Intellectual Property Law

Tim Wu: On the Media

Posted on September 09, 2008
In this Slate piece, Tim captures the differences between the Obama and McCain “tech plans” incredibly well. No Tags

Eyes on the Fair Use Prize

Posted on September 09, 2008
J.K. Rowling has won her copyright infringement lawsuit against Steven Vander Ark; a trial judge in New York concluded that the defendant’s Harry Potter Lexicon is not protected under the fair use doctrine.  The New York Times has a report on the case here...

Hup, Holland, Hup!

Posted on June 14, 2008
I was traveling last week and caught only occasional highlights of the opening round matches in Euro 2008 — the international soccer tournament now happening in Austria and Switzerland.  I plugged back into full matches yesterday and was wowed by the Netherlands, who dismantled France 4-1 yesterday to follow an earlier 3-0 thrashing of World [...

Yale Loses Another Provost

Posted on June 04, 2008
Is there something in the water in New Haven?  Yale President Richard Levin can’t keep a provost on his staff. It was announced yesterday that the current Provost, Andrew Hamilton, has been nominated to serve as the next Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford...

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E-Books and Their Potential Impact on Book Law

Posted on June 04, 2008
The New York Times reports that Amazon?s Kindle may be the sign of a tipping point for e-books. My previous posts about Kindle have expressed some praise but a fair amount of skepticism too. The device allows for too much control. Zittrain explores this issue as one of perfect enforcement...

Online Museum of IP

Posted on June 02, 2008
Eric Johnson, at the University of North Dakota, has launched a project that bears watching:  an online Museum of Intellectual Property. At his blog, Pixelization, he describes it this way:  The aim of the museum is to serve as a resource for teachers, students, and scholars of IP law, and to preserve an important facet of legal [...

The Writing Packer Family

Posted on June 02, 2008
I’ve posted enough about George Packer (example here) to make it clear that I’m a fan of him and his work.  Over the weekend the San Francisco Chronicle published a long and thoughtful feature on the Packer family - George and his older sister Ann (a bestselling writer in her own right), mother Nancy (writer, [...

Reselling Software Legal ? For the Moment

Posted on May 28, 2008
A little over a week ago, Judge Richard Jones of the Western District of Washington (Seattle) denied motions by software developer Autodesk for dismissal or summary judgment in its favor in a lawsuit brought by Timothy Vernor, who sells and re-sells things on eBay — including packages of AutoCAD, Autodesk’s flagship product...

Sherry Turkle on Things

Posted on May 28, 2008
Regular madisonian readers (and a few others) know that I’m fascinated by legal “things.”  I’m hardly alone.  Sherry Turkle at MIT is the editor of a forthcoming book called “Falling for Science: Objects in Mind” (order it here), and in an excerpt from her contribution published online in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education Review she [...

The Power of Paper

Posted on May 27, 2008
Two recent news items evoke the power of paper and similar objects in what we often assume is a purely digital world: First, as the New York Times reported, “In a decision that could radically change the size, the color and even the feel of American money, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the United [...

Microsoft Gives Up on Book Search

Posted on May 26, 2008
Until last week Google had a competitor of sorts on the book scanning front. Now, however, Microsoft has abandoned its role in the book scanning world. One rather disturbing issue is that the service seems like it will go somewhat dark: “[T]he Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects ? will be taken [...

Blogger Power in Politics

Posted on May 26, 2008
Many readers know about Talking Points Memo or Huffington Post. A New York Times article shows that in state races smaller, local blogs may have greater impact on a race. The Franken-Coleman race in Minnesota provides the backdrop to the story. Apparently an independent blogger who has previously worked for the Republican Party has [...

New Paper on Writing and Teaching IP

Posted on May 20, 2008
Shameless self-promotion alert: I’ve posted a new paper to SSRN, titled “Writing to Learn Law and Writing in Law: An Intellectual Property Illustration.” It’s forthcoming in the St. Louis University Law Journal as part of a symposium on teaching intellectual property law...

News and Notes, and a Bankruptcy Question or Two

Posted on May 19, 2008
I’m pulling myself out of Pittsburgh sports myopia today.  We have this NHL hockey team, the Penguins, and the team are on an amazing playoff run, and they’re quite fun to watch and, well, the lunacy here is unbelievable.  Of course, in most of the U...

Here Comes the Muxtape

Posted on May 16, 2008
Making a mixtape is so 1980s. Now you can make a muxtape: [On the site,] you can upload . . . what the kids call playlists. [The program then streams the mp3s you chose on a url you pick.] I am not sure of the legal issues, but the system is smart [...

