Andy Sellars

Andrew Sellars

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BU/MIT STUDENT INNOVATIONS LAW CLINIC

Clinical Associate Professor of Law

BS, Northeastern University
JD, The George Washington University School of Law


Biography

Andrew Sellars is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the founding director of the Technology Law Clinic, a legal service for undergraduate and graduate students at MIT and BU. In the clinic, BU Law students counsel clients on laws and regulations that affect their research, advocacy, and innovation, including intellectual property, media law, data privacy, and cybersecurity law. Sellars has overseen the legal representation of hundreds of student clients through his work in the clinic, representing computer security researchers, public interest advocates on technology and society issues, creators of innovative new technologies, and student journalists. His scholarship focuses on application of intellectual property and computer access laws to technology research and journalism, including permissionless investigation of technology systems.

Sellars is a Civic Tech Fellow at BU’s Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, a faculty affiliate at BU’s Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, and a member of the Boston Bar Association. Before joining BU, Sellars was the Corydon B. Dunham First Amendment Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. There, he worked in Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and the Digital Media Law Project. Sellars received his JD with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he was awarded the Jan Jancin Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association, given to the top intellectual property law student in the country.

Publications

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  • Azer Bestavros, Stacey Dogan, Paul Ohm & Andrew Sellars, Bridging the Computer Science – Law Divide November 2022 CSLAW '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law (2022)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Data Generated by New Technologies and the Law: A Guide for Massachusetts Practitioners
    Scholarly Commons
  • Andrew Sellars, Twenty Years of Web Scraping and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 24 Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law (2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Andrew Sellars, Defining Hate Speech (2016)
    Scholarly Commons

In the Media

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  • The Justice February 6, 2024

    ‘Dialogue & Action in an Age of Divides’: Discussing Free Speech

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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  • Mass Media February 2, 2024

    Massachusetts Universities Host Dialogue on Free Speech

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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  • The Heights January 31, 2024

    “Dialogue and Action” Panelists Weigh Free Speech and Hate Speech on University Campuses

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
    read more

  • The Christian Science Monitor July 18, 2023

    Can Threads, the ‘Friendly’ Twitter, Make Social Media Nicer?

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
    read more

  • WBUR July 14, 2023

    Mass. Could Be First State to Ban Sale of Cell Phone Location Data

    Andrew Sellars is interviewed.
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  • BU News Service March 27, 2023

    State Senator Drafts Legislation to Regulate Tools like ChatGPT—with the Help of ChatGPT

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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  • Wired July 12, 2021

    GitHub’s Commercial AI Tool Was Built From Open Source Code

    Andrew Sellars is quoted.
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  • TechTaraget January 17, 2021

    Big Tech’s Uneasy Balance of Capitalism, Censorship

    Andy Sellars is quoted.
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  • Nieman Lab October 30, 2020

    Facebook’s Threat to the NYU Ad Observatory Is an Attack on Ethical Research

    A piece by Andy Sellars.
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  • MIT News July 16, 2020

    BU-MIT Law Clinics Help Students Bring Innovations into the World

    BU Law clinics featured.
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  • February 14, 2020

    Vote on Your Phone? BU School of Law Clinic Helps Expose Security Flaws in Voter App

    Andy Sellars interviewed in <em>BU Today</em>.
    read more

  • January 27, 2020

    Clearview’s Face Surveillance Shows Why We Need a Strong Federal Consumer Privacy Law

    Andrew Sellars quoted in <em>Electronic Frontier Foundation<em/>.
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  • August 14, 2018

    Plastic Guns, Nuclear Bombs, and the Endless Debate Over Free Speech and Public Safety

    Andrew Sellars quoted in "Plastic Guns, Nuclear Bombs, and the Endless Debate Over Free Speech and Public Safety," WGBH. 
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  • August 2, 2018

    The Very Good Reason Why the 3D-Printed Gun Plans Need to Be Available

    Andrew Sellars authored "The Very Good Reason Why the 3D-Printed Gun Plans Need to Be Available" Slate. 
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Stories from The Record

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