January 12, 2003 --
Lex 8256
Seminar: The Law in Cyberspace
Jon Weinberg
We are only beginning to formulate the laws that govern cyberspace.
"In my own ignorance I have to accept the real possibility that if we
had to decide today just what the First Amendment should mean in cyberspace,
we would get it fundamentally wrong. . . . [N]ot every nuance of our
old standards will necessarily do for the new technology, and . . . a
proper choice among existing doctrinal categories is not obvious. . .
. I cannot guess how much time will go by until the technologies of
communication before us today have matured and their relationships become
known." Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium v.
FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 777-78 (1996) (Souter, J., concurring) (citations and
internal quotation marks omitted).
This seminar will examine the law in cyberspace as it develops. Most
of the assigned texts will be material available online.
Assignments and class discussion:
- We will meet every Monday from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
- Most of the material you will be reading in preparation
for class over the course of the seminar will be selected by your
classmates.
- For each topic, the person assigned to cover
that topic will create a reading assignment, after consulting with
me. The reading assignment will contain citations to the assigned
readings (including complete URLs for material available on the Internet),
along with any explanatory material and instructions. I will put
each assignment on the web server before the previous week's class,
and students in the seminar will have that week to read the assigned
material for the topics scheduled for the following class. The average
student not encountering unusual technical difficulties should be able
to complete the reading assignment for each topic in about two hours. We
will typically cover two topics each week. (Click HERE
for examples of assignments created by students in this seminar,
taught by Prof. Litman, in past years.)
- You should turn in your assignment via email
(to me at weinberg@wayne.edu
or weinberg@msen.com) by 5 p.m.
Friday, ten days before the class scheduled for
your topic. Late assignments will result in a grade deduction. You
can submit reading assignments in either HTML or in ASCII text. (Recent
versions of all major word processing programs include utilities to
convert files into either HTML or ASCII. There are also a number of HTML
conversion utlities available on the web as freeware or shareware.) You
may supplement your assignments with material available only in hard
copy format, so long as you distribute it in class the week before
your topic is scheduled.
- I won't put anything up on the server until I
have checked the links to make sure they work. To the extent I need
to spend a substantial amount of time correcting your citations and
links, I will take that into account in assigning that portion of your
grade.
- I will give you some initial suggestions for
sources to consult to start your research. After you have developed
some ideas for your assignment, we should discuss your plans either
in person or by email. In doing your research, be sure to consult
the sources
page prepared for this seminar by Prof. Litman.
- Class discussions will proceed as follows:
The person assigned for each topic will begin and conclude the discussion
with a short (5 to 10 minute) presentation. In between, every member
of the class will be expected to speak about the assigned material.
- You will not
need your own computer in order to complete the assignments for this
seminar, but it will be more convenient if you do. All assignments can
be completed using the computers and Internet access available to you
in the Neef law library. Servers do go down, however, and if you plan
to rely on the law library for access, you should allow yourself plenty
of extra time to allow for inevitable glitches. If you own or have access
to a computer with a modem, Internet access
is available from WSU at no cost.
Grades:
Your grades will consist of three, equally weighted components:
- The reading assignment designed for the class.
- A 20-to-30 page research paper on the same topic.
- Class participation over the course of the semester.
- It's appropriate to be original, creative and clever in
preparing your class reading assignment. Other students in the seminar
will appreciate it, and I'll consider it favorably in your grade.
(I don't mean that you should use graphics or cleve animation.
Many of your classmates will have slow modems. Be kind to them,
and keep their download times short.) I'll be looking primarily
at your assignment's effectiveness in enabling the members of the
seminar to learn interesting and challenging material, and I'll pay
attention both to presentation and to selection of sources.
- I expect every student to attend every class
and to have something thoughtful to say on every topic. Every
student will be graded on the remarks she or he makes in each class.
I will take the quality of class discussion on a topic as some indication
of the effectiveness of the assignment for that topic. (Let me repeat
that: what you have to say with respect to a given assignment will be
one of the things I consider in assigning a grade to the student who created
that assignment.) As a matter of fairness to the other members of the
seminar, you need to take sufficient time with each week's assignments
to be able to contribute to the discussion.
- Papers must be turned in in both hard copy format
and in electronic format. Electronic copies may be in any word
processing program, in HTML, or in ASCII text. All footnotes and citations
should conform to the current edition of the Bluebook. Citations to material
available over the Internet should give the URL. I will not post
your paper on the web without your permission.
- Your paper should reflect analysis and original
thought as well as description. Be careful to cite your sources.
- First drafts of all papers must be turned in
by Tuesday April 1. Final drafts must be turned in on or before
Thursday April 24. The point of this requirement is to allow you
to correct problems with your papers before the final version,
so that the paper is better and I can give you a higher grade. If
you do a half-hearted job on your first draft, so that I see much of
the material in your paper for the first time on April 24, then you
won't have a chance to correct those problems, and your grade will suffer.
Trust me on this.
Schedule:
- I have posted a list of potential paper topics
at http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/law-in-cyberspace/topics.htm.
Please give me, no later than noon on Thursday,
January 16, your preferred five topics from that list
in ranked order. You may also list up to three dates that you would
find inconvenient for your scheduled presentation.
- I will try to put together a schedule that
flows in a coherent progression based on what topics you do and don't
select. If what's really important to you is to ensure that
your presentation is scheduled, e.g., during September and
you don't care what that topic is so long as, e.g., it doesn't
have anything to do with Internet domain names, tell me so and I will try
to take that into account in scheduling. If you would like to write on
a topic not on the attached list, please discuss that topic with me before
turning in your selections, and write a short description of the paper you
envision writing and the sorts of materials you expect to assign to the class.
- I will try to honor preferences, and will, in
the event of a conflict, make selections on the basis of the class's
scheduling convenience. Within those constraints, I will give topic
choices turned in earlier precedence over choices turned in later,
so it's in your interest to turn in your topic selections as early as
possible.
- Topic selections and all other assignments may
be turned in to my mailbox, handed to me, or e-mailed to me at
weinberg@wayne.edu or weinberg@msen.com. If you are sending
me something via e-mail, please don't assume that I have received
it unless I send you a confirming message via e-mail.