LazyBlawg: DMCA Hypothetical
Since 1715 is on hiatus I will post this interesting hypothetical he raised re: §1201 (DMCA): If you enter a password protected/subscription website with a log/pass that is not yours (like generic/generic etc.) could this be a violation of 1201? While I agree that the registration controls access to the work, my thinking was that supplying false information has to be suspected and only if you were to completely bypass registration would it amount to a DMCA violation, whereas, 1715 feels the the language seems broad enough to cover it. Let us know your thoughts.
The Exonerated
Based on the work of Cardozo's Innocence Project: The Exonerated is a play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen about people who had been sentenced to death, spent anywhere from 2 to 22 years on death row, and then subsequently found innocent and freed by the state. The play is based on interviews with 40 people conducted by the authors during the summer of 2000 all over the United States. Read the NYT article: The Death Penalty: Views of a Witness for the Prosecution.
February 14, 2003
News Flash
Mark Grossman advises websites to have an agreement on your website [and] require an ''I Accept'' click. I don't even know if this qualifies as linkworthy since I've said it here so many times.
Plethora
There is a plethora of fine information on inter alia today; including free research, last minute v-d dinner ideas, and law review submission help.
Jonas has done some more coding.
Denise has invoked the lazyblawg (2x) and helped build the Harvard weblog directory.
February 13, 2003
Stop workers from stealing copyrighted materials or be sued
The copyright cartel is now sending brochures to corporations with sample memos to workers warning them against using company computers to download songs and movies. Story at sfgate.
Constitutional Amendment to Rollback Copyright Duration
Marci Hamilton: it will take nothing short of a social movement to stop further increases
February 12, 2003
Thanks
to Robert Ambrogi of LawSites for including TLA in his Web Watch: Blawgs: More Than Just Fluff article on Law Technology News.
Memeufacture Most Influential Explained
First Dave Sifry visited to explain Technorati's Top 100 Interesting Newcomers and now John Wehr has stopped by to explain Memeufacture's influence algorithm. Definitely interesting reading to anyone interested in these types of things.
February 11, 2003
Edward W. Felten: A new anti-terrorism bill criminalizes some uses of encryption. Ridiculous, really.
Balasubramani strongly disagrees with Judge Rothstein's decision which will basically allow Verizon to utilize its customers' information for targated marketing and product development.
3rd Circuit: ACPA covers both "registration" and "reregistration" of a domain name. (law.com)
Referrer Logs /updated/
What does it mean to be in Memeufacture's top 10 most influential? I believe that you have to be the first one to mention a newsworthy link. I've made the list at #9 even though I have six less first mentions than #10.
And what I am doing on this page? I should avoid checking my referrer logs because sometimes they just don't make sense. I am, however, pleasantly surprised by this mention.
Update: This site has also been listed as one of Technorati's Top 100 Interesting Newcomers along with The Trademark Blog and Bag and Baggage. I think that the list may update regularly though since I first read about it via Burningbird who doesn't seem to be on it any longer. Dave Sifry has visited TLA to let me know that Technorati does indeed update: a big update once a day, and lots of little updates throughout the day.
Tuesday's Reading List
February 10, 2003
posts of interest
LawMeme: Shrinkwrap licenses typically tell you that if you don't accept their terms, you can't use the software. Equally typically, you can't actually read the license until you've opened the box. But most software retailers won't accept returns on opened software. Catch-22, until now.
Greplaw: EFF Attorney, Fred Von Lohmann, has written up a general explanation of US copyright law aimed at P2P developers and investors.
Trademark Blog is interested in what google can do about paid search hijinks.
Understanding Fair Use: is skipping commercials piracy?
Lee Gomes column got me thinking that skipping commercials like time shifting cheers can't possibly be piracy under the Copyright Act (as it was intended).
Fair use can be derived directly from the copyright clause notwithstanding section 107 fair use. In the course of copyright legislation and through a drafting error that occurred at the time of the 1909 act fair use was now being applied to consumers where previously it had only applied to a competitor’s use or piracy:
“‘As originally promulgated, the fair use doctrine was a fair "competitive" use doctrine designed to enable a rival author or publisher to use a copyrighted work in preparing another publication.’ Therefore, the doctrine applied only to competitors, not consumers.”Therefore an individual user should not be liable for copyright infringement unless their actions rise to the level of piracy. Allow Professor Patterson to explain: "The competitor uses the copyright; the consumer uses the work. The copyright owner, by reason of the Copyright Act and the copyright clause, has not only no right to interfere, but a duty not to interfere with the consumer's use of a publicly disseminated work."
Update: TPH carries this thread here. Ev, can we get some trackback?
February 9, 2003
Pilgrim v. Burton re: The Onion's TOS
TOS doesn't endorse RSS Feeds: Interesting discussion re: enforceability of The Onion's terms of service to exclude users from pulling an rss feed over at dive into mark. My question to Mark is --- how does The Onion expect to enforce their terms of service without a registration and/or a click wrap agreement requiring such. See my earlier discussions.
My thoughts being that just because someone creates an RSS feed for personal use, they are not necesarily in the wrong. Why am I bound to accept the onion's terms of service? Just because I entered their website? I haven't seen any cases out there enforcing what I term browse read agreements, like the onion's, but rather only click read/click-wrap agreements like the l.a. times.
Update: Unfettered Attorney (posting anonymously) is advocating application of the CFAA, citing EF Cultural Travel v. Zefer Corporation (1st Cir.), to the situation above. The applicable part of the statute requires knowingly and with intent to defraud which I do not believe is satisfied by someone scraping a site to read the content for their personal use. UA also cites eBay v. Bidder's Edge (N.D.Cal), wherein the court "issued a preliminary injunction, enjoining Bidder's Edge from using a software robot or other automated query program to access without permission eBay's computer systems for the purpose of obtaining information concerning ongoing auctions at eBay, on the grounds that such activity is likely to constitute a prohibited trespass to chattels." Although, this is a closer issue, the court is enjoining Bidder's Edge from engaging in scraping for commercial purposes. We'll have to wait and see how this is treated by other courts, maybe The Onion will bring a complaint in EDNY and we'll find out. Stay tuned.
Kevin J. Heller, Esq.
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