Category Archives: law
the economist on copyright law
they suggest reform: A first, useful step would be a drastic reduction of copyright back to its original terms—14 years, renewable once.
SCOTUS blows eminent domain decision
The US supreme court said your city can give your land to developers. In her scathing dissent, O’Connor wrote: Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power …
vexatious litigants
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 11 (b): By presenting to the court (whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating) a pleading, written motion, or other paper, an attorney or unrepresented party is certifying that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances,– it …
CRIA gets bitch-slapped, lies about it
Everyone’s favourite Canadian law professor Michael Geist calls attention to the recent Federal Court of Appeal decision on file sharing. Graham Henderson of the CRIA says: The judge has determined that uploading, downloading, it’s illegal. But, wait! It’s not true: Actually, the court did no such thing. Concluding its copyright discussion at paragraph 54, the …
UPV caves in to spanish recording industry
Jorge Cortell, who had taught at Polytechnic University of Valencia UPV in Spain for five years was forced to resign after the Dean caved in to pressure from the Spanish Recording Industry Association and the MPAA.
CMU prof tells RIAA off
Cary Sherman weasled an op-ed out of the Post-Gazette where he spread the usual BS. CMU Professfor of Computer Science and art Roger Dannenberg told the RIAA where to go: Mr. Sherman, you say that stealing “is not OK,” and yet I have musician friends who cannot get RIAA members to pay them the royalties …
MGM v. Grokster, in 30 seconds
Michael Weiss, CEO of Morpheus: A victory for StreamCast will ensure that Americans won’t have to live in a society where every file is fingerprinted, every user is tagged, every search is monitored and every result is filtered.
The Economist on MGM v Grokster
The Economist, fresh off their SemaCode scoop, rips in to the music industry’s legal “strategy”: But even if the entertainment business manages to coax more users into paying for legal downloads and succeeds in court against Grokster and StreamCast, its problems are unlikely to go away. True, a Supreme Court ruling in the industry’s favour …
clean cars on the way?
Salon notes how the automakers have backed themselves in to a corner: With this agreement, the automakers unilaterally disarm from their long-standing position that they cannot make clean cars. In fact, they have sued to overturn the California Clean Car Law which is the basis for Canada’s action. The auto companies are now in the …