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Moving away from traditional publishers
As I noted a few days ago, there has been increasing attention to the idea of authors moving away from traditional publishers when it comes to e-books. Here’s more from the New York Times about one author doing just that: Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York’s largest publishing houses […]
December 2009 / 1 min.
A dispute over the rights to e-book editions
That publishers and authors (or their estates) should be arguing over rights to production electronic editions is no surprise. This sort of dispute is a standard part of contract law, and comes up anytime a new market not anticipated in a contract opens up. Can traditional publishers fend off this move through litigation and forceful contract negotiations? Or will we see increasing alternatives to traditional publishers in the e-book realm?
December 2009 / 3 min.
Trademarks and the Apple App Store
Apple’s “app store” continues to generate controversy through its rejections. I must agree with the following analysis that use of icons-especially as provided through an API expressly for that purpose should not violate trademark law (or copyright for that matter).
November 2009 / 2 min.
How does fair-use law work?
This is an excellent write-up about how fair use works, along with its complexities (and areas where it is more straightforward, generally where courts have already ruled on a very similar use previously).
October 2009 / 1 min.
Microsoft update leaves Firefox users unexpectedly vulnerable
An add-on that Microsoft silently slipped into Mozilla’s Firefox last February leaves that browser open to attack, Microsoft’s security engineers acknowledged earlier this week.
October 2009 / 1 min.
Modern media centers: the hard 20% is socio-legal
Cory Doctorow points out that the first 80% of creating a media center is easy: a decent computer (I used an old Pentium III and an old PowerBook, but you can use newer tech if you’re not a poor student), video out (S-Video to an old-school TV, VGA or HDMI to a new HDTV), big hard drives, maybe network sharing (I used an Airport Extreme I inherited) so you can access media from multiple rooms. But what about content – “the other 20 percent”?
October 2009 / 2 min.
Law school vs. graduate school
Last May I finished my 3L year, and am now the proud possessor of a JD. On Thursday I began my first year program as a graduate student in the history of science. The experiences, perhaps unsurprisingly, have been strikingly different: law school is, ultimately, preparatory to practicing law as an attorney, and much of its emphasis is on tracking students in that direction. Graduate school in the humanities and social sciences, meanwhile, is about training future academics.
September 2009 / 2 min.
Five lesser-known – but great – WordPress plugins
Five great, although lesser-known, WordPress plugins: Login LockDown, SexyBookmarks, wp-Typography, WP Greet Box, and WP Minify.
September 2009 / 1 min.
Could you scrap Microsoft Office applications?
IBM’s Lotus Symphony is a free-of-charge alternative to the ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, based on Sun’s open source OpenOffice software. It purports to remain compatible with Microsoft’s “.doc” format (and newer incarnations), while removing licensing costs (but, not of course, support costs, since people still need training, technical support still costs money, etc.). Now they’ve decided to walk the walk.
September 2009 / 2 min.
Lawyers should leave their laptops at home when traveling abroad
There has always been an exception to search and seizure law at border crossings. In theory, this is nothing new – attorneys traveling with confidential paper files could also have them searched. But the ease of carrying vast numbers of confidential documents in electronic form raises the bar on this.
September 2009 / 2 min.