Forthcoming in the proceedings of the 2nd @TheOfficialACM Symposium on Computer Science and Law
james.grimmelmann.net/files/articles…
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I've been working on applying programming-language theory to legal problems. So have a lot of other and smarter people. They held a workshop in January (ProLaLa '22) to share ideas. I gave a talk on where I thought the field was headed. This is it, fleshed out in more detail. 2/
May 25, 2022 • 37 tweets • 7 min read
I tweeted briefly yesterday about property and copyright in NFTs in response to the story that Seth Green's planned White Horse Tavern show might be on hold due to the theft of the Bored Ape NFT it was based on.
Today, I want to spell out the issues in a little more detail. 1/
The inciting incident is this story from BuzzFeed News. In brief, Green owned the NFT for Bored Ape #8398. He licensed it for a series, White Horse Tavern. Then someone phished Green, transferred the NFT, and sold it to "DarkWing84" for $200,000. 2/
Now that I have actually read the 11th Circuit's opinion holding that Florida's social-media moderation law is unconstitutional, I have just a few thoughts. 1/
First, most of the opinion is well-reasoned, well-supported, and well-written. It is a persuasive application of well-settled legal principles to conclude that the Florida law violates the First Amendment 2/
Nov 15, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
@hari I'm coming at this from a law perspective. The big problem is that an NFT, by itself, doesn't convey ownership of anything except the NFT itself. 1/@hari There are three kinds of property you could use an NFT to try to control ownership of: physical things (like houses, cars, or tungsten cubes), information (like digital artworks), or intangible rights (like corporate shares). 2/
May 5, 2021 • 33 tweets • 5 min read
The Facebook Oversight Board decision on Trump’s account is out, which means it’s time for me to edit this thing and kibbitz about the details.
oversightboard.com/decision/FB-69…
Observation: the FOB doesn't use a page <title> specific to each decision. You'd think a Facebook-established organization would be better at SEO.
Apr 14, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
The @cornell_Tech and @Cornell administrations have not shared substantially more information with the faculty about @UpFromTheCracks's removal from the @milsteinprogram than is already public. Still: 1/(1) The removal of @UpFromTheCracks from further participation in the Milstein Program was not justified by what I have seen available in the public record. 2/
Feb 15, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I am incandescent with rage at @Grubhub right now. Because it's not safe to eat out anywhere we could eat out, we gave the kids pizza and ordered ourselves a nice dinner from a local restaurant we picked for once.
Order placed at 6:30 based on an estimated 40-50 minutes delivery time. At 7:50 I called the restaurant to find out where our food was. They said they're not affiliated with Grubhub, don't take Grubhub orders, and had no record of our dinner.
Feb 12, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Once again a female scholar/journalist has written a detailed and thoughtful article about the Facebook @OversightBoard on the basis of insider acceess, and is being criticized harshly for it.
This time it is @Klonick's "Inside the Making of Facebook's Supreme Court" in the @NewYorker
The current discussion about whether Democrats should expand the size of the Supreme Court if they control the 117th Congress is an important one. But it overlooks something equally important. 1/
If Democrats control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, they would *also* have the votes to be able to solve many of the problems with a conservative Supreme Court through ordinary legislation.
Apr 24, 2020 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
This is, as @CT_Bergstrom says, shocking. Not only does it further call into question the results of the study, it also raises serious medical and research ethics problems. 1/
Most importantly, this undermines the informed consent from research participants. Under the Common Rule, they must be given a "description of any benefits to the subject or to others that may reasonably be expected from the research." 45 CFR § 46.116(b)(3). 2/
Apr 6, 2020 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
There has been some dramatic reporting about the chaotic market for PPE, masks, ventilators, and other supplies needed by hospitals dealing with COVID-19. I have been trying, mostly without success, to get a clearer picture of the legal ins and outs of what is going on. 1/
The federal government is seizing some stockpiles on the theory that the owners are engaged in price gouging. This press release notes that it will pay the owners "fair market value."
Unlike many of the lies Trump and his campaign tell, if this is false it is potentially legally actionable. Sweepstakes law is a thing, and lawyers who work on contests learn immediately that if you say a prize will be given, you have to give out the prize. 1/
And this is a topic we CAN dig into, because the Trump campaign posts the full rules of these meal-with-Trump contests online (which is also So You Want to Run a Contest 101).
It's even broader than phototographs taken inside the Vessel. It also covers photographs "depicting or relating to the Vessel" even if not taken from inside. So if you "agree" to the license, it even applies to your later photographs of the Vessel taken from across the river. 2/
