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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.
June 2009 / 2 min.
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.
June 2009 / 3 min.
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.
June 2009 / 2 min.
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.
June 2009 / 7 min.
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 is not commercial use and therefore not copyright infringement. In lay terms, this means that […]
June 2009 / 2 min.
The long history of restrictions on speech
It’s too easy to look at recent trends, or project current biases, on the law, and assume that the trend extends backwards in time in a similar fashion. This is a useful lesson to keep in mind whether one is look at law and technology, or Constitutional issues.
June 2009 / 1 min.
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 on wilful infringement. The jury in the retrial of Ms. Jammie Thomas-Rasset deliberated only a […]
June 2009 / 2 min.
Study on file sharing and copyright: weaker protections benefit society
There are many who disagree, but the study appears to raise interesting issues regarding the benefit to society of copyright protections. As Mike Masnick writes, copyright is about balancing benefits (incentives to create with the benefits of distribution).
June 2009 / 2 min.
Third-party copyright liability & freedom of speech
Alfred C. Yen of Boston College recently posted A First Amendment Perspective on the Construction of Third Party Copyright Liability on SSRN: The relatively high risk of chill associated with third party copyright liability suggests that the First Amendment is particularly relevant to the proper construction of this area of law. Indeed, First Amendment principles […]
June 2009 / 2 min.
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.
June 2009 / 2 min.