Another report from the technojungle - another great post by Jenny about NetGens and the acceleration of technology. I have avoided the debate about whether multi-tasking is an affliction for young people or a secret power. I do think that every generation tends to look at major social change as the harbinger of the decay of civilization. Atonal music, free love, psychedelics, body-piercing, or just plain old cigarettes rolled up in a shirt sleeve.
And now, it's technology. Let's look at this thing with the proper perspective. The thing that adults are good at is "considering the consequences" and "delayed gratification." Kids are good at "adapting to new situations." Kids are good at it not because they practice adaptation. They are good at it because they have less entrenched assumptions and patterns of behavior. In other words, the very thing that makes kids bad at "responsible adult behavior" is what makes them good at adapting to, what adults perceive to be, new social forces. Or to put it a better way, they aren't really adapting. I think the kids are going to be okay. It's the adults I'm worried about.
4:16:45 PM
Decentralized is not good for copyright plaintiffs suing KaZaa - Howard Rheingold has a nice post about the legal difficulties being faced by the group of entertainment companies that are suing in Los Angeles to shut down KaZaa (citing this article). Welcome to the world of multi-jurisdictional practice. And please note it's an "international" world (which is to say, not a 'small world').
I remember having to read the World Wide Volkswagon case in law school, which involved a guy who bought a car in New York but drove it to Oklahoma and got in a car accident. The case wrangled with whether it was okay to sue the car manufacturer in Oklahoma, and the Supreme Court said it was because the car manufacturer put the car into the "stream of commerce" and therefore could forsee someone using it in Oklahoma. I remember one wiseguy in the back muttering during a class discussion of the case that he had read that "90% of all traffic accidents occur within 5 miles of the person's home," and so "how come the plaintiff had to be in the other 10% and make life difficult for first year law students everywhere?"
Well, as the KaZaa case shows, life is going to be even more difficult now, and not just for first year law students. First, you have the P2P/decentralized problem of who do you sue? Well, okay you sue whomever is running the website that is distributing the KaZaa software, but even if you shut them down aren't all the current users just going to keep on doing their P2P thing? So you've got that problem. Plus, it appears that the suit involves several different countries, as the aforementioned article reports:
"The three young men who developed the software hail from Estonia. They were commissioned to do the work by a company in the Netherlands. That company has since sold the software to another based in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, whose executives work in Australia.
Filing suit against Kazaa, therefore, has forced the entertainment industry to negotiate the legal rules of no fewer than five countries on three continents."
Well, I'm sure that the entertainment industry is sufficiently motivated and financed to be able to afford to pursue its claims. How it will turn out will be interesting, though. Napster didn't get shut down as quickly as many predicted, and that was a case without any of the complexities of the KaZaa case. Stay tuned lovers of personal jurisdiction and other hobgobblins of prodecural complexity.
3:46:15 PM
International Law Blogs - I just added a category to the Law Blog outline for International law. There is an Austrian law blog in there (added by request of the blog operator himself). If you guys know of other "international" law blogs let me know and I'll update the outline. Thanks.
12:15:36 PM
