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…
Comments Off
Filed under: Blogging, Health Law, Software
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 [...]
6 Comments »
Filed under: badware, Copyright, Digital Media, Education & Copyright, Filtering, First Amendment, Google, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Law School, Music, Politics, RIAA, Scholarship, Search Engines, Software
The House of Representatives is considering the disturbingly-named E-PARASITE Act. The bill, which is intended to curb copyright infringment on-line, is similar to the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act, but much much worse. It’s as though George Lucas came out with the director’s cut of “The Phantom Menace,” but added in another half-hour of Jar Jar [...]
3 Comments »
Filed under: civil procedure, Copyright, Court Decisions, Digital Media, Filtering, First Amendment, Google, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, ISP, Media, Music, Politics, RIAA, Scholarship, Search Engines, Social Networking, Software, Video
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has seized 82 domain names that it contends are responsible for facilitating IP infringement (and perhaps infringing themselves). The seizures have prompted some outrage, and some head-scratching. The head-scratching has been by lawyers (and normal people) trying to figure out the [...]
2 Comments »
Filed under: civil procedure, Computer crime, Copyright, Court Decisions, Digital Media, Filtering, First Amendment, Intermediaries, international, Internet & Society, Music, RIAA
Temple law professor and cyberlaw guru David Post is leading the charge (by academics, at least) to oppose draft legislation titled “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act.” I’ve signed on to the letter he’s drafted as I think that COICA is 1) a terrible idea and 2) blatantly unconstitutional. It’s another example of IP exceptionalism [...]
1 Comment »
Filed under: Copyright, Digital Media, Filtering, First Amendment, Intermediaries, international, Internet & Society, Law School, Music, Privacy, RIAA, Search Engines
If your car is loaded with thousands of knockoff jewels and handbags, it’s advisable to obey basic traffic laws. At 4:30AM, police are more likely to notice traffic violations. As a side note, it’s endless fun to see the wealth of IP infringement that New York City produces. Counterfeit DVDs, fake handbags, unlicensed Michael Jackson [...]
Comments Off
Filed under: Media, Trademarks
Perhaps lost amidst some other minor news today, we learn of possibly one of the largest data breaches ever. According to the Security Fix blog on the Washington Post, a large payment processor called Heartland Payment Systems was infiltrated by a piece of malicious software: Heartland does not know how long the malicious software was [...]
Comments Off
Filed under: badware, Computer crime, Privacy, Security
The House and Senate easily passed, and President Bush signed, the PRO IP Act. Some commentators have been critical of the Act (Public Knowledge, TechCrunch, Declan McCullagh) – but to no avail. However, IP profs (at least, those who blog) have been pretty quiet about the Act. I can conceive of at least three possible [...]
4 Comments »
Filed under: Blogging, Copyright, Education & Copyright, Music, RIAA, Trademarks
I often find these chain-letter memes annoying, but this one is on such a valuable topic I am happy to participate: Mike Madison tags me to name five favorite non-legal blogs. It’s hard to pick just five, and some of my favorites are so obscure that I won’t subject you to them. But here goes:
4 Comments »
Filed under: Berkman, Blogging, Internet & Society, Minnesota
A new decision from a federal district court in Atlanta illustrates perfectly what I have been saying is right and wrong with trademark fair use doctrine. The case involves Charles Smith, a rather offbeat critic who created two portmanteaus to describe the megalithic retailer Wal-Mart somewhat, um, unfavorably: WAL-OCAUST and WAL-QUEDA. He set up web [...]
1 Comment »
Filed under: Court Decisions, Scholarship, Trademarks