RSS Feed
Facebook
Twitter
Google+Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I’ve heard similar … Continued
business
Disruption and change in publishing
Michael Nielsen wrote a stellar piece dealing with disruptive changes that doom old business models: newspapers and science publishers, to mention his examples. He does a particularly good job at explaining how this could happen even without anyone doing anything wrong or stupid.
Judge Posner: Expand copyright to protect newspapers?
Judge Posner recently suggested that copyright law might need to be expanded to protect the news industry, including barring linking to copyrighted content or paraphrasing it.
Amazon's Kindle and digital rights management
There have been several stories over the last week about issues related to digital rights management (DRM) on Amazon’s Kindle.
Law blogging and attorney advertising: Stern v. Bluestone
The New York State Court of Appeals, in Stern v. Bluestone, 2009 NY Slip Op 04740 (2009), overturned a lower court ruling that ruled that a faxed newsletter dealing with attorney malpractice issues – the same area in which the author of the newsletter practiced. Lower courts thought this newsletter constituted advertising, and thus ran into rules about attorney advertising. The Court of Appeals disagreed.
Unravelling the Canadian Copyright Lobby
Especially important to everyone in Canada – but important to everyone, since copyright and IP are increasingly international issues due to attempts at harmonization (WIPO, for example) – comes this expose by Michael Geist on the undue influence pro-copyright lobbyist organizations have had on Canadian policy documents.
5 Social Networking Sites for Legal Job Seekers
Today’s legal job market is tough. To succeed, you need to use all the tools you can. Some of these tools require new rules, although all build on old-fashioned approaches, like networking and building a reputation. Here are five tools to bring your job search into the world of online social networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, and JD Supra.
File sharing and "fair use"
Latoicha Givens writes: In the case of RIAA vs. Joel Tenenbaum, the court is currently accepting an argument that peer to peer file sharing is a Fair Use exception to Copyright Infringement Laws. Essentially, the argument is that file sharing … Continued
Technology and social media alter recruiting and job seeking
NPR brings us some useful new “rules of the road” for those seeking jobs in today’s economy – I think this goes for lawyers as much as anyone. Just remember, while technology has altered some parts of job seeking and recruitment, the broad essentials (a good resume, networking, research, preparation, interview skills) remain the same.
The Thomas file-sharing retrial
The almost two million dollar award is $80,000 per song. $80,000. Damages are supposed to be, well, damages, even if statutory. It strains belief that the record labels really were harmed to the tune of $80,000 per song, even based … Continued
Narratives and evidence in the litigation of high-tech patents
Colleen Chien has a paper in SSRN, dated April of 2009, that explores the narrative of patents, from the epithet of “troll” applied to patent owners who seek only to leverage their patent through licensing, and not application, and including our rather romantic perception of an inventor.
Is "free" a potentially workable business model for legal services?
Lawyers are safer than musicians in that distribution of legal knowledge is harder – but nonetheless technology will revolutionize legal services, and law firms that adapt to the ideas behind “free” as a business model will survive and prosper – those that fail to adapt will not.
The current television business model will fail
The television industry is where newspapers were 10 years ago – in denial that they need to change their business model. They have tried, on occasion, to argue that skipping commercials is “stealing” and similar types of arguments. They are, as Henry points out, still making money – so they can afford to ignore the changes. I predict that, as inevitable as the death of their current business is, their attempt to legislate content protections is as inevitable.
Texas effectively denies open access to state law
A recent change to the Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure gives “memorandum” opinions full precedential value – but those opinions are currently only accessible through the very expensive Westlaw or LexisNexis.
A manifesto for the new Web from building43
Building43 is the latest Robert Scoble/Rackspace venture, a kind of online community space to develop the future of the Web. (Or something like that.) I am typically suspicious of grand ventures by luminaries – so often they fail to live up to expectations. Still, I’m willing to give it a chance – and, hopefully, to translate some of its message to the legal world.
Business method patents rejected in Canada
Michael Geist explains the current status of business method patents in Canada where, so far, they have been firmly rejected – unlike in the United States.
