May 2022

Transforming the Litigation Experience with Virtual Reality

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Photo by Bradley Hook on Pexels.com

By: Abigael Diaz

As technology advances and evolves, so should our legal system. The legal system can use technology to increase efficiency and accessibility to justice, while also decreasing costs for courts. Allowing modern technology such as virtual reality into the courtroom will likely have a strong influence on participation by increasing the number of people who can take part in the judicial system as well. 

Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulated experience that takes over users’ visual and auditory perceptions and allows them to enter a completely new virtual environment. There are various types of virtual reality, including but not limited to first-person immersion, augmented reality, and desktop view. In a first-person immersion setting, the user is completely engaged in the virtual environment, with as many senses as possible co-opted to maximize the experience. In augmented reality, which is frequently used in medical practice and aviation training, there is a virtual overlay of the environment the user is in; computer-generated visuals superimposed on a human body or plane controls can allow for better reinforcement of skills and more consistent results. Desktop view is a first-person virtual experience accessed through a desktop computer using a standard keyboard and mouse to navigate the experience. 

First-person immersion virtual reality can be used with a headset or head-mounted display that covers a user’s eyes, but some headsets also cover ears or have gloves to increase the sensory experience. Virtual reality often engages sight, hearing, and touch, but some systems have even experimented with virtual smell applications. The headset is frequently tethered to a computer using USB or HDMI chords to increase the system’s capabilities. Using tethered headsets will be imperative in the legal field in the next couple of years because currently, cordless headsets make sacrifices in the quality and accuracy of information delivered through the syste,. Nevertheless, even cordless headsets will eventually have a satisfactory quality with advancing technologies. 

Covid-19 has required courts to adapt to the pandemic and use new technologies to facilitate litigation, many courts opting for two-way live video options like Zoom. Simple video chat programs are a satisfactory solution for the pandemic but using virtual reality would enhance the experience. Virtual reality differs from two-way live video because it attempts to mimic life-like experiences within a 3D virtual space while applications like zoom create 2D face grids for users to view. The judicial system can use virtual reality to simulate a 3D social interaction that gives users a virtual experience similar to what the experience would be like in person. 

Virtual reality offers an alternative way to interact with the justice system as a party, judge, jury, or bystander. Virtual reality can increase accessibility to the justice system for all, which will result in a more diverse law system. The employment of virtual reality in the legal system will likely result in many benefits, and most importantly, it will radically change how individuals participate in litigation. 

Benefits from Virtual Reality in the Legal System

Increasing accessibility to the various stages of litigation will result in a more diverse courtroom experience. The American Bar Association believes a diverse legal profession will result in a more productive, just, and intelligent system on both a cognitive and cultural level. Diversity in the law is a good thing, as supported by legal psychologist Samuel Sommers’ experiment from 2006 that used over 200 mock jury participants and demonstrated that racially diverse juries deliberate longer, discuss facts from the case more, make fewer factual errors, and are more open talking about race’s role in the case. Having a diverse judicial system is necessary to ensure that the system is truly working for all people. 

Virtual reality can increase efficiency and, in turn, lower costs throughout the legal system. With virtual reality, travel costs can be saved by allowing people to meet remotely rather than in person. For example, legal teams could save money bringing by mailing witnesses virtual reality headsets and courts could save travel expenses by providing them to jurors when theyare required to travel to crime scenes. Saving the courts time and money will result in the ability to accept more cases at each level of the court’s system and increase the number of people able to render justice for themselves. Lower legal fees can increase the number of people who can afford lawyers and increase access to the judicial system as well. Currently, not everyone in the United States has access to an attorney or legal services, so lowering legal fees would diversify the client pool to include those experiencing poverty who frequently from either Black, Indigenous, or other communities of color.

Increasing efficiency is a potential opportunity for the court systems to catch up on cases too. There is currently a large case backlog, primarily in sexual assault and immigration cases, and the effects of Covid-19 have further exacerbated this problem. Some are describing the pandemic as a “double disaster.” In addition to the disease, there is also an increase in gender-based violence, impaired reproductive and sexual health, a loss of jobs and livelihoods, and increased forced marriages, migration, and human trafficking. Covid-19 is slowing down the efficiency of the courts and increasing the frequency of litigation as a factor of new arising cases. Those harmed most by the case backlog are disproportionally from marginalized communities, including immigrants, people of color, women, and nonbinary and trans individuals. 

Virtual reality can do more than increase the racial and class diversity in the courts and diversify the ability of people involved, as more disabled people could participate in a virtual reality system that accommodates their needs. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in four adults in the United States is living with a disability. Virtual reality can accommodate people’s individual needs to increase participation. 

