A woman convicted of poisoning her two children should not pay $8,500 in sanctions for filing a negligence claim against the state's expert witnesses, because the claim was not "frivolous." Although fact witnesses enjoy absolute immunity as incentive to speak frankly, the court noted that some recent cases say such policy concerns do not apply to expert witnesses, who are hired to testify for a party's benefit. [National Law Journal]
A group of law and technology scholars are setting up Creative Commons, a nonprofit company that will develop ways for artists, writers and others to easily designate their work as freely shareable. The firm's board of directors includes James Boyle, an intellectual property professor at Duke Law School; Hal Abelson, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Eric Saltzman, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. By Amy Harmon. [New York Times: Technology]
This is a great idea. I've checked out James Boyle's site and I highly recommend it (it's on the blogroll over there on the left). I think Buzz knows him, which is not surprising since Buzz knows everyone...
