Intellectual Property Law

Thoughts about choosing a law school, part 2

Posted on March 08, 2010
Let me use this post to suggest one way in which prospective students can begin comparing academic programs. All law schools require their first year students to take a heavily prescribed curriculum. Few, if any electives exist, and indeed the required courses are practically the same at most schools...

?According to the National Motorists Association (NMA), some municipalities have been caught shortening the time in which yellow lights are on in order to generate additional revenue from tickets issued to motorists caught on traffic cameras running red lights.?

Posted on March 08, 2010
From the Department of You Have To Be Kidding, this article reports: The yellow traffic light is taking on a new meaning for motorists during these tough economic times: one expensive trap. According to the National Motorists Association (NMA), some municipalities have been caught shortening the time in which yellow lights are on in order to generate [...

I like Rescuecom

Posted on March 05, 2010
Eric Goldman reports here that Rescuecom has dismissed its lawsuit against Google.  Eric strongly suggests this was primarily about Google outlasting a smaller plaintiff with fewer resources, which may well be the case.  And although I was pleased when Rescuecom won on the trademark use issue, as I explained in this post from last year, [...

Four Chords, 36 Songs

Posted on March 05, 2010
“It must be remembered that, while there are an enormous number of possible permutations of the musical notes of the scale, only a few are pleasing; and much fewer still suit the infantile demands of the popular ear. Recurrence is not therefore an inevitable badge of plagiarism...

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Staff and Student Opportunities at IP Osgoode (Toronto, Canada)

Posted on March 04, 2010
Posted at the request of Prof Giuseppina D’Agostino, Director, IP Osgoode, Intellectual Property, Law and Technology Program, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada: “(1) We have posted a call for applications for the summer 2010 IPilogue team and we would be very pleased to hear from students at your own institution...

Thoughts about choosing a law school, part 1

Posted on March 04, 2010
The coming of spring means that thousands of aspiring lawyers will soon have to choose the law school they will attend. Over the last decade or so, rankings like U.S. News and World Report?s have become increasingly important in making those decisions...

I?ve Always Liked Judge Newman

Posted on March 03, 2010
The law sometimes takes its integrity in its hands when the Federal Circuit gets its hands on a copyright law question, and the Federal Circuit’s opinion the other day in Gaylord v. United States, involving fair use, bears out that proposition in spades...

Supreme Court Takes Jurisdiction Over ?Jurisdiction?

Posted on March 03, 2010
A bit overshadowed by all the hubbub over the oral argument in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court yesterday handed down an important copyright opinion in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick. (But see Howard Wasserman, Marcia Coyle.) The court held that Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act, which requires registration of a copyright as [...

Sackcloth and Ashes for Another Plagiarist

Posted on March 03, 2010
Plagiarism either makes you a bad person, or bad people are plagiarists, or both.  Either way, it’s obviously a moral crime, not an ethical economic one.  This morning brings yet another example of someone made to do penance: Nick Simmons, the son of the rock star Gene Simmons, sought to make a name for himself in [...

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins discusses stealing material from other writers, and reads his poem, ?Litany.?

Posted on March 02, 2010
Excerpt from a longer video that is accessible here. No Tags

I Want My PS3

Posted on March 01, 2010
My household is one of those affected by yesterday’s worldwide PlayStation3 “crash,” which is reported here on CNN (briefly) and no doubt in far greater, and angrier, detail elsewhere.  Sony is broadcasting status updates via Twitter, though none too swiftly...

So Long to the Repo Man

Posted on March 01, 2010
The Sunday New York Times usually offers a number of interesting features on IP and tech topics, and yesterday was no exception.  My favorite piece was this one, about the demise of the old-style Repo Man.  As in so many areas, human judgment and discipline are being superseded by surveillance, data, and automation: At the core of [...

Copyright, Plagiarism, and Fan Fiction Norms

Posted on February 05, 2010
While broadening my literary horizons, but still remaining firmly in the pre-teen science fantasy camp, I’ve recently discovered a series of books by Cassandra Clare – the Moral Instruments trilogy (soon to be many more books than a trilogy)...

Australian Court: ISP Not Liable for Copyright Infringement

Posted on February 05, 2010
With thanks to Roberto Colon for passing this along to me, a federal court judge in Australia has held that an ISP is not liable for copyright infringements of its users.  Full story here and here.  The Australian copyright test for secondary liability is different from that in the U...

The Secret Behind Amazon and Macmillan?s Fight: Google?

