September 10th 2008
Google may give Wikipedia lots of authority, but don’t count on that to help in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. An immigration case appealed there hinged on the authority of a personal identification document, for which the feds used evidence from Wikipedia to determine that it did not meet its standards. Unfortunately for DHS, using […]
September 9th 2008
China’s noseless censor-mascots are back, and this time they’ve confiscated Microsoft’s Internet Explorer logo in their quest to intimidate Chinese net users. It’s being used on the very front page of the Xiamen Cyberpolice’s site. Can you imagine what their request for permission to use this iconic logo might sound like? “We’d like to take […]
September 1st 2008
LA’s Boy Scout Council has teamed with the MPAA to offer Scouts a patch for learning just how much it costs to make a film and how many people get hurt if you download it without paying. Really, take a look. Notice that the concepts of fair use and public domain are completely absent from […]
August 28th 2008
The USPTO has granted Microsoft a patent for a “method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments.” That would be the page up function. Specifically, it’s for a function that moves your view exactly one page, rather than one screen. Of late, Microsoft has been more prolific in producing press releases and security […]
August 26th 2008
Public Servant….Or Satan? The idea that Obama is the devil has been kicking around among talk-radio callers for a few months. Saturday Night Live performer Victoria Jackson voiced her concern that Obama is the Anti-Christ on her blog: “I don’t want a political label, but Obama bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ and I’m scared […]
August 21st 2008
A 23-year-old man who worked at a church in Wabash, Indiana, has been charged with felony stalking and misdemeanor harrassment. MSNBC all but convicts him in its coverage, and complains that because he hasn’t been charged with a sexual crime, his Internet use will not be restricted. Bad journalism aside, when he appears in court to answer these charges […]
August 18th 2008
The Wall Street Journal‘s law blog covers the remarkable online obscenity case of 56-year-old Karen Fletcher. A reclusive abuse survivor, she is a sympathetic publisher of stories involving the rape, murder, and torture of children. The comments generated by this blog post voice our societies desire both for freedom and for various imperfect schemes for […]
August 17th 2008
FCC Commissioner McDowell Proposed Crackpot Threat to Bloggers While addressing the conservative Heritage Foundation, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell made a lame attempt to suggest this election is about preventing Democrats from using the FCC to regulate content on Internet blogs. Of course, there’s no legal basis for the FCC to regulate content on personal servers, and […]
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 31st 2008
Recently, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sent out a letter to participants of the X Prize, a sponsored, private-sector contest to create a reusable space vehicle. The letter stated that if participants actively or passively sense the Earth’s surface, including the use of electromagnetic waves emitted, reflected or diffracted, then they need to […]
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