Here's a new blog (picked up from Denise). Denis Rogers is a judicial law clerk (Montana Supreme Court??) He says he's "heavily influence by Plato and by Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." My man! Rich was influenced by Kuhn and somehow contrived to write a law review comment tying Kuhn's ideas to constitutional law. Denis and Rich should talk.
4:09:53 PM
From GigaLaw: "JumpTV.com, a Canadian webcaster that wants to retransmit television programming over the Internet, doesn't understand why its plan is making people so jumpy. The dot-com is the focus of intense controversy in the television world because of its plans to pick up network programming and webcast it over the Internet." [Story Link]
Well let's see if AOL/TimeWarner has an objection. Because they own Turner Broadcasting, which was started by Ted Turner. And does anyone know how they made their money? Bueller? Anyone?
Okay, here's how. Turner took TV signals and piped them, using Satellite, to other locations and charged people for doing so. This is why many of us receive WGN from Chicago. And this is why, for example, people in remote island villages in Belize (i.e. Ambergris Caye) became Cubs fans.
Anyway, I digress. All of this retransmission made Turner money, and it made the networks (whose signals he was taking and not paying for) mad. They asserted copyright control and all that, and there were lawsuits etc (see Lessig article involving similar issue). But, the 1974 Teleprompter case held that the cable companies could do this, and recognized that advertising dollars are based on size of the viewing audience. More people means more dollars. So, why doesn't that principle apply here? Short answer: loophole closed by legislation (i.e. "404 Page Not Found"). Any other questions?
3:15:48 PM
Law Firm Marketing - First, Let's Work on the Web Site
From Denise comes this law firm website, which I nominate for best legal website of 2002. Humor? Oh, man this is good stuff.
11:51:03 AM
Should city building codes by copyrighted? Let's ask the US 5th Circuit.
Peter Veeck is one of those guys that the web was made for. If I remember right he is a retired airline pilot. But these days he runs a website called Texoma - Regional Web where he posts useful information about Texas and Oklahoma regions. In 1997 he decided to post the local building codes for two small towns in North Texas, Anna and Savoy. He got sued for copyright infringement because Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc. (SBCCI) claimed a copyright in the building codes. There's more to the story, but I sense that you might have a question.
How it is that the laws governing building construction could be copyrighted? And the answer is that they are not. So Veeck should not have a problem posting the codes for Anna and Savoy. Well that was not exactly the issue in the case, or at least it isn't the way that lawyers would phrase the issue (see below).
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge: The issue in this en banc case is the extent to which a private organization may assert copyright protection for its model codes, after the models have been adopted by a legislative body and become "the law". Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law? Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status.
And as Howard explains "Because the Web site reprinted the model codes "as law," rather than "as model codes," the majority dismissed the code-writing organization's copyright infringement claims, thereby reversing the trial court's ruling to the contrary." So let's translate the decision back to the language that people who aren't lawyers speak.
Bottom line: (1) Peter Veeck will get to post the codes and the people in Anna and Savoy will soon be able to have access to important information (which you will note that the government could have as easily provided, but hasn't been able to, so thank God for Peter Veeck); and (2) the convoluted 78 page opinion will be the source of wonderment and joy to law professors.
11:05:48 AM
Jailed woman in Louisiana can't have abortion - or at least can't make state pay for it.
