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Cyberlaw and the Global Economy 2003 > Advice to Hypo_Client

Rotisserie Question

You are an up-and-coming associate at a prestigious law firm.  Your hypo_clients brings to you the problem found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globaleconomy/hypo.pdf.  The senior partners have divided your class of associates into small teams to parse the many Internet-related legal and business issues presented by this problem.  Please draft a short memo to the hypo_clients that highlights a single issue within your assigned topic area.  Your memo should also provide initial advice as to how the hypo_clients should address this issue, whether through legal, business-modeling, technical, or other means.  You should not seek to address all the possible issues lurking in your topic area.  Team members should each write their own memo to the hypo_clients.  Please be prepared to summarize your findings and to defend your advice in a meeting of the legal team working on this issue on December 3, 2003.  (The assignment is also described at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globaleconomy/admin.html).

There are more questions (1): Expand All
Round 1 Poll: As a consumer, would you pay $9.99 per year for the services that your hypo_clients propose to offer?
a) Yes.
   
22%
b) No, but I wouldn't tell the hypo_clients as much.
   
39%
c) No, and I would tell the hypo_clients as much.
   
39%
Total Votes: 23
There are more polls (1): Expand All
Status ?

Done. Started on
11/24/03 12:00 AM
Schedule
Start: 11/24/03 12:00 AM
Round 1 Due: 12/1/03 5:00 PM
Round 2 Due: 12/3/03 4:30 PM
Final Due: 12/5/03 5:00 PM
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Active Users26
Posts49
Scheduled Rounds2
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Memo To:   Messrs. Bruce Keller and Jeffrey Cunard, Esq.

From:  JJ Disini

Re:  Hypothetical Search Engine


We reply to your request for a legal review of your proposed search engine More...

First, I have some doubt whether this DMCA safe harbor applies here. The safe harbor refers to system caching, which a service provider does on behalf of a visitor of More...

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The service’s information collection creates significant potential business value and legal risk.  Reducing risk requires incurring transaction costs; cost levels likely determine what collection is feasible.

The service proposes to More...

Only thing I would want to see is maybe how costly all these modifications are and whether it would be worth it to the client, particularly in Europe (i.e. would More...

Your memo presents clear analysis and sound suggestions, effectively conveying the jurisdictional issues associated with information collection. In addition to respecting the range of national and international laws, the clients’ More...

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IP Issues related to the hypothetical.

1. “Push” Technology/Caching

The most pressing issue within the hypo relates to the caching scheme, which is the essential part of the business operation. More...

Note that a number of other associates have dealt with issues related to 'caching'; issues related to the 'push' technology; and pop-ups and pop-unders. It may be useful to get More...

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In the U.S. there are no rules that generally require U.S. commercial websites to post a privacy policy of any kind.  If a company does post a privacy policy, theoretically More...

Response to Privacy Issue

Great memo. It identified the key problem: the conflict of law between the US and Europe. It is probably one the key issues for many international More...

The analysis nicely lays out the legal dilemmas that flow from the divergent privacy policies of US and EU law.  The one point that I would emphasize more would be More...

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One of the major legal issues regarding e-commerce and online contracting is formation-of-contract: whether the parties have entered into a binding contract.  This issue is important because it determines the More...

To:  Renny Hwang
From:  Evan Burnstein
Date:  December 3, 2002
Re:  Online Contracting: is clarity achievable

I think you did a nice job of identifying the issues regarding the formation More...

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To:  Hypo-Clients
Re:  Substantive Copyright issues: end-user archives and the “push” technology

Leaving aside issues of substantive copyright law as applied to the company, it is also worth looking at More...

Comments

1. I do not think you can dismiss the copyright concerns with respect to archiving itself.  Taping public television broadcasts for _repeated_ private use runs afowl of the copyright More...

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This memo addresses any concerns specific to the ad-blocking portion of the service.  (I went over the word limit by almost 300 words; sorry!)

**Legal Analysis**

*Part 1: Jurisprudential Inquery* More...

Thread Comments:

After having backed up quite a bit in my browser I was able to retreive the answer that was never posted... Here it is.

Interesting... In general I think you More...

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This is part of a larger Memorandum prepared by our group of associates. Please note issues covered in this part as follows:
- Substantive copyright issues related to caching by More...

This is a good memo and one that's especially helpful in covering 2 jurisdictions at once.  I just have a couple of quick comments:

(a)  You appear to have combined More...

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Several legal means are available to protect the company's data and market share from competing services.
The first means available is to patent as much of the company's unique interface More...

