Another Great Legal Site - Denise points out that Peter Norberg has a site about use of experts in litigation (the topic of the well-known case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), called Daubert On The Web. Apparently it references over 250 appellate decisions under Daubert (organized both by circuit and field of expertise), statistics and explanations regarding admissibility and exclusion affirmance rates, a user forum, and some slick "ideas . . . that the author wishes somebody else would try first." via [Bag and Baggage]
10:35:35 PM
Wanna play Spy? - well the U.S. Government is eager to receive your help in the War on Terrorism. Sign up here. Sadly, it appears that no badges will be provided.
10:21:08 PM
Al Sharpton Drug Tape to air on HBO - it's a 18 year old FBI tape that will be aired on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" on Tuesday night. Who knew that drug dealing was a recognized sport? Not all that surprising, I suppose. [Story Link]
5:26:40 PM
Copyright Basics - you've read the book and seen the movie, now peruse "the outline." This is a project I had been tinkering with to add to my site as a link. I was hoping to make it an outline, and when activeRenderer went live, I decided to pop in what I had been working on. Exploring legal information is much easier in an outline format. Ne c'est pas?
4:10:06 PM
Business Use for Instant Messaging? - Yep, apparently Lands End uses it to answer customer questions as they browse the catalogue company's website. The cheery representatives will even use IM to redirect the customer to a particular page on the website if necessary.
I see IM working its way into law firms too. The other day was illustrative. I was on the phone with an important client in one of those situations where I couldn't get off the phone no matter what happened. A call came in on my other line, and I ignored it. Thirty seconds later I was paged by the receptionist. I had to E-mail her to let her know I was on the phone, and we traded E-mails so that I could (1) find out who was looking for me (2) tell her to tell the person to call back in 10 minutes. All of this took more time than it should have. Instant Messaging would have been much faster. Of course, now I suspect most law firms will view IM as some sort of frilly toy.
1:39:10 PM
Fritz Hollings on Broadcast Flags - "Performance is Better than Promise" is the motto of Hollings' website. As, Declan McCullagh's website points out, Mr. Hollings has written to FCC Chairman Powell citing the legal authority for the FCC to implement the broadcast flag solution to protect digital media. He states that:
47 U.S.C. § 336(b)(4) authorizes the FCC to “adopt such technical and other requirements as may be necessary or appropriate to assure the quality of the signal used to provide advanced television services,” and 47 U.S.C. § 336(b)(5) grants the FCC the authority to prescribe regulations relating to advanced television services “as may be necessary for the protection of the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” It is beyond dispute that the public interest would be served by regulations protecting digital broadcast content; while at the same time preserving lawful consumer use of that content such as making a physical copy for time and/or device shifting purposes.
I admittedly don't know whether those provisions (as interpreted by courts) actually grant the FCC the authority that Senator Hollings suggests that it does, but I checked his website and, while he did graduate from law school, it appears that he didn't spend much time practicing law. So I'm not sure that I would trust his opinion (making the bold assumption, of course, that he actually formulated his own opinion on the above-cited provisions). I have my own motto: "Supposition is the Same as Speculation."
Later - Oh, and the N.Y. Times has this article on the Broadcast Flag issue. (thanks Donna!, and thanks to Denise for the original post!)
11:26:23 AM
Legal News Headlines - Available here. The first two have brief commentary, if you click on the wedge tool it will expand. This is the Outline feature of Radio (courtesy of Marc Barrot, who created the activeRenderer tool). Let me know what you think of this feature.
