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UB Law Forum Volume 11 Number 1 Spring 1998 Article 18 4-1-1998 Cyberlaw Symposium Tackles Emerging Legal Issues UB Law Forum Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/ub_law_forum Recommended Citation UB Law Forum (1998) "Cyberlaw Symposium Tackles Emerging Legal Issues," UB Law Forum: Vol. 11 : No. 1 , Article 18. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/ub_law_forum/vol11/iss1/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Alumni Publications at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in UB Law Forum by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Cyperlaw Symposium tackles emerging legal issues n imposing figure with shaved head and trademark bow tie, he's appeared on national news shows and been quoted in papers around the country. ADaniel]. Weitzner '92 strode through a wet late-winter snow and back into O'Brian Hall to address one of the hottest topics in law. Speaking before approximately 100 participants at the Buffalo Law Review's UBLAW Cyberlaw Symposium, the UB Law grad­ uate noted that the Internet is not only FORUM an unprecedented force for global democracy, but also a source of confu­ Spring sion for lawyers. "It raises extraordinary 1998 problems," opined Weitzner, now deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. The Cyberlaw Symposium sought to clear up some of the confusion and provide a framework for approaching the problems. The symposium brought experts from around the nation and practitioners from throughout the region together with UB Law faculty and stu­ dents to discuss topics ranging from First Amendment rights to Web page design. The gathering sparked e-mail inquiries from as far as Europe and Africa, according to Craig Hurley-Leslie, the 1997 graduate who fi rst suggested the cyberlaw topic and who served as symposium coordinator. Now working at the New York Court of Appeals in Albany, Hurley-Leslie says the sympo­ sium was particularly timely because it came just as the Supreme Court was tak­ ing up the Communications Decency Act. Both Weitzner and the symposium keynote speaker, Mike Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have been deeply involved in Internet censor­ ship issues. joseph Bermingham, chai1" of the New •Vfhey're two people I greatly York State BaT Association 's Task Force 40 on Electronic Comrmmications respect in the current movement to cent as buggy whips." sold?" he said, citing one of tl1e vexing extend our rights into cyberspace," Boyer acknowledged the concern of questions increasingly being asked. Hurley-Leslie says. "We thought it was those who fear that computers may "What state attorney general has the great to have Dan Weitzner back as a encourage superficial skimming and authority to regulate the sale of a prod- UB alum who has gone out and been diminish the quality of legal analysis. He . uct or a service in a particular place on active on the issue. And Mike Godwin is said he generally does not share that the Internet?" also well-respected and well-known in concern, believing instead that comput­ Tricia Semmelhack has been gr(\p­ this emerging fi eld. " ers will promote better understanding. pling with such issues as a partner at David R. Pfalzgraf Jr., the immedi­ But he does worry about professional Hodgson, Russ. The 1974 UB Law grad­ ate past Law Review editor who also stratification between those who are uate, who was part of a symposium panel graduated in 1997, says the symposium computer savvy and those who are not. on cyberlaw practice, said her work in resulted in a huge increase in the num­ 'That's an unpleasant vision," he added, intellectual property law brought her to ber of people checking out the Law "because one of the things we have tried the Internet when clients discovered Review's Web page. "It brought national to preserve in the American legal system that their trademarks were being mis­ attention not only to the Law Review, but is the idea that everybody before the law used there. Recent court decisions, she the Law School,"' he adds. is equal and that it is, if not a perfectly added, are expanding the legal implica­ level playing field, at least tions of doing business on tl1e Internet. reasonably level." "lf you put up a Web site offering Weitzner spoke next, something and begin to interact with "We're starting to drawing from his experi­ customers in other jurisdictions, under ence as an electronic civil the long-ann statute of that jurisdiction see the transformation liberties lawyer to provide it's very p robable you wi ll be subject to UBLAW a conceptual introduction jurisdiction wherever