April 15th is just around the corner
Marty: Taxes.com is an important case regarding how use of another's trademark affects internet navigation. [originally posted 4/1/03]
April 2, 2004
Google email may also be for real
Google offers 1gb email account and even though I emailed them for an account I haven't heard back, but I was able to change the email address associated with my adsense account using the Gmail interface. Waxy also offers the following: "Gmail is absolutely not a joke. Google employee Kevin Fox worked on it; here's a screenshot; here's confirmation from Google."
see: Gmail Press Release | Wired
see also: Google's E-Mail Strategy Criticized | evhead: "Yahoo is reading your email!" | Debunking The Register
Dear Hiring Partners at Major Firms:
David Bernstein at Volokh Conspiracy writes: "Ranking the Law Schools by Median LSAT on US News's website ... Fordham to sixteenth ... Cardozo to 35th ... Brooklyn to 46th... [meaning] these schools are likely much harder to get into than their ranking suggests [because of their geographic desirability]...."
The actual US News Law School rankings show that Cardozo (#53) is edging up on the top tier; while Fordham, Brooklyn and Rutgers continue their descent.
more: read this, see this and Andrew Raff: Insane in the rank game. Also, via Mr. Raff: What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics | The 2004 Whitest Law School Report via Poon | For the class of 2004, economic uncertainty has meant a much tougher path to a first job | Law practice doesn't always make for a perfect career | Starting a Career in Law After Age 30 | Sitting Pretty
Update: Why I went to Cardozo. Excellent Faculty, IP Program, walking distance from my apartment and the Dean didn't rule in favor of Sprewell choking his coach.
Who will determine the value of copyrighted content?
The pending legislation (HR 4077: the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act [pdf]) that I was discussing yesterday is intended to punish internet users, who make $1,000 in copyrighted materials publicly accessible in a shared folder, with prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to $250,000:
(2) infringes a copyright willfully by the reproduction or distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, orIf we were to value a song by the retail prices set at Wal-Mart, who is is now selling songs at $0.88 per mp3 then you could safely have 1,135 songs in your share folder under section (2); however, it seems that section (3)(A) sets a hard cap to the number of songs that you could offer at 999.
(3) infringes a copyright by the knowing distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement, during any 180-day period, of(A) 1,000 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works,(2) RETAIL VALUE: The 'retail value' of a copyrighted work is the retail price of that work in the market in which it is sold. In the case of an infringement of a copyright by distribution, if the retail price does not adequately reflect the economic value of the infringement, then the retail value may be determined using other factors, including but not limited to suggested retail price, wholesale price, replacement cost of the item, licensing, or distribution-related fees.
(B) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $10,000, or
(C) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted pre-release works...
Does anyone else have any thoughts -- trying to parse the language of this act makes my eyes and brain hurt.
Important Reads
Start here with de novo's Nick Morgan on P2P and Open Source Editorials and follow the links.
April 1, 2004
Public Weblog Aggregator
Kinja did really launch, the Times wasn't duped and Nick Denton provides the details: "Kinja is an RSS reader for people who don't know what RSS is...."
Here's my current digest...
see also: Reading over your friends' friends' shoulders | waxy kinja
Update: I used Kinja all day today. It is awesome. It makes it ok that I don't have access to SharpReader during the day.
Video of NY Suicide Appears on Prn Site
When I read that headline last night on Reuters, I knew that there could only be one site to find snff films: http://www.consumptionjunction.com/ (graphic). The video, which was posted under the title "Introducing: The Self-Cleansing Housing Projects," has since been taken down and Editor Grande Paul has offered on the site main page his condolences to the family, a back-story of how the tape got to the site as well as a criticism of the same journalists who are chastizing him for requesting copies of the video for their own exploitative use. ABCnews 7 has their 6 O'Clock news report on how the video got onto a "prn site" here.
Interestingly the Journal had an article in today's edition asking the question When News Is Gruesome, What's Too Graphic?: "The different approaches taken by television and the Internet show how the proliferation of raw news available to anyone with a computer and Internet connection has altered decision-making for traditional media outlets." Specifically, the article addresses The Fallujah Massacre and the differing treatment between the internet and tv. Drudge Report last night linked to this graphic yahoo news image search whereas "U.S. news channels were unusually cautious about putting the footage on TV."
The other question, and I've asked this a few times in the last few days, what were the cops doing on Consumption Junction?
Clean Airwaves Act
U.S. Rep. Doug Ose (R-Calif.) has introduced H. R. 3687, likely the filthiest bill ever, before the House of Representatives. The bill attempts to define profanity, or at least suggests that seven specific words and phrases be legally deemed profane:
To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.see: Frank Rich: Après Janet, a Deluge | Scott Ross: Clean Airwaves Act Attempts to Define Profanity | HR 3687
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by inserting `(a)' before `Whoever'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following: `(b) As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to language, includes the words `shit', `piss', `fuck', `cunt', `asshole', and the phrases `cock sucker', `mother fucker', and `ass hole', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).'.
