February 5th 2008
Virtual worlds are emerging as a popular new legal topic. They create a host of interesting opportunities as tools for legal practice, and at the same time are a medium that needs to be reconciled to laws from the physical world. The apparatus of the law is increasingly present in Second Life : You Can […]
February 4th 2008
Effective February 11th, Google will stop monetizing all domains if they are less than five days old. This single move will force a dramatic reduction in the Internet scheme known as domain kiting. Industry experts attribute over 90% of all current domain registrations to kiting performed by a group of rogue registrants, so this is […]
February 2nd 2008
For good or bad, the United States has become zealous about IP rights. A new cabinet position is being considered to support IP law enforcement – the WHIPER. The federal government attached funding requirements to force colleges to allow rights holders to monitor students‘ Internet use. AT&T wants to watch their own customers to root […]
February 1st 2008
Today, Microsoft confirmed what years of speculation predicted, they will attempt to buy Yahoo. While this is an obvious move from a business sense, there are formidable regulatory hurdles ahead. Yet, sources as objective as Yahoo News and MSNBC minimize the risk of regulatory review. To be fair, so does most of the US media which echos them. […]
January 31st 2008
Do hard cases make bad laws? The law continues to grapple with the tragedy of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl who committed suicide after allegedly being harassed on MySpace by the parent of a friend posing as a teenage boy. Some localities have passed constitutionally questionable ordinances to make online conduct by an adult that […]
January 29th 2008
There’s a lot to be happy about in recent moves by the recording industry to experimentally make music available on an ad-supported “free” basis. Here are three examples of emerging models meeting with dramatically different levels of success.
January 28th 2008
Antigua and Barbuda are best known for their pristine beaches and tourism. However, their second-largest industry is online gambling, and it is the subject of perhaps the most bizarre trade ruling in years. In a rare ruling, the World Trade Organization (WTO) awarded the nations the right to violate U.S. copyright protections of software, films, and […]
January 23rd 2008
Are you ready for the online equivalent of vigilantes? It seems that AT&T and other ISPs want to filter net traffic to “stop the transfer of copyrighted material.” That’s what the New York Times’s Bits blog says an AT&T vice president suggested during a panel discussion about digital piracy at the recent Consumer Electronics Show […]
January 18th 2008
Sometimes someone says something in conversation that ripples out to more discussions. Catherine Douglas did that this fall, at a forum with around 80 trademark professionals. She reflected on her work for Rogers Communications and, before that, for Kelloggs, which has allowed her to see the factors that have changed IP law practice, as well as the […]
January 15th 2008
In a court brief filed by RIAA counsel Ira Schwartz in a case involving Jeffrey Howell of Scottsdale, AZ, the RIAA claims that any copying of CDs is “unauthorized.” According to an article in the Washington Post: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection […]
The future of digital experiences will be built by strategists who grasp the full array of emerging business, social, and technical models. Specialties in user experience, branding, application design, and data science are laying the foundation for richer user experiences and business models breakthrough products and revenue based marketing.
UsefulArts is a soapbox to discuss the front line of digital experience, and the agencies and platforms that enable it. Digital business needs a cadre of leaders who can connect c-level enterprise thinking with the ways these new interaction models can help organizations to matter more to their most important stakeholders.