Little Brother

Posted on May 16, 2008
Cory Doctorow?s latest novel, Little Brother, is technically a young adult novel, but there is something in there for anyone interested in cyberlaw, security, national security law, and oh yeah, a rather fun, although at times scary, tale. In classic Cory fashion, he has made the book available for free (yes well before law profs [...

What Is Online Privacy Worth?

Posted on May 16, 2008
It is an old question (at least in Internet time): What is online privacy worth? Yet there seems to be a new wrinkle. Not just the Web sites or search companies want to track what one surfs. ISPs are now in the Web tracking game and stand to make ?several dollars per month? per customer...

Be A Bird Brain?

Posted on May 15, 2008
Just watch. It is a little over ten minutes and fun. Basic premise: some birds you many not like may be rather smart. No Tags

Zittrain on Podcasts

Posted on May 14, 2008
Jonathan Zittrain has been promoting his new book on some excellent radio programs, including On the Media and On Point (with Tom Ashbrook). On OTM, the host challenged him with the query, “We don’t want blank-slate cell phones that have to be programmed...

The Internet Archive Protects Privacy for Libraries

Posted on May 08, 2008
Wired reports that the FBI subpoenaed the Internet Archive and demanded that Brewster Kahle (the Archive?s founder) provide records about one of the library’s registered users, asking for the user’s name, address and activity on the site. The FBI used a National Security Letter (example) to make the request...

Harvard, Fair Harvard

Posted on May 08, 2008
Via Tim Armstrong at Info/Law, I learned today that the Harvard Law School faculty voted to create an online open access repository of their scholarship. To me, the vastly more interesting and provocative part of Tim’s post is a news item that I missed 10 days ago:  Berkman Center Executive Director John Palfrey will become the new [...

Don?t Even Think About It: Negative Ad Words and Trademark Injunctions

Posted on May 06, 2008
A U.S. District Judge has enjoined a defendant from using a term for its business. That is not an unusual result. The one part of the order that may be of note is that the defendant is not allowed to purchase ad words using the plaintiff?s mark and the defendant must use negative adwords [...

Showdown at West Virginia University

Posted on May 06, 2008
When the national press focuses on academic questions at universities these days, the spotlight often shines on plagiarism.  But there is a genuine academic scandal brewing in Morgantown, at West Virginia University, and the national media has only barely noticed...

IP Without IP?

Posted on May 05, 2008
Rebecca Tushnet’s report on the recent IP Without IP Colloquium (Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV) is as interesting for its method as for its content.  The Colloquium itself was a non-public affair at the Radcliff Institute for Advanced Study...

Computer History Museum and the Babbage Engine

Posted on May 05, 2008
The Computer History Museum ?is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computing history.? A current exhibit is a working version of Charles Babbage?s difference engine which is seen as a 19th Century computer design that was never built for a host of reasons from personality to claims that it could not be built with [...

JZ?s New Book on SSRN

Posted on May 01, 2008
Personally, I bought the hard copy (I like bound books more than stacks of copy paper), but kudos go out to Jon Zittrain for putting his brand new hot-off-the-press book on SSRN. I’ve made the point before that many authors like reaching the public as much as making money- and often these aren’t mutually [...

Technology Policy ?08

Posted on April 30, 2008
I just wanted to announce that the preliminary program for the 2008 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (in New Haven, CT) has been announced. The theme this year is “Technology Policy ‘08,” and it includes several topical panels for the election year: Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive States as Incubators of Change Activism and [...

Noted Elsewhere

Posted on April 30, 2008
Posts by others that caught my eye recently: Rebecca Tushnet summarizes a very interesting public discussion on Bridgeman v. Corel, the district court opinion by Judge Kaplan, now nine years old, that holds that copyright does not attach to especially good photographic reproductions of public domain works of fine art...

Equitable Servitudes in Packaging

Posted on April 30, 2008
With so many interesting information law and policy topics floating around the blogosphere, you would think that something more, well, substantial, would catch my eye.  But instead I’ve been hooked by cardboard boxes. Out of Denver yesterday came the news that a man was threatened with a violation of federal law for recycling U...

Science, Math, and the Essence of All Things

Posted on April 30, 2008
Last week Thomas Jefferson had Professor James Hackney of Northeastern University School of Law as our last speaker in our colloquium series. His talk focused on his book, Under Cover of Science: American Legal-Economic Theory and the Quest for Objectivity (featured at this past year?s AALS conference) and about his next steps on this topic...

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