On the lookout for potential hoaxes
more: IRS Announces WYSKster | RIAA Sues Google; Internet Doomed | Gawker Senior Edition | Gawker Media, Weblogs, Inc. Network, and AlwaysOn merge, raise $12m from Fred Wilson; tap John Battelle as CEO. | Stern Shocks Listeners with April Fool's Hoax | A Republican pol contends that Howard Stern has already violated Viacom's beefed-up decency guidelines. And, helpfully, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback has the raunchy transcript to supposedly prove it.
see also: Erik Heels' April Fool's Parody Watch | Net Hoaxes Snare Fools All Year | Fools, etc.
Update: Damnit! Joke's on me.
March 31, 2004
Real Nasty Copyright Bill Passes House Panel
Will the madness ever end? Declan reports that the House intellectual property subcommittee (a subsidiary of the RIAA whose only requirement is to never have taken a copyright law course) has approved the "Piracy Deterrence and Education Act" (PDEA [pdf]).
The PDEA would allow 1) the FBI the powers to demand private information from Internet service providers (this is necessary because the courts can not be trusted to divest Americans of their privacy rights and to protect greedy corporate music executives); 2) punishes internet users who makes available $1,000 in copyrighted materials with prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to $250,000 (because apparently existing criminal copyright law is not sufficient); this provision also provides for strict liability meaning that "prosecutors would not have to prove that $1,000 in copyrighted materials were downloaded--they would need only to show that those files had been publicly accessible in a shared folder."
Declan goes on to state that "Congress has pressured the department to use the No Electronic Theft Act to jail file swappers, no such prosecutions have taken place so far...."
see: House panel approves copyright bill
see also: Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the creation of a task force on copyright violations. [press release | via]
From the technology has passed us by department
Techdirt points to this article about some Bucks Couny PA DAs who don't understand technology; apparently they have confiscated the computers of some ISPs because "subscribers could access some Usenet groups that had child prn." Did this violate thier rights?
Discourse.net points to this article wherein state police have charged a 15-year-old Latrobe girl with child prnography for taking photos of herself and posting them on the Internet. The Curmudgeonly Clerk discusses this matter here.
see also: Eugene Volokh: Are pictures of nkd chldren per se child prnography? | Countdown to Legality web site (reader submission)
can your probation officer monitor your computer activities?
The question currenly before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals concerns the privacy implications of computer monitoring and filtering techniques proposed by probation officials who want to prevent a convicted child prnographer from downloading pornographic images of children. Mark Hamblett discusses the issue and prior case law in tomorrow's NYLJ: 2nd Circuit Mulls Privacy Rights in Computer Monitoring Case.
Whois Misinformation
ICANN Reports On WHOIS Inaccuracies | House subcommittee approves bill to increase felony penalties for using false contact information when registering a domain name.
Google News terms of use explained
Google: "we do not currently permit the creation of a news feed from the results on Google News, nor do we permit webmasters to display Google News headlines on their sites. We provide a means for monitoring Google News searches through Google News Alerts at: http://www.google.com/newsalerts and encourage you to use this service instead." [via] see: Google News Terms of Use
March 30, 2004
Piracy Hits a New Low
Aaron Swartz has set up Larry Lessig's Free Culture as a Wiki [via Copyfight]
see also: Solum on Free Culture | Seth Stern: Butterflies May Be Free, But Should Expression Be? A Review of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture | Kipen on Lessig
European and Canadian P2P Users Beware
NYT: "International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said Tuesday that action had been taken in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada [against 247 people for illegally swapping music online]." [via]
Update via cnews: "File swappers in Canada can rest easy for the moment after a Federal Court ruling Wednesday said uploading music files into shared folders on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa is legal.
Justice Konrad von Finckenstein's decision throws a wrench into plans by the music industry to sue people who share songs over the Internet. Unlike similar cases in the United States, he said the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) didn't prove there was copyright infringement by 29 so-called music uploaders."
Back in December, it was reported that Canada deemed P2P downloading legal, although uploading files was not.
see: BMG Canada Inc. v. Doe
Dangers of Non-Anonymous Blawging
Anonymous Lawyer on the potential dangers of blogging if you want to work at big law:
Uh oh. One of the recruiting coordinators knocked on my door this morning. Apparently she had lunch over the weekend with one of her colleagues, and heard a story about an associate at another firm who had "some sort of online journal -- something apparently called a weblog," and was writing stuff about the firm, and her colleagues, and when they discovered this it became a big deal, because of what was up there, and they ended up reprimanding the associate and having her make the blog vanish immediately. So having heard this story, first thing this morning the recruiter starting googling all of our summer hires to see if anything would turn up....Even if Anonymous Lawyer isn't for real; the discussion about whether recruiters are 1) savvy enough to google candidates and 2) will hold it against potential candidates is real.
see also: Elizabeth Rader: Your Permanent Record | Nick Morgan on Responsible Blawging | Andrew Raff: Stand By Your Words | Scheherazade: I Knew It All Along (make sure to read all the comments too)
Reuters defines Fair Use for Bloggers
Rafat Ali, of PaidContent.org, wondered aloud about what Reuters deal with Fast (to go after copyright infringers online) meant last week for bloggers. Michael Salk, VP at Reuters Media was kind enough to provide a response. Reuters Position on Linking From Blogs: "Infringements of our copyright does not include where bloggers quote from and link back to our original story, or where sites display a headline and link back to reuters.com."
see also: Why News and Technical DRM Don't Mix: Linking and Linking Expression are Key
Commuting in NYC
NYT City section devoted to the Subway. [via]
An F Train rendering by Danny Gregory.