your customer is in legal work ... to the Internet. located," she explained. ''That has a con­ FORUM "Especially from a sequence for tl1e individual practitioner The skills and the constitutional perspec­ who is just doing corporate law and nor­ Spring tive," he said, "the most mal business deals here in Western New 1998 kno1vledge that important thing to under­ York. They may think they don't need to stand about the Internet is have an understanding of Internet law, many of us worked that it is not just another but when a client decides to put up a broadcast medium." Nor Web site, as lawyers they need to cau­ a lifetime to master is it analogous to the tele­ tion that client that he or she will be phone, he added, because subject to jurisdiction in countless other suddenly seem to it can be used for much locations. Now we routinely do advise more than exchanging our clients of that. We say, before you be as obsolescent messages. put up your Web site, let's talk about "The Internet also gives what's going to go on it." as buggy whips." us -grass-roots organizing Another panel member, Susan ability on a nationwide SchultZ Laluk. of Boylan, Brown, Code, basis that has only been Fowler, Vigdor & Wilson in Hochester. available to people who said computers have even raised new For U1 ose who participated. the tone have the hundreds of thousands of dol­ issues in lawyer-client relations. of the day long event was set by UB Law lars required to mount direct-mail cam­ ''Especially in the high-tech cyberlaw Dean Bany B. Boyer's welcoming paigns," Weitzner conti nued. ''\.Yhen the area, clients want you to be accessible remarks. "I thi nk U1is period that we're U.S. Congress was debating the by e-mail," she said. "One of the down­ in is extremely exciting because ilie Communications Decency Act, within sides is that U1 ey expect to have instant promise of this technology that we could about two weeks we were able to put accessibility, and they lend to be pretty see dimly in the '70s and a litt le clearer together an on-li ne petition of over demanding. It's one step beyond the fax in the '80s has finally been realized," 120,000 people.·· machine now.'' Boyer said. "We're starting to see the Weitzner, who as a student She told of e-mailing a document transformation in legal work and legal designed the computer macros still used after putting her children to bed one doctrines that we could only imagine a at the Buffalo Law Review, said the night, thinking she had gotten a jump on little while ago. It's a little bit scary, Internet also raises a variety of confus­ the next morning's work. Instead she because the skills and the knowledge ing legal issues in areas such as intellec­ received an e-mail back from the client that many of us worked a lifetime to tual properly, defamation and consumer 10 minutes later. "These clients are up master suddenly seem to be as obsoles- protection. "Wl1ere is this product being and working at all hours." she said. But 41 offices, and they look at this citation and click on it, they see precisely the exhibit and the part of the exhibit you want them to see - d o you understand what you have done to advance the process of persuasion? This is exciting stuff." Later in the day, UB Law Lecturer Tricia T Howard L. Meyer provided more exam­ Semmelhack '74 ples of the emerging electronic practice as he described his upper-division course, Computers and the Law. "Now that your clients' and your opponents' records are no longer on paper but are entirely digitalized, to understand the computer is no loriger an option," he warned. "You must under­ stand it or you simply are not in the game anymore." The symposium also featured a vari­ ety of discussions on specific legal top­ ics. UB Law Associate Professor Michael J. Meurer, the symposium's fac­ ulty sponsor, gave a presentation titled UB LAW ~~Now that your clients' and your oppo­ "Personal Use or Copyright no longer on paper but Infringement? The Role of Copyright FORUM nents' records are are entirely digitalized, to understand the Law in Facilitating Digital Price Spring Discrimination." 1998 computer is no longer an option. You must Other speakers included: • Dan L. Burk, assistant professor understand it or you simply are not in the at Seton Hall University School of Law, on ''Trademarks and Territory on the game anymore. " Global Internet." • Edward A Cavazos, adjunct pro­ fessor at the University of Houston Law Center, on "Copyright on the World Wide Web: Linking License and like it or not, she added that e-mail is a Liability." virtual necessity fo r anyone with com­ • Robert B.

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