Virtual reality has even been known to help improve senses for some, and many people with low vision report that virtual reality technology actually improves their ability to see. Alex Lee lost his sight to a rare disease, but he was able to see again using virtual reality technology after five years. Lee went from seeing everything as an indecipherable blur to being able to see and play in a 1940’s virtual world. Lee’s sight improvement is made possible because of the high color contrast that virtual reality implements as well as intense magnification of objects that occurs from placing virtual reality screens so close to the eyes. 

Automatic and instant language translation for all court members is possible with virtual reality in addition to the benefits already discussed. Automatic interpretation for the variety of languages spoken in American courtrooms can remove language barriers that previously prevented individuals from accessing the legal system and might save courts significant money by reducing the need to pay for in person interpretation experts. It would also allow for more access to the courts. Another benefit to the adoption of such technology includes automatic closed captioning that might allow persons hard of hearing or the deaf to participate to a greater degree. It might also be helpful, or even imperative, for the neurodivergent community such that it could encourage people to remain focused and process their surroundings more effectively. 

Virtual reality generally increases the understanding of those using it. Users can have words defined for them instantly, leading to a better-informed population that can participate in a legal system that better caters to the individual’s understanding and information needs. Furthermore, automatic definitions could be useful for defining unfamiliar legal terms to non-lawyers who find themselves in an environment replete with “legalese” terminology. And moreover, virtual reality in certain contexts can allow individuals to more accurately recall important memories, which promotes increased accuracy in factfinding and prevents court reliance on fallible memories. For example, it would likely be possible for a jury member to rewatch a portion of a witness’s testimony before deliberating. As such, virtual reality can promote justice by increasing the quantity and quality of informed participants in the judicial system. 

Virtual reality has the ability to increase access to justice, lower costs, and improve participants’ understanding of all aspects of the judicial system. An overall increase in accessibility to the judicial system from many demographics that usually cannot access legal services or lawyers will be the likely result, and as such virtual reality may contribute to the diversification of the pool of people who can use the law, participate in it, and benefit from it. 

In the coming years, virtual reality will very likely change the legal system for the better. The law should use virtual reality technology to increase efficiency and accessibility while decreasing costs. Allowing modern technology such as virtual reality into the courtroom will diversify the law and litigation process, making revolutionary changes in the litigation experience at all stages.

The (Purple) Reign of Fair Use: Certiorari Granted for Warhol’s Portrait of Prince

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OXFORD, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 02: A member of staff and her child walk next to a series of artworks by Andy Warhol at the Ashmolean Museum on February 2, 2016 in Oxford, England. The work forms part of a new exhibition entitled ‘Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection’. Featuring over 100 unseen Warhol’s, it is due to will run from February 4 to May 15, 2016. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

By: Erika Hammer

Amongst several IP-focused cases this year having requested review by the Supreme Court, the high court has recently granted certiorari for a case involving copyright, fair use, and some famous individuals: artist Andy Warhol and musician Prince. The case focuses on whether a work is “transformative” under fair use, a major defense to copyright infringement. Notably, fair use is considered to be one of the most important exceptions to copyright law’s general monopoly grant of intelelctual property rights to authors of original works, as well as a major cornerstone for promoting artistic expression, access to knowledge, and dissemination of ideas. 

The case, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, arises from a set of portraits created by Andy Warhol, whose pieces often draw from preexisting works (e.g., a Marilyn Monroe photograph or a can of Campbell’s soup). The specific pieces at issue are portraits of Prince based on a Vanity Fair photograph taken by Lynn Goldsmith. The petition for certiorari describes how Warhol, via silkscreen printing, “cropped the image to remove Prince’s torso, resized it, altered the angle of Prince’s face, and changed tones, lighting, and detail” as well as “added layers of bright and unnatural colors, conspicuous hand-drawn outlines and line screens, and stark black shading that exaggerated Prince’s features.” 

Post-litigation, the district court granted the Andy Warhol Foundation summary judgment in favor of its fair use defense, deeming the use “transformative” for communicating a different meaning and message from the original Goldsmith work. However, the Second Circuit reversed, despite acknowledging that the two artists’ pieces represented different messages. It stated, “while the cumulative effect of those alterations may change the Goldsmith Photograph in ways that give a different impression of its subject, the Goldsmith Photograph remains the recognizable foundation upon which the Prince Series is built.” 

As the Andy Warhol Foundation argued in its petition for certiorari, the Second Circuit’s analysis focuses on the visual resemblances between the works. The Foundation further opines that this decision is creating a circuit split and highlights that the Ninth Circuit has held that a work of art is “transformative” when it portrays a different meaning or message from the original source. 

