Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Listen to Larry This is sort of off-topic for this blog, but I just had to share one of Larry Lessig's recent posts. I, too, am often amazed at how willing we seem to be to trade liberty for security.

Speaking of Larry... Lessig posts here that Stanford's Center for Internet and Society has filed suit on behalf of Emily Somma against holders of U.K. copyrights to Peter Pan.
In the News: More DMCA Action Wired is reporting here that popular independent New York ISP The Thing may be shut down by its host after RTMark.com published a parody website using the domain name Dow-Chemical.com. While still hoping for a reprieve, owners of The Thing are in talks with European ISPs to transfer their Internet service there, beyond the reach of the DMCA. One interesting lesson from this case: never register a website using someone else's name and address.

Monday, December 30, 2002

In the News: Supreme Court Enters DVD Fray The Associated Press is running a story on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's foray into the DVD encryption wars. Justice O'Connor has stayed dismissal of a case filed by the DVD Copy Control Association in California state court against Matthew Pavlovich. As a student in Indiana, Pavlovich posted to his website the DeCSS code, designed to circumvent DVD encryption controls. Justice O’Connor’s actions come after the California Supreme Court recently ruled that Pavlovich was not subject to jurisdiction in California, but instead must be sued in his home state of Texas, or in Indiana, where he was living at the time of the actions that gave rise to the suit. More information on the DeCSS wars can be found 0 comments
In the News: Lindows Takes on Windows The New York Times has an interesting article on the dispute between Microsoft and Lindows.com over the WINDOWS trademark. For those of you who care, Lindows.com is attempting to convince a federal judge in Seattle that WINDOWS is not a legally protectable trademark under the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. 1065(4)), as it is merely the generic name for a user interface that displays programs in separate display boxes, or "windows." Apparently, the USPTO has taken the position that WINDOWS is merely descriptive, rather than generic, by requiring Microsoft to claim distinctiveness under Section 2(f) in its federal registrations for WINDOWS XP.

And while I'm discussing the USPTO, can I just state that I'm very disappointed that they've discontinued support for the page that linked directly to both TESS and TARR, enabling users to bookmark one page to pull up both. Now, the only way to create a shortcut to both search engines is to bookmark them individually, or bookmark the Trademarks Page, which is far too cluttered for my tastes.
More Local Rules Than You Can Shake a Stick At Not that anyone else will care about this, but I'm excited to have found a search on LLRX that lists all federal local court rules on the web. Other resources here. And a nifty map to go along with it. Shamelessly stolen from Bag and Baggage.
In the News: Supreme Court Watch CNN has an article about what to expect from the upcoming 2003 Supreme Court term. In addition to recapping speculation that Bush will soon be filling a vacancy created by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the article gives a brief synopsis of cases on the court's docket, including U.S. v. American Library Association, et. al., which challenges the Children's Internet Protection Act's requirement that federally-funded libraries install Internet filtering programs. For more information on these programs, check out Peacefire.

Saturday, December 28, 2002

This is just a test. Go read GrepLaw. Or check out Lessig's Blog. Other interesting blogs: The Trademark Blog, How Appealing