July 15th 2008
There’s an Internet rumor circulating that Devo is suing McDonald’s for using their unique appearance in an American Idol co-branded Happy Meal. Devo bass player Gerald Casale fueled the rumor by providing this compelling quote: “We don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended.” But in fact-checking the story I […]
July 14th 2008
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says he wants to rule against Comcast for violating federal guidelines when it blocked and degraded Web traffic to peer-to-peer sites. Comcast reluctantly admitted to degrading peer-to-peer service after its efforts were documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. When the FCC scheduled a hearing to discuss this, Comcast paid people to […]
July 13th 2008
Its not web law, but still, news of humorous, ill-conceived policies sometimes just deserves posting. According to an article by Jeffrey Denning in the Washington Times, a senior official at the DHS is interested in a “safety bracelet” for air passengers that would serve as a boarding pass, GPS-enabled locator and, yes, STUN DEVICE. The […]
July 12th 2008
TV’s Getting Old: The Christian Science Monitor notes that for the first time, last season’s average viewer was more than fifty years old: “If today’s TV audience were a person, it wouldn’t even be a part of the target demographic anymore.” With games and the Internet, TV simply isn’t the “first screen” for the young […]
July 11th 2008
The Massachusetts House entertained debate of H-4822, which would force third-party ad networks that track visitor behavior between sites to allow visitors to opt out of receiving customized ads. The Cape Code Times provides details. Internet giants such as AOL and Google were represented by the Network Advertising Initiative. Attorney Justin Weiss argued that the […]
July 10th 2008
Two hundred million Americans carry cell phones, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU want to know how and when the federal government uses cell-based location services to track people. On July 1, 2008, the EFF and the ACLU sued the government in federal court in Washington under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) […]
July 9th 2008
The Wall Street Journal apparently set journalistic duties aside today, and simply reprinted the Republican National Committee’s gleeful take on Obama’s reversal on a promise to oppose telecom immunity. The Journal‘s Marketwatch literally stated, “here’s was the RNC has distributed” and then apparently quoted verbatim the entirety of an RNC statement. Marketwatch classified this post […]
July 9th 2008
The Senate today voted 69-28 to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate the pending lawsuits against them, and to grant new warrantless eavesdropping authority to the President. Senators Dodd, Feingold, Leahy, Bingaman and Specter offered amendments to strip the immunity provision, or delay it pending legal reviews or investigations. Glenn Greenwald notes in Salon: “What is most […]
July 9th 2008
We were describing the need to understand video search as a new arena of legal interest. Gotuit Media Inc., has sued Microsoft, claiming Silverlight infringes on three of its patents that involve making movies searchable. The Gotuit software allows for the insertion of searchable text data into a movie. Silverlight also allows for the insertion […]
July 9th 2008
Editor’s note: Copyright and trademark cases are being defined by evolving search and video capabilities. Anyone interested in online law and search should follow the evolving ability of search engines to consume multimedia content. Flash is a wonderful tool for grabbing attention on the web. It can even be used to construct entire web pages […]
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