June 2008

Jonathan Zittrain on the Colbert Report

June 19th 2008

Who’s up for some late-night technology policy banter? Take a look at Jonathan Zittrain’s appearance on the Colbert Report, where he discusses his book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. You can also hear a more academic discussion of the book on the Hearsay Culture podcast, which I posted about earlier […]

Scepticism of Pre-Olympic China, and of Great Firewall Metaphors

June 18th 2008

The US-China Economic and Security Commission held hearings today on access to information and media control in China. There’s more than a little scepticism about promises of openness being more talk than action. IP blogging hero Ron Coleman also came right out today and essentially called China’s recent IP reform announcements a PR effort, which […]

Is LinkedIn for Sale? Does That Mean Your Personal Information Is, Too?

June 18th 2008

Bain Capital has bought a 53 million stake in the social networking site LinkedIn. This would bring the total valuation for LinkedIn to just above $1 billion. Bain invests in and sell companies, so its involvement is an additional sign that LinkedIn may be headed toward a sale.  So, why now? And does this raise potential privacy concerns?

Ticket2Final: Placing a Small Bet to Get Championship Tickets

June 18th 2008

Last year I wrote a brief analysis of why sports venues benefit by restricting ticket resale. It is hard to think of any other instance, perhaps other than land ownership, where the resale of your asset can be restricted or outright denied. Further, anything which makes honest people hide from police as if they were […]

Judge in Porn Case Calls for Investigation of His Own Online Porn Collection

June 17th 2008

Keep reading: it keeps getting stranger. But there may be something to like here, too. On Thursday, Judge Alex Kozinski, the Chief Judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, called on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to convene an ethics panel to investigate his own conduct. Judge Kozinski was presiding over a high-profile obscenity […]

Who Uses a Product Called “Evidence Eliminator” Before Trail? Not Barbie.

June 16th 2008

A giant legal dope slap seems headed from Barbie to the makers of The Bratz. As you may know, Mattel accused the manufacturer of the Bratz line of dolls, MGA, of essentially stealing the idea for the Bratz from Mattel. The Bratz are estimated to generate 2 billion dollars of revenue for MGA annually. The […]

Interview: Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

June 15th 2008

Jonathan Zittrain had been serving as Oxford University’s Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, until this week, when he agreed to return to Harvard Law as its newest tenured Professor. A ’95 grad of Harvard Law, Zittrain co-founded Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which makes him a key thinker about the kinds of topics I […]

SCOTUS: No Double-Dipping on Patent Royalties

June 13th 2008

In a sizable decision for Quanta Computer Inc. in Quanta v. LG Electronics, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled to uphold the doctrine of patent exhaustion, which states that once an entity licenses its patent rights to another, it no longer has control over how the purchaser uses it. The case involved LG Electronics […]

Who Owns Blog Comments?

June 10th 2008

Do you ever wonder who owns the rights on blog comments?  Would a blogger need to seek permission to republish your comment elsewhere?  Can you take comments back? Amend them? Publish comments they inspire?

Small Town Tells Google Maps to Keep Out

June 9th 2008

North Oaks, Minnesota, population 4,500, has sent Google Maps a big message: “Go away, and don’t come back.” You see, in North Oaks the roads are privately owned by the residents. So when the Googlemobile toured North Oaks and photographed people’s homes from the street, it was technically trespassing. That’s what the North Oaks City Council […]