Also a blurb on one of my favorite movies: Subway Takes Star Turn (February 1979) "The Warriors is released. Based loosely on "Anabasis,'' Xenophon's epic tale of Greek mercenaries, the film tells the story of a street gang that must fight its way from the Bronx back to Coney Island, and much of the journey is made by subway. The movie is blamed for causing gang violence in theaters, but it also causes flashes of recognition from frustrated riders. One gang member in the movie, Vermin, is heard to complain: "How much longer we gotta wait? We might be here forever. I'm sick of waiting for trains!""
Good metaphor for my ride home every day. Except I finally learned how to sleep almost the entire trip, despite noise levels up to 98.6 decibels, and somehow still wake up right before my stop. Just to give you an idea of how crowded the cars are in the morning, that picture represents about 86 people crammed on a single car; and that's me in red.
see also: MTA alerts via RSS by Disorient Express: Don't leave home without it | The Sexiest Subway Line: Howard Sherman's post on the sexiest subway line. In case you 're wondering I ride the N/R. | Straphangers annual report of subway cleanliness | Bending the MetroCard | photos of abandoned subway stations
Linux Licenses from SCO
Ed Foster: "...SCOsource "Intellectual Property" license. Far from actually offering "customers" protection from SCO lawsuits, the license is actually structured in such a way as to make it all the easier for SCO to sue those who keep using Linux."
Stupid.Patents.com
Ideaflood claims they have a patent on subdomains?
see: Subdomain Patent Sparks Concerns via /.
John McKenzie: "absolutely respond to [letters from Ideaflow asking for license fees], and ask for a clear explanation of the precise nature of the alleged infringement. If this patent does cover something new, the holder still has to demonstrate how the management of sub-domain names infringes on its IP.”
see also: Amazon Awarded Cookie Patent (make sure to read the comments)
Finally: EFF to Fight Dubious Patents
March 29, 2004
file-sharing isn't killing record sales
Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman S. Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill paper [pdf]: "Even in the most pessimistic specification, five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale...high selling albums actually benefit from file sharing." [via]
see also: NYTs' John Schwartz summary of filesharing study.
RIAA responds: "We also look forward to understanding what the authors actually did in the study, since the text of the analysis is incomprehensible to the layman."
Rick Prelinger on File Sharing and Sales
Filing a Complaint with the FCC Is EASY
Go here to File a Complaint with the FCC. Why? Because the FCC only investigates programs for indecency, obscenity and profanity if you file a complaint.
see: Stern Fans Filing Complaints to FCC Against Oprah | How come Oprah can talk about "tossing your salad?"
see also: Ernest Miller: Howard Stern Should Ask FCC: What is Profane? | Jeff Jarvis: The daily Stern | Dave Chappelle: My Baby's Momma | Indecent Exposure
prior post: Y'all Want A Single
Vigilantes of the Wild Wild Web
NYT: Web sites like Perverted-Justice.com try to expose online predators by posting pictures of alleged "wannabe pedophiles" on its site. John Schwartz's article also discusses opposing viewpoints of vigilantes place on the web and whether sites like this one are helping or hindering police action.
see also: Wired - They Wanted to Teach Him a Lesson [via]
Corporate Cybersecurity Liability
Reuters: Thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley and other laws, corporations that don't make efforts to secure their networks could face civil and criminal penalties.
March 28, 2004
And What Thanks Do I Get?
Recent post on anonymous blog And What Thanks Do We Get? wants to know whether anyone out there thinks they're funny or truthful? They also mention that they're "a little weirded out" by the fact that there's an interest in their identities and are considering taking down the site, which as Ernie indicated, would be a shame because the "viewpoint is the thing that draws our attention, and which deserves to be contemplated and discussed." They also say that their have been "some really funny bad guesses" as to their identity, I will assume they're not talking about mine, since the "hole" they fixed [in their anonymity] is the one I pointed out here.
It'd be a shame if they killed the blog because of anonymity issues or because they don't feel well liked, so go post your encouraging comments right here.
prior post: Elle de Jurists might be the next Belle de Jour
Kevin J. Heller, Esq.
Previous Posts
Technorati
ProfileCosmos
Credits
Hosting by WebHost4LifeComments by HaloScan
Wishlist by Amazon
Aggregation by SharpReader
Syndicate this Site
[?] [!]
Newsletter
SiteSearch
Read what I Read