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The main legal issue with respect to our gathering of information about our users is the users’ privacy and our handling of their information. What we want to do is More...

 Complying with the strictest regime might be the easiest short-term solution, but given the current flux in privacy legal regimes might not be the best long-term move.  Even if compliance More...

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A. Terms and Conditions of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms and Conditions  
(1)First Client should seek users’ acceptance of the Terms and Conditions. Though some other search engines believe that More...

Jyh-An has come up with an excellent, detailed plan for the search engine’s use.  Here are some reactions and further inquiries:

--“Except as specifically permitted, no portion of the information More...

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While there are legal and business risks involved, the advantages of offering ad-blocking software far outweigh the costs.  First, I will focus on the benefits:
·        The research firm, GartnerG2, More...

I think your analysis is very strong here.  I, likewise, would advocate increasing the users' responsibility for blocking pop-ups as it would take focus away from the site's action.  A More...

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The nature of the legal problem

Pop-up ad blocking software has become more popular over the recent years and there are numerous websites that advertise and sell blocking and filtering More...

The risk of infringing the copyright to the site. Embedded ads, pop-ups, pop-downs form together with the rest of the content a work of authorship, b/c of design, arrangement. Automatically More...

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To: Client,

In order to deal with the issue of data collection of users, I recommend that you form and post a privacy policy which outlines the privacy expectation consumers More...

You identified most of the privacy issues and provided a few good suggestions addressing these issues. I would like to add a few points to make our suggestions to the More...

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Within the heading of substantive copyright, there are a number of issues that arise under the scenario posited in the early portion of the class.  As such, it is best More...

The ad blocking feature proposed by our client definitely brings up some interesting copyright issues.  Your post focuses well on statutes 17 U.S.C. 102 and 107, however it ignores 17 More...

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    The issues presented by the proposed site's accessing of user information depend heavily on 1) the degree of specificity of the data, that is, whether it is collected by a More...

   The memo draft successfully points out the costs and risks that Hypo_Client has to face for the collection of users’ information. What I would like to supplement more is from More...

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Your proposed business model suggests to search and cache websites irrespective of the type of content and access control mechanisms in place. This, together with the for-profit purpose of the More...

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I. Websites protected by access controls

First, we need to distinguish whether a site has incorporated access control technologies. To date many commercial valuable contents such as on-line version of More...

The memo clearly describes the important legal issues relating to the functionality of the service.  In balancing the competing goals of the client to provide the best service possible to More...

The potential cost of either contacting each individual site on the Internet or drastically limiting the scope of the service, as another colleague on your team suggests, are not practical More...

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Hypo_client has an overwhelming advantage over its competitors at this stage – its competitors do not exist.  Either because the market is undiscovered, our technology is truly innovative, or because More...

Assuming that your memo only intends to address defensive IP issues (early legal caution being much more adviseable where we're talking about avoiding infringing on others' property rights, since such More...

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To:  Client
From:  Evan Burnstein
Date:  December 1, 2003
Re:  User Information Collection: The Issue Of Online Profiling

The following is a memo regarding an important issue in the arena More...

To: Law firm partner, head of the department
From: Bekhzod Abdurazzakov
CC: Evan  Burnstein

Subject: Re: User Information Collection: The Issue of Online Profiling/Draft Memo

The memo presented does a More...

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Caching: The Service contemplates caching and archiving websites for indeterminate periods.  The mere copying of material protected by copyright without authorization constitutes infringement.  However, the DMCA (512(b)) provides for a More...

In regards to the comments on the WhenU case and the subsequent suggestion: You recommend the client follow the procedures in the WhenU case, but there are a few fundamental More...

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Contracting
One of the primary e-commerce issues surrounding the proposed subscription service is the formation of contract.  As space is limited, the discussion below will not focus on other e-commerce More...

I agree that one of the major legal issues of on-line contracting is the formation of contract because in the website context formal acceptance is absent. In addition to what More...

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Dear Hypo-Client,

I have following news for you.

1. Given the global nature of your project, I assume that you are going to have foreign subscribers. Therefore, you have to More...

With regard to number 4, businesses cannot necessarily choose which courts assert jurisdiction, and thus in many instances unable to choose the law they wish to apply.  Given the fact More...

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Introduction:
This memo seeks to address the potential misappropriation liability that may arise from certain proposed displays of outside content in the proposed product.   It concludes that the danger of More...

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Dear Clients:

The prospective business model raises a myriad of issues that involve protecting and exploiting your intellectual property (IP), while respecting the rights of other IP owners. The enhanced More...

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