Associate Professor @WisconsinLaw; Affiliated Fellow @yaleisp. Copyright, IP, and tech law. #FirstGen
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ALT Sign in my office bathroom: “Hands that look clean can still have icky germs!”
ALT The law has long accommodated new technologies within existing legal frameworks. See, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 33-40, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001) (holding that the use of thermal imaging technology can constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment); Thyroff v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 8 N.Y.3d 283, 292-93, 832 N.Y.S.2d 873, 864 N.E.2d 1272 (2007) (treating electronic records as property equivalent to physical records for the purposes of conversion). We see no reason to depart from this traditional approach here. Determining the ownership of social-media accounts is indeed a relatively novel exercise, but that novelty does not warrant a new six-factor test. The Disputed Accounts should be treated in the first instance like any other form of property. This includes determining the original owner. See Pierson v. Post, 3 Cai. 175 (N.Y. 1805) (determining original owner of a fox)...
