted.] From the beginning, the Internet has been viewed as something special…

Facebook User Agreement Imbroglio Recap (and Some Comments of My Own)

By Eric Goldman I didn’t have a chance to blog on the Facebook user agreement amendment flap in real-time, but now that Facebook has rolled back its amendments and everyone is catching their breath, the Monday morning quarterbacking is proceeding…

2008 Cyberlaw Year-in-Review

By Eric Goldman It’s a sign of my schedule that I’m just now getting to this, and this post will be more pithy than I initially conceived. This post recaps some of the Cyberlaw highlights from last year. Frankly, the…

Social Networking Sites and Blogs Talk for Students

By Eric Goldman Today I gave a talk entitled “Social Networking Sites and Blogs” for the on-campus Student Intellectual Property Law Association (SIPLA). My slides. In conjunction with this, I thought it might be useful to organize a bibliography of…

Decay Rates of Committed Online Community Members–an Epinions Case Study

By Eric Goldman Building on several previous blog posts, I am writing up a extended discourse explaining why Wikipedia will fail. A key part of my argument is that committed Wikipedians will turn over faster than they can be replaced….

Just who is an Internet access service provider under CAN-SPAM?

Worded to prevent lawsuits by individual email recipients, the federal CAN-SPAM Act limits who can bring suit for a CAN-SPAM violation. In addition to state and federal enforcers, the Act allows suits by “Internet access service providers.” Just who are…

September 2008 Quick Links, Part 3

By Eric Goldman eBay * Universal Grading Service v. eBay, Inc. More fallout from the National Numismatic v. eBay case–another lawsuit alleging antitrust and defamation because eBay designated some coin rating services as preferred and impliedly devalued others. * Windsor…

September 2008 Quick Links, Part 2

By Eric Goldman Copyrights * In the Harry Potter fair use case, the court declared that the Lexicon encyclopedia isn’t fair use. * The judge declared a mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case. * Designer Skin v. S&L Vitamins has…

Carterfone and Open Access in the Digital Era Symposium, October 17

By Eric Goldman On October 17, we are having a neat event at Santa Clara University. A brief word about the genesis. I don’t normally travel in telecom circles but I went to a few events in the past year…

Fall 2008 Cyberspace Law Syllabus

By Eric Goldman I’ve posted my latest Cyberspace Law course syllabus. Some changes from last year: * added an August 2007 Search Engine Land article by Chris Silver Smith on geolocation technologies and their efficacy. * added California Penal Code…