Beating Revenge Porn with Copyright

The lawsuit against scumbag Web site Texxxan.com has generated attention to the problem of revenge porn, and to the paucity of legal remedies available to victims of it. Danielle Citron has two excellent posts over at Concurring Opinions analyzing the relevant statutory block, 47 U.S.C. 230, and the few cases that cut through its immunity. [...]

NZBMatrix Takes the Red Pill

I talked with Lifehacker’s IP guru Adam Dachis about the closure of several Usenet indexing services, including NZBMatrix. NZBMatrix threw in the towel after coming under twin pressures: a flood of DMCA notices related to links pointing to allegedly infringing content, and difficulty navigating the requirements of service providers such as PayPal. It’s the latest [...]

Petraeus and Privacy

The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, after a cyberharassment investigation brought his affair with biographer Paula Broadwell to light, has generated a fascinating upsurge in privacy worries. (Side note: I believe “working with my biographer” has now superseded “hiking the Appalachian Trail” as the top euphemism for infidelity). Orin Kerr has an excellent summary [...]

Research Project on State Information Laws

My friend Sasha Romanosky, a research fellow at the Information Law Institute at NYU and the co-author of a great paper on data breach notification laws, is looking for your help with a research project: Greetings, I am involved in a research project that examines state laws affecting the flow of personal information. This information could [...]

Death by HIPAA

Vioxx, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug once prescribed for arthritis, was on the market for over five years before it was withdrawn from the market in 2004. Though a group of small-scale studies had found a correlation between Vioxx and increased risk of heart attack, the FDA did not have convincing evidence until it completed its [...]

HuffPo, Drugs, Dogs

Jane has an article up on Huffington Post exploring privacy intuitions about police use of new technologies in light of the Jardines case. It’s a great read, and reinforces my conviction not to drive around with snausages in my trunk.

When Cybersecurity Makes Things Worse

Adam Dachis has an interesting and worrisome post up at Lifehacker. (Disclosure: he kindly asked me for input into the post.) It thinks about a post-CISPA world, where privacy exists only at the behest of companies who hold our information. CISPA would immunize these firms for sharing information with the federal government, so long as [...]

The Myth of Perfection

As promised, The Myth of Perfection is now available at the Wake Forest Law Review Online.

Censorship at Yale

The first rule of censorship conferences is… do not talk about censorship conferences. Ignoring that, I encourage you to tune in to Yale’s Global Censorship Conference – it is an awesome group of speakers and topics. You can catch the livestream here. For those of you willing to get up on Sunday morning, you can [...]

(Im)Perfection

I have a short article coming out in the Wake Forest Law Review Online, about the pursuit of perfection in cyberlaw. Here’s the introduction: Cyberlaw is plagued by the myth of perfection. Consider three examples: censorship, privacy, and intellectual property. In each, the rhetoric and pursuit of perfection has proved harmful, in ways this Essay [...]