Know thyself - okay here's a disclaimer: my dad is a psychoanalyst. And naturally he thought highly of Freud. He had, on his well-stocked bookshelves, the Complete Works of Freud, which from time to time I would try to peruse. I liked the discussion of humor, which I was drawn to because I thought it would have some racy jokes. I didn't. Years later, I find myself pondering the role of humor in everyday life.
11:15:09 PM
Revenge of the Law Nerds - it had to happen. A weblog called Nerdlaw has surfaced and somehow I missed it. Looks pretty good and it will be added to the law blog outline. But under what sub-category? I'm going to put it under Legal Journalism, that's what it looks like to me.
Laborblog is new too. It's a news blog by an Atlanta based employment lawyer who handles the management side of things. It will be added as a specialty practice area blog on the outline.
10:57:50 PM
Korea - Orson Scott card is a well known writer, but not so much for his political analysis. Still, I found this essay on the Korea situation very cogent. But I have to admit I'm not a wonk when it comes to geopolitics so maybe his analysis is flawed in some way that isn't apparent to me.
10:53:01 PM
Japanese Copyright Law - they have the same prohibition on creating derivative works that we do. So how is it that so many comic books are freely copied and new characters created? Read this article written by a famous American law professor to find out. One thing you have to remember about the Japanese. They use their copyright laws (and other business related laws) to serve a business purpose, and not as ends in themselves. Not surprisingly, they have far fewer lawyers per capita than we do.
3:25:30 PM
Cue the balloons - I just found out that The Shifted Librarian is one year old today! I want to wish Jenny Levine a very heartfelt congratulations. Even more, I want to thank her for encouraging me when I started this blog. I started this blog as a half-assed experiment, mostly to see what weblogs were all about. I had no intention of keeping it going past the 30 day free trial period, but Jenny's encouragement (along with a few others that I'll thank on the one year anniversary of this blog) was gold. Thanks Jenny, and congratulations! You're the best!
2:40:33 PM
Copyright Vigilantism - it's not a good idea says Bruce Schneier in this recent article. Here is a good sample from the article:
The RIAA sent a cease-and-desist letter to an ISP asking them to remove certain files that were the copyrighted works of George Harrison. One of the files: "Portrait of mrs. harrison Williams 1943.jpg." The RIAA simply Googled for the string "harrison" and went after everyone who turned up. Vigilantism is wrong because the vigilante could be wrong. The goal of a State legal system is justice; the goal of the RIAA was expediency.
The media giants (and their duly-appointed agents like the RIAA) will always push for expediency. They want expedient legal systems and copy-protection schemes, and anything else that makes their life easier. But you'll notice that as their lives get easier, the consumers' lives get harder (sorry you can no longer make quick and easy copies of that digital file) and the average consumer's contempt for the silly laws that the copyright holders have managed to sneak through Congress increases.
Rick Boucher (D-Va) has introduced a bill that would repeal some of the offensive portions of the DMCA. More news here. If you are tired of this ridiculous charade then write your congressperson.
1:58:34 PM
The DMCA's own built in legal circumvention scheme- Here's a report in the Boston Globe about the Lexmark suit against a company that designed a chip that allows non-Lexmark produced replacement cartridges to work in Lexmark printers. Obviously, if Lexmark can exclude other companies from selling replacement parts for its equipment then there will be less competition and Lexmark can charge higher prices. Usually, antitrust law would kick in and you would see Lexmark getting sued. Instead Lexmark is the plaintiff in the effort to stifle competition. So how does Lexmark get away with claiming a right to do this?
The DMCA (a/k/a the Digital Millenium Copyright Act), which prohibits people attempting to circumvent a copyprotection schemes, is apparently an all purpose litigation weapon. Obviously, one of its basic functions is to suppress speech (which allows it to trump the First Amendment), but now it appears to have the ability to avoid antitrust liability too. Or at least that will be the effect if the DMCA is successfully used by Lexmark in the lawsuit against Static Control Systems.
You know, back in the early 90's Kodak tried to keep people from selling replacement parts for its copiers and got sued. The plaintiffs claimed that Kodak was engaging in illegal, and anti-competitive, tying practices. That is, it was effectively forcing people to buy replacement parts from it, rather than from third party competitors. Doesn't this sound like what Lexmark is trying to do? Too bad the DMCA wasn't around back then. Kodak wouldn't have had to wait to get sued. It would have just had to create a little gizmo that forced people to use its replacement parts and then it could sue anyone who tried to reverse-engineer its gizmo.
Hmmm, let's see what other laws the DMCA can circumvent?
12:47:48 PM
Who owns the law? - Chas Rich has an update on the Veeck case that the Supreme Court may agree to hear (thanks to Howard for pointing out that the Supreme Court hasn't yet decided to take the case). I'm definitely interested in this one, which pits a do-gooding citizen who wants to make building codes available on his website, and a copyright holder who wants to lock up that information in a pay-to-access scheme. It took the 5th Circuit two tries to get this one right. Let's hope the Supreme Court, if they take the case, gets it right on the first try (because they don't have en banc review in the High Court, which means no "do-overs.").
Update:Litig8or agrees and provides some information on the situation in Michigan.
11:57:24 AM
DVD copy protection - the blogosphere is saturated with information about the DeCSS lawsuits, so I haven't posted anything. But for those of you who are following this sort of thing here is a good post by Professor Felten, which in the process of answering a question winds up giving a really good explanation of the fundamental objection to the CSS encryption/copy-protection scheme. I wonder if Steve Case now shares that objection (see the quote that I reproduce in the post below).
11:50:42 AM
