August 8th 2008
My interest in JC Penney’s Breakfast Club ad grew from a question one of our readers, Eli, emailed in. He wanted to know if Penney’s had licensed the use of the Breakfast Club scenes they re-enacted in the advertisement. There certainly seemed to be a copyright issue in play. Kate Parkhouse, who manages the brand’s […]
August 7th 2008
Both Joe Camel and JC Penney have tried to reverse their fortunes by attempting to look like other brands that have seen greater success in recent years. But there’s a gossamer-thin line between imitation, homage and infringement. Few cartoon mascots are more hated than Joe Camel, who Reason online named the “most vilified cartoon character in history.” (This […]
August 6th 2008
Search pundit Danny Sullivan often jokes that he remembers when “Google used to be a search engine.” They’ve become an advertising business, a cell-phone operating system maker, a blog platform, and now a venture capital firm. But at their core, Google is about search. And Knol, their “answer to Wikipedia,” creates a screaming conflict of […]
August 4th 2008
If you manufactured automobiles, you’d also likely need to make keys so that your customers could start their engines. Ubisoft, publishers of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, recently missed the equivalent of that second step when they released their game for sale as a downloadable file on the Internet. Unfortunately, the security program surrounding […]
August 3rd 2008
Bill Patry has decided to discontinue his popular copyright blog. He lists two reasons: The tendency of readers and the media to link his personal writing as a professional position. Patry is Google’s top copyright attorney (there, see? I’ve done it too). It’s easy to identify bloggers as whatever their current job is, especially if […]
August 1st 2008
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit by conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage against a Muslim rights group that reprinted his attacks against Islam. Thanks to the court’s ruling you can listen to the over the top rant at the center of this dispute. Judge Illston supported the doctrine of […]
July 30th 2008
FCC Prepares to Punish Comcast A majority of members of the Federal Communications Commission have cast votes in favor of punishing Comcast Corp. for blocking subscribers’ Internet traffic, an agency official said Friday. ISP Ad Networking Scheme May Violate Wiretap Laws The Center for Democracy & Technology has advanced a legal theory that the practice […]
July 29th 2008
This week I participated in a the wrap-up panel discussion at Boston stop of the Online Marketing Summit. My co-panelists were Blake Coyle, a sales exec from Google, Paul Hyland, Executive Producer, edweek.org, and Theresa Regli, Principal, CMS Watch. As usual, I’m injecting personal observations along with what happened. If you were there too, please […]
July 26th 2008
Raising concerns about student privacy, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that legislation renewing the Higher Education Act contains language that may bring video surveillance or biometric testing into the homes of students participating in distance learning. The paragraph is actually about clamping down on cheating. It says that an institution that offers an online program […]
July 25th 2008
We’ve previously discussed Barak Obama’s comprehensive, and somewhat idealistic, technology plan for the federal government. He proposes establishing a CIO, and I discussed what we have learned from introducing this role at the state level. He’s idealistic, and perhaps naive. But John McCain’s still-emerging approach seems to be based on near-complete disregard. There, I’ve said […]
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