Posted on August 31st, 2009 by William McGeveran
I still subscribe to my local newspaper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, in dead-tree form. One evening in early August, just before my vacation, as I perused the ever-shrinking opinion page, my eye ran across this headline: “MEDIA, OLD AND NEW ‘FREE-RIDING’ AND COPYRIGHT.” The authors, Dan and David Marburger, argue that news [...]
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Filed under: Blogging, Copyright, Court Decisions, Digital Media, First Amendment, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Media, Minnesota
Posted on August 11th, 2009 by William McGeveran
The ACLU has filed an interesting lawsuit in Georgia challenging the state’s kosher labeling laws. At first I thought the argument was that the state could not crack down on deceptive labeling. But it turns out, as the ACLU’s complaint makes clear, that there is not consensus about the requirements of kashruth among Jews [...]
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Filed under: First Amendment, Intermediaries, Trademarks
Posted on August 11th, 2009 by Derek Bambauer
The guns in RIAA v. Tenenbaum have gone temporarily silent; now, there’s post-game analysis and preparations for the next phase: challenging the jury’s award of $675,000 in damages ($22,500 per song, at 30 songs). Ben Sheffner’s Billboard column gives a great summary of the fight. Tenenbaum’s side will claim that the Copyright Act’s statutory damages [...]
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Filed under: Berkman, Blogging, Copyright, Court Decisions, Digital Media, Education & Copyright, First Amendment, Internet & Society, Law School, Media, Music, RIAA, Scholarship, civil procedure
Posted on July 27th, 2009 by Derek Bambauer
Copyrights and Campaigns has the breaking story. Wow. My initial take is that the outcome is correct – fair use just doesn’t cover what Tenenbaum did – but I need to read the summary judgment order for a more thoughtful analysis. This is fascinating stuff.
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Filed under: Berkman, Blogging, Copyright, Court Decisions, First Amendment, Internet & Society, Law School, Media, Music, RIAA
Posted on July 24th, 2009 by William McGeveran
James Grimmelmann and a team of students at New York Law School have launched an elaborate web site called “The Public Index” to facilitate conversation about the proposed settlement of the Google Book litigation. As the site’s home page explains:
Here, you can browse and annotate the proposed settlement, section-by-section. … In addition, you can:
Study our [...]
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Filed under: Books, Copyright, Court Decisions, Digital Media, Education & Copyright, First Amendment, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Law School, Media, Search Engines
Posted on July 7th, 2009 by Derek Bambauer
Yep, it’s all Section 230, all the time here at Info/Law! Makes for a nice change from filtering. Mickey Kaus writes about the threat by Sarah Palin’s attorney to sue anyone defaming her, and also those who republish such defamation. He’s astonished to learn that Section 230 could shield him and other bloggers. (I’d presume [...]
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Filed under: Blogging, Court Decisions, Digital Media, First Amendment, ISP, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Law School, Media, Scholarship, Social Networking, civil procedure
Posted on July 5th, 2009 by Derek Bambauer
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed to mandate disclosure of connections between bloggers and advertisers (those selling stuff) under its Section 5 authority, which enables the Commission to prohibit “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in commerce. In short, the FTC seeks to hold advertisers and endorsers (those would be the bloggers) liable for 1) [...]
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Filed under: Blogging, Corporate Law, First Amendment, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Media, Peer Production, Social Networking, Software
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by William McGeveran
As I hole up in my ivory tower writing about trademark fair use reform this summer, it’s nice to know that the issue might matter in the outside world. In a pair of signs yesterday, I ran across two different news articles showing how seriously our overbroad trademark rights are constraining free expression.
First, while waiting [...]
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Filed under: First Amendment, Intermediaries, Media, Scholarship, Trademarks
Posted on June 29th, 2009 by William McGeveran
Most commentary about the Supreme Court today surely will focus on the controversial Ricci employment discrimination case and its impact on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings. But the Court also announced two important orders in Info/Law, both concerning decisions that it will not make. By refusing to grant cert. in these cases, the Court [...]
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Filed under: Copyright, Court Decisions, First Amendment, Media, Privacy, Voting
Posted on June 25th, 2009 by William McGeveran
Cyberprof Michael Risch has posted some interesting thoughts on the emerging complexity of Section 230. We’ve talked about this provision on the blog many times before. And Mark Lemley wrote a good paper on it a while back. The provision pretty much immunizes web sites and other internet providers from liability for a host [...]
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Filed under: Anonymity, Digital Media, First Amendment, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Privacy, Social Networking, Trademarks