Posted on February 03, 2010
Many may know about the fight between Amazon and Macmillan publishing. Yes it is about e-books and pricing, and the death of an industry, the death of print, and heck throw in Death in Venice if you like. But the real move may have been to highlight something else Amazon is quite worried about: Google [...

U.C. WAKE UP CALL: How Scale and Action Can Save the U.C. and Maybe the Rest of Higher Education in California

Posted on February 03, 2010
I love California, and I love the University of California. I am saddened by the recent financial problems the state and the entire education system faces. But I am more upset by what seems to be a failure of the education system: people who think 60s style protests are useful and wise responses to problems [...

New Tech Policy Research Aggregator

Posted on February 03, 2010
There’s a new joint venture in town:  A website that aggregates academic research on IT policy, from IP to privacy, to network governance, to the cloud, to antitrust, to economic growth. Technology | Academics| Policy (TAP).  http://www...

China Court Clears Search Engine of Copyright Infringement

Posted on January 26, 2010
With thanks for one of my students for fowarding this to me, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court has today cleared Chinese search engine Baidu on claims of copyright infringement for deep-linking to music downloads that infringe copyrights...

Banning dictionaries. Really?

Posted on January 26, 2010
A school district in California has banned Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition) after a child found the definition for “oral sex” in its pages. The initial story made the decision seem a fairly done deal, but a later issued story indicates that the decision is under review...

Intent, Fair Use, and Criminal Copyright Infringement

Posted on January 26, 2010
Naturally, I’m still thinking about copyright law in the context of the Twilight franchise – what else would I be doing on a Tuesday morning?  I was looking again at some of the press coverage surrounding the young woman who was detained in custody for several days for making a three minute video-recording in an [...

A Great Horn Section and Some Wild Clothes to Brighten Your Day

Posted on January 25, 2010
Most of the country is facing some rather grim weather. Classes have begun. Grades are in. The holidays are over. There is work to do. Many things may be getting you down. So I offer this tune as a small pick-me-up for those who may need it. If the music doesn’t work for you, perhaps [...

McOverreaching

Posted on January 25, 2010
From here: You couldn’t blame Lauren McClusky of Chicago if she were a bit squeamish about using her last name in this story without fear of reprisal from Ronald McDonald and his legal posse. For McClusky, 19, finds herself at the center of a thorny dispute that involves a series of charity concerts she’s put on over [...

Signs of the IP Apocalypse

Posted on January 04, 2010
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It is 1710 all over again. Like their ancient English ancestors, 21st century book publishers are throwing authors under the bus in a race to secure rights in the electronic economy. Jonathan Galassi, president of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, There?s More to Publishing Than Meets the [...

Tweeting the Scarlet A; Gatsby at Goldman

Posted on January 04, 2010
Apropos of Rob’s post, here is Nicholas Bramble’s very inventive take on learning via Facebook: [A teacher at a suburban school had found] videos showing students getting into fights with one another. They posted the videos to their MySpace pages and debated who had the better fighting skills...

The Internet: Bad for Your Brain?

Posted on January 03, 2010
The NY Times runs a story today entitled, “How to Train the Aging Brain.” As someone with an aging brain, I was intrigued. According to the story, neural connections in your brain — those things that receive, process and transmit information — weaken with disuse and age...

Opting Into Open Access

Posted on January 02, 2010
Excellent article in the THES on the topic. Here are some choice paragraphs: “The argument is that better value can be driven into that system,” says Alma Swan, a former publishing industry employee who now runs Key Perspectives, a pro-open-access consultancy...

Dangerous Wands

Posted on January 01, 2010
Dangerous Minds meets Harry Potter in this vid from CollegeHumor: See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. No Tags

DJ Earworm ? United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop) ? Mashup of Top 25 Billboard Hits

Posted on January 01, 2010
No Tags

Lost Classics of Intellectual Property Law: 1 of 4

Posted on January 01, 2010
Some time ago on this blog, I ranted a bit about how younger IP scholars either have lost the knack of knowing something about the history of the discipline ? or never acquired it in the first place. Off and on over the last year, I assembled lists of key pieces of scholarship and key [...

?Rush Limbaugh accidentally declared dead by Wikipedia?

Posted on December 31, 2009
From here: Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized on Wednesday for “chest pains” in Hawaii, but the controversial radio host (who also had a syndicated TV show at one point) is not dead contrary to a post made by Wikipedia early Thursday morning. The commentator’s page was edited briefly to say that December 30, 2009 was the day [...

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