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Craigslist vs. South Carolina’s Attorney General
Craigslist, under threat from the Attorney General of South Carolina, has decided to proactively defend itself in court: craigslist has filed suit against SC AG Henry McMaster in federal court in South Carolina, seeking declaratory relief and a restraining order with respect to criminal charges he has repeatedly threatened against craigslist and its executives. This […]
May 2009 / 3 min.
Saving Newspapers by Changing the Law
Image by Getty Images via Daylife In an article entitled, Lawyers: To Save Newspapers, Let’s Destroy Pretty Much Everything Else Good, the always-interesting Techdirt reacts to a recent Washington Post opinion piece about “saving” newspapers, and argues, “It’s time to stop having Congress keep passing laws that stop innovation in hopes that legacy industries magically […]
May 2009 / 4 min.
Domestic Wiretaps Down in 2008 (including FISA)
Image via Wikipedia Domestic wiretaps have dropped by 14 percent from 2007 to 2008. FISA wiretaps are down as well, although the reasons are unclear. Pursuant to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts reports that: A total of 1,891 applications to federal and […]
May 2009 / 2 min.
Random House Disabling Kindle Speech
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Random House now disabling text-to-speech function of Kindle e-books: Random House has thrown the dreaded “kill switch” on about 40 of its titles, including authors such as Toni Morrison. Cory Doctorow adds some background: Back in February, the Authors Guild, a lobby group representing less than 10,000 writers, argued […]
May 2009 / 3 min.
10 Alternative Legal Research Sites
Looking for alternatives to expensive legal research through Westlaw and LexisNexis? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ten alternative sources for legal research (aimed primarily at lawyers and law students) that are useful - and much cheaper.
May 2009 / 2 min.
Are Westlaw and LexisNexis simply selling “free” information?
Image by mattlary via Flickr Minneapolis News - Westlaw rises to legal publishing fame by selling free information: West makes its money by selling free, public information - specifically, court documents - to lawyers. On this simple model, the company raked in $3.5 billion in revenue last year, placing it on a par, sales-wise, with […]
May 2009 / 3 min.
The Failure of Public WiFi
Image by Getty Images via Daylife SSRN-The Failure of Public WiFi by Eric Fraser: This short piece describes the failure of the widespread plans to provide public wireless internet access. It identifies three interrelated types of causes for the near-universal failure of these ambitious plans: regulatory, technical, and economic. As the article points out, WiFi […]
May 2009 / 3 min.
Bringing Better Science to the Courtroom
Image by maveric2003 via Flickr As long as I’m following the lead of Lawrence Solum at the Legal Theory Blog, I want to recommend the following new article: Judicial Analysis of Complex & Cutting-Edge Science in the Daubert Era: Epidemiologic Risk Assessment as a Test Case for Reform Strategies by Andrew Jurs. From the abstract: […]
May 2009 / 2 min.
IP and Traditional Knowledge
Image via Wikipedia The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge by Stephen Munzer, Kal Raustiala: Should traditional knowledgeaEUR”the understanding or skill possessed by indigenous peoples pertaining to their culture and folklore and their use of native plants for medicinal purposesaEUR”receive protection as intellectual property? This Article examines nine major arguments from the […]
May 2009 / 2 min.
10 Hints for Representing Yourself in Court
It’s not easy to represent yourself in court. Here are some useful tips that may help with in propria persona/pro se litigation (note that this is not legal advice, and in many cases you are well advised to retain your own attorney): 10. Beware case law! For the non-lawyer, case law is not as useful […]
May 2009 / 4 min.