DMCA’s 10 Year Anniversary

Wired has a great re-cap of the history and impact of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, signed ten years ago today (and 3 years before the new millenium, just in case anyone noticed).
Here are a few more reactions:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Amrit Williams Blog
Wired Blog Network
Public Knowledge
Freedom to Tinker
TechDirt
Free Culture News
And, of course, the obligatory profiteering.  Though, [...]

Grape Licensing

I saw this the other day:
and I’ve been thinking about the implications…  is it really possible to add this type of condition?  I think I agree with Madisonian’s evaluation of the situation, assuming that the grapes are patented.  But what if they’re not patented?  Can you restrict usage of a purchased good?  Thoughts would be [...]

J.K. Rowling: $4.5Billion, Copyright: 0

Back in May, I wrote about the copyright infringement suit filed by J.K. Rowling against the author and publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon.
At the time, I hoped that the courts would realize that, on its face, the Lexicon qualified as fair use.  Apparently not.
Ms. Rowling’s response is that the potential publication of the Lexicon [...]

Lost in Translation

I downloaded an application this morning. All seemed well at first. The download was simple, installation was as easy as dragging the application to my Applications folder.
I fully expected some sort of click-through agreement. What I didn’t expect was that an application that was completely (up to this point) obviously written by [...]

Open Source Software Conditions versus Covenants

Meredith Miller, over on ContractsProf Blog, posted part of a review of an extremely interesting case the other day from the EFF’s Michael Kwun.
I won’t attempt a rehashing of the analysis - the original is good enough.  But I will summarize.  In the case, the Federal Circuit Court drew a distinction between conditions (those things [...]

Cracking the EULA’s Shell

Wired Magazine has posted an article by Jennifer Granick regarding a few California cases (state and federal) where the judge has decided that the terms of the EULA aren’t as ironclad as they have been for the last 12 years.  Generally speaking, the state court ruled that the terms of an EULA are generally procedurally [...]

A Kiss is Not a Contract

Thanks to the folks over at ContractsProf Blog (one of whom teaches at my alma mater) for finding this (and thanks to Flight of the Conchords for writing/recording it)!
[The underlying humor on this is the concept of consideration - that there has to be a mutuality to the arrangement.  It's the reason you'll see "for [...]

Public Domain Tool

Ever wonder whether the copyright on a particular work has expired? Trying to figure it out amongst all of the various copyright extensions isn’t exactly simple. So Michael Brewer and the American Library Association has done it for you - with pinache! Check out the Public Domain Tool.  Make sure you read [...]

Privacy in a SaaS World

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, but a federal judge just ordered Google to turn over the viewing logs for YouTube (your usernames, IP addresses, etc) as part of the current Viacom v YouTube and Google litigation.  The EFF is fighting this, of course.
But, this doesn’t bode particularly well for privacy and the [...]

Law School Advice

I mention it from time to time, but I don’t usually dwell on the fact that I went to law school.  It was a fine education, and I had a good experience (no “hiding the book” type stuff - besides, doesn’t everyone realize if you’re the only one with the answer, everyone’s going to know [...]

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