What a Local Internet Company Can Do About Legal Uncertainty in Cyberspace: A Policy Proposal on How to Deal with the International Jurisdictional, Judgment Enforcement, and Conflict of Law Problems Posed by the Internet
Javier Beltran Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson leads the U.S. delegation to the particular committees of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development currently working on international e-business guidelines in their attempts to overcome “the differences between many European countries’ systems of law and our own […] in developing consensus of difficult issues like choice of law and jurisdiction.” Accordingly, for the purposes of this very presentation, this project will first focus specifically on what domestic internet companies should know about jurisdiction, enforcement of judgements, and conflict of law issues in cyberspace when a dispute arises outside of the contractual sphere....
Does Intermediate Copying of Computer Software for the Purpose of Reverse Engineering a Non-Infringing Product Infringe the Copyright in the Software?
Robert V. Donahoe Software developers have successfully applied the affirmative defense of fair use to defeat claims that this intermediate copying violated the owner’s copyright in the computer programmer. Courts have found the equitable nature of the fair use defense useful in analyzing claims of computer program copyright infringement because the functional elements are unintelligible unless the object code is decompiled. In Sony v. Connectix, 203 F.3d 596 (9th Cir. 2000), the Ninth Circuit applied the fair use doctrine to further expand the ability of computer software developers to legally make intermediate copies of computer software for the purpose of...