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Archive for May 12th, 2005

iTMS: Surprising Choice-of-Law Agreement

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My colleague and friend Georg P. Krog at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, University of Oslo, points out in an inverview with the Norwegian national TV that the newly launched iTunes Music Store Norway terms of service define English law as the law that governs the relationship between Apple’s iTMS and its consumers. The same is true for iTMS Switzerland as it turns out. From a consumer perspective, this might be quite surprising news. Personally, I have some doubts that the particular choice-of-law agreement would be upheld by a Swiss court given the fact that it doesn’t seem to comply with the usual standards we apply to such clauses. In any event, I’m sure that Georg – an expert in jurisdictional issues who has also contributed to our iTunes case study – will have many more comments with regard to this choice-of-law agreement.

DAREnet: Open Access to Scholarly Works

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A news report in The Register draws our attention to a fascinating Dutch open A2K project called DAREnet, a joint venture by Dutch universities, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. On the website (currently suffering from too much attention), scientists from all major Dutch universities make their research materials – currently 47,000 digital documents – freely accessible to the research community and the public at large. The article in the Register also notes that commercial publishers are note amused. No surprise, indeed.

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