Dowbrigade

Driving
into the office this morning we saw an obviously ecstatic black lab with
its head way out the window of a late model BMW, with its right front
paw braced casually on the rear view mirror. What must be going through
its mind, we wondered.

Being notoriously poor-visioned four or five meters, we doubt they are
taking in the scenery.  On the other hand, we all know that dogs
have a highly developed and discriminating sense of smell, if one can
describe a love of sticking one’s nose in shit as discriminating.

Anyone who has ever taken a canine out on a walk knows that it is an
exercise in nasal examination of every bush, garbage can, animal trail,
discarded paper and anything else which smells different, interesting
or unusual.  Should a dog detect the odor of another animal, say,
a dog of the opposite sex, considerable tugging and cajoling may be
necessary to convince it to keep up the pace.

So we suspect the nasal soundtrack, so to speak, the flow of esters
and phonemes which capture a dogs attention, must make up a pretty
significant segment of the sensory smorgasbord which constitutes a dogs
experience of the world.

Probably, as he or she ambles along at a sedate pace, these odors replace
each other in a gradual, evolving scentscape, coming up faint at first,
growing in riche\ness and detail as the dog gets closer, dominating finally
the entire odiferous spectrum, then to be abandoned, left behind to be
replaced by new stimuli, smells and possible sport. All at a slow leisurely
pace.

Sticking its head out of the window of a moving car, on the other hand,
might be somewhat akin, for a dog, to watching the final 12 minutes of
2001 – A Space Odyssey while on acid and speed at the same time. Smells
coming and going at 60 miles an hour, faster than they can be processed
or reacted to. We can only suppose it is a pleasurable sensation, as
almost all dogs seem to love the sensation.  Their tongues hang
out and they get a goofy, glazed look in their eyes. Which, come to think
of it, was pretty much our reaction to 2001 – A Space Odyssey…

Most of you are probably already aware of the current legal battle
involving actress Cameron Diaz and a video she made in her wild and misspent
youth,
featuring, according to the New York Post, "The
video features Diaz topless and in fishnets. She and a leather-clad model
named
Natasha
are
vamping
it
up
in a bondage
scene
with a chained
man wearing nothing but a loose-fitting loincloth. At one point, the
twosome toy with their male "slave," making him wear a black
leather bondage mask and pretending to subjugate him."

Obviously, widespread dissemenation of this video could hurt her reputation
and damage her career, which really took off after "Charlie’s Angels".
Of course, it could help her in some quarters as well, but on the whole
it probably will reduce her future earnings, and so her lawyer has convinced
a judge to issue an injunction prohibiting "disseminating, distributing,
publishing, broadcasting or otherwise displaying the photos and/or video." by
not only the internet seller, but "anyone having knowledge or notice
of this order." A good summary of the case can be seen at the site techdirt.

Wired
Magazine also has an extensive
article on the controversy in which they quote
Mark Sableman, who in his 2001 article(PDF) in the Berkeley Technology Law
Journal, agreed. "Despite the Internet’s initial ‘free linking’
ethos, links can be unlawful when they are designed to confuse viewers,
to evade court orders or clear statutory
prohibition, or to promote illegal conduct by others," the St. Louis attorney
wrote. "But most linking is lawful, even where the linked site claims the
right to authorize and control links."

The key questions are, can a judge prohibit other web sites from linking
to the site which is offering the video for sale?  Can other sites
report on the dispute as legitimate news and if so can they feature stills
from the video to accompany the news report?

What do you think?

article from e-online