This case is significant not only because of the famous individuals involved, but also because it involves one of the most crucial doctrines in modern copyright law. Fair use, which is set forth in 17 U.S.C § 107, is the most wide-ranging limitation on copyright protection that attempts to promote the expression of artistic works. Fair use is also grounded in the goals of promoting common culture and enabling technological advancement. As such, highly creative works like Andy Warhol’s would appear to be exactly the kind of follow-on creativity that fair use is intended to not only protect, but to promote. 

Even if a work is highly creative, it must be examined under four factors used in determining whether there is a qualified fair use defense. These four factors include: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit, educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market. The Second Circuit found that each of these factors weighed in favor of Goldsmith.

Under the first factor, the more transformative a use is, the more likely said use is deemed to be fair. A foundational fair use case, Campbell v. Acuff Rose, emphasized transformative use as a critical factor. Transformative use is often seen as adding new, creative expression or changing the purpose or character of the copyrighted work. The more transformative a use is, the less significant the other fair use factors will be in the analysis. Typically, if a court finds transformative use under the first factor, that factor tends to strongly influence the inquiry into the rest of the fair use factors. 

With transformative use being such a crucial factor in fair use, which is of itself a crucial doctrine in copyright law, it comes as no surprise that the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case. Despite the fact that Andy Warhol’s artwork appears to transform Prince’s depiction “from a vulnerable, uncomfortable person to an iconic, larger-than-life figure,” as described by the district court, this paradigm of the transformative nature of the work did not pass muster in the Second Circuit. 

In contrast, other prior Second Circuit cases that have been seminal in the “transformative” aspect of fair use have allowed use of the defense even when the original work is still a “recognizable foundation” to the subsequent piece at issue. Graham v. Dorling Kindersley held that a Grateful Dead biography that used copyrighted, original posters was fair use because they served a different purpose, despite the entirety of the original work being used in the follow-on biography. However, in opposition to certiorari, Goldsmith argues that the Warhol silkscreens shared the same purpose as Goldsmith’s copyrighted photograph, as well as the same essential artistic elements.

How the Supreme Court comes out on this decision – whether a different message or meaning is sufficient for transformation under fair use despite facial similarities – will be very important in copyright jurisprudence and the scope of fair use. 

Two New Antitrust Bills Could Increase App Store Competition and Spark Discussion of Privacy and Security as Consumer Welfare Metrics

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com

By: Zoe Wood

In the first quarter of 2022, Apple beat its own record for quarterly spending on lobbying ($2.5 million). What’s the occasion? Two new antitrust bills which threaten Apple’s dominance over its App Store are gaining ground in Congress.

What Bills? 

In late January, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the American Innovation and Choice Online Act by a vote of 16 to 6. Just a few weeks later, the Committee advanced the Open App Markets Act by a vote of 20 to 2. 

The bills are similar, however, the former has more sweeping coverage. It applies to all “online platforms” with 50,000,000 or more monthly active US-based individual users or 100,000 monthly active US-based business users which (1) enable content generation and content viewing and interaction (i.e., Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, etc.), (2) facilitate online advertising or sales of products or services of any sort (i.e., Amazon, etc.), or (3) enable searches that “access or display a large volume of information” (i.e., Google, etc.). The bill describes ten categories of prohibited conduct, all aimed at curbing covered platforms’ preferential treatment of their own products or services over other products on the platform. 

For example, the Act would prohibit “covered platforms” from “limit[ing] the ability of the products, services, or lines of business of another business user to compete on the covered platform relative to the products, services, or lines of business of the covered platform operator in a manner that would materially harm competition.” 

The latter act, the Open App Markets Act, in contrast would apply to “any person that owns or controls an app store” with over 50,000,000 US-based users. It proceeds by identifying and defining app store behaviors which are purportedly anticompetitive. For example, the Act would prohibit an app store from conditioning distribution of an app on its use of store-controlled payment systems as the in-app payment system. The Act would also prohibit app stores from requiring developers to offer apps on pricing terms equal to or more favorable than those on other app stores and from punishing a developer for doing so. Similar to the Innovation and Choice Online Act, the Open App Markets Act prohibits covered app stores from preferential treatment towards their own products in the app store search function.

Why Does Apple Oppose These Bills (Aside from the Obvious)? 

While the obvious answer (the bills would diminish Apple’s dominance and therefore diminish its profit) is probably also correct, Apple has put forward a different reason for its opposition to the acts. In a January 18th letter addressed to Senators Durbin, Grassley, Klobuchar, and Lee, and signed by Apple’s Senior Director of Government Affairs Timothy Powderly, Apple expressed concern that “[t]hese bills will reward those who have been irresponsible with users’ data and empower bad actors who would target consumers with malware, ransomware, and scams.”

The bills create an exception for otherwise prohibited actions which are “reasonably necessary” to protect safety, user privacy, security of nonpublic data, or the security of the covered platform. Apple’s letter principally takes issue with this exception, finding that it does not provide the company with enough leeway to innovate around privacy and security. The letter complains that “to introduce new and enhanced privacy or security protections under the bills, Apple would have to prove the protections were ‘necessary,’ ‘narrowly tailored,’ and that no less restrictive protections were available.” According to the letter, “[t]his is a nearly insurmountable test, especially when applied after-the-fact as an affirmative defense.” Of course, this is an overly broad statement­. The bills don’t subject all new privacy and security measures to this standard. Only the measures that are anticompetitive in the ways specifically spelled out by the bills are implicated. 

So what privacy and security measures would the bills prohibit? The letter is most concerned with the fact that the bills would restrain Apple from prohibiting “sideloading.” Sideloading refers to downloading an application onto, in this case, an Apple device, from somewhere other than the App Store. Lifting Apple’s restriction on the practice would allow developers to implement their own in-app payment systems and avoid the commission Apple takes (up to 30%) from app sales and in-app subscriptions and purchases. The theory is that prohibiting sideloading is anticompetitive in part because it results in higher prices for consumers. 

But Apple says that allowing sideloading would “put consumers in harm’s way because of the real risk of privacy and security breaches” sideloading causes. The letter further explains that sideloading allows developers to “circumvent[….] the privacy and security protections Apple has designed, including human review of every app and every app update.”

Are Apple’s Security Concerns Shared by All?

No. Privacy and security expert Bruce Schneier, who sits on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and runs the security architecture at a data management company, wrote a rebuttal to Apple’s letter. According to Schneier, “[i]t’s simply not true that this legislation puts user privacy and security at risk” because “App stores monopolies cannot protect users from every risk, and they frequently prevent the distribution of important tools that actually enhance security.” Schneier thinks that “the alleged risks of third-party app stores and ‘sideloading’ apps pale in comparison to their benefits,” among them “encourag[ing] competition, prevent[ing] monopolist extortion, and guarantee[ing] users a new right to digital self-determination.”

Matt Stoller, who is the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, also wrote a strongly worded rebuttal. Like Schneier, Stoller seems to believe that Apple’s­ security-centric opposition to the bills is disingenuous. 

A New Angle on Consumer Welfare

Regardless of whether Apple’s concerns about privacy and security are overblown, the exchange between Apple, the drafters of the new antitrust bills, and members of the public is interesting because it engages with “consumer welfare”­–the entrenched legal standard which drives antitrust law­–in an atypical way.

Antitrust law exists primarily in common law, and the common law is the origin of the all-important consumer welfare standard. The standard is simple and has remained consistent since a seminal case from 1977. It is concerned primarily with whether a particular practice tends to decrease output and/or causes price to increase for consumers. If it does, the practice is anticompetitive and subject to injunction. While antitrust parties occasionally introduce other aspects of consumer welfare­­, such as the effects on innovation of a challenged practice, such effects are extremely difficult to prove in court. Therefore, most antitrust cases turn on price and output.

The bills in question implicitly take issue with the consumer welfare standard because they, in the language of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, “provide that certain discriminatory conduct by covered platforms shall be unlawful.” Similarly, the Open App Markets Act seeks to “promote competition and reduce gatekeeper power in the app economy, increase choice, improve quality, and reduce costs for consumers.” By defining and prohibiting specific conduct outright, the bills circumvent the consumer welfare standard’s narrow focus on price and output and save potential antitrust plaintiffs from having to prove in court that Apple’s practices decrease output or increase price. 

Apple’s letter speaks the language of consumer welfare. It insists that “Apple offers consumers the choice of a platform protected from malicious and dangerous code. The bills eliminate that choice.” This point goes to the more traditional conception of consumer welfare in the antitrust context, i.e., proliferation of choice available to consumers. But primarily, the argument that Apple is making (however disingenuously) is that the bills “should be modified to strengthen­–not weaken–consumer welfare, especially with regard to consumer protection in the areas of privacy and security.” 

By focusing on “privacy and security” as a metric of consumer welfare in the antitrust context, Apple, legislators, and the general public are engaging in a conversation that ultimately expands the notion of consumer welfare beyond what would be borne out in a courtroom, constrained by entrenched antitrust precedent. In this way, the bills have already been productive.