Search and the First Amendment

Jane and I are in Arlington, Virginia, for a conference on Competition Policy in Search and Social Media at George Mason University. Jane, Neil Richards, Dawn Nunziato, and Stuart Benjamin will discuss the interplay of the First Amendment, regulation, and search / social media. I expect an entertaining fight over whether search results are speech, [...]

Cyberwar and Cyberespionage

My paper “Ghost in the Network” is available from SSRN. It’s forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. I’m appending the abstract and (weirdly, but I hope it will become apparent why) the conclusion below. Comments welcomed. Abstract Cyberattacks are inevitable and widespread. Existing scholarship on cyberespionage and cyberwar is undermined by its futile [...]

Whereupon I Depress Lifehacker Readers

Because DVD ripping is illegal if you bypass DRM. Which, most of the time, you have to.

NZBMatrix Takes the Red Pill

I talked with Lifehacker’s IP guru Adam Dachis about the closure of several Usenet indexing services, including NZBMatrix. NZBMatrix threw in the towel after coming under twin pressures: a flood of DMCA notices related to links pointing to allegedly infringing content, and difficulty navigating the requirements of service providers such as PayPal. It’s the latest [...]

The Facebook Post-Mortem

The Daily Illini has a great piece about Jason Mazzone‘s analysis of an underappreciated problem: what happens to your Facebook content when you die? At the moment, the answer depends on an unpredictable hodgepodge of state probate law, private law via the social network’s Terms of Service, and the decedent’s foresight in providing her heirs [...]

Startups and Healthcare

My friend and former Lotus manager Joe Perry has ventured into the blogosphere, with a post about startup companies, healthcare, and the Boston area – all three things of interest to me. I’m looking forward to finding out more about using mobile tech to combat counterfeit drugs…

Maps As Commons

Slashdot pointed me to a debate over the relative accuracy and comprehensiveness of TomTom‘s map data, versus that of OpenStreetMap. TomTom is a proprietary system; OpenStreetMap is licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0, and permits users to add data in wiki fashion. TomTom claims its maps are more comprehensive and reliable. An OSM supporter claims that [...]

When Cybersecurity Makes Things Worse

Adam Dachis has an interesting and worrisome post up at Lifehacker. (Disclosure: he kindly asked me for input into the post.) It thinks about a post-CISPA world, where privacy exists only at the behest of companies who hold our information. CISPA would immunize these firms for sharing information with the federal government, so long as [...]

Hollywood Comes to Brooklyn

Catchy title, no? Today, Al Perry, Vice President of Worldwide Content Protection and Outreach at Paramount Pictures, came to BLS to talk about movies, piracy, and the Internet. He spoke for about 40 minutes, and then Jason Mazzone offered comments. Next, we had about 30 minutes of spirited discussion with BLS students. I’m writing up [...]

(Im)Perfection

I have a short article coming out in the Wake Forest Law Review Online, about the pursuit of perfection in cyberlaw. Here’s the introduction: Cyberlaw is plagued by the myth of perfection. Consider three examples: censorship, privacy, and intellectual property. In each, the rhetoric and pursuit of perfection has proved harmful, in ways this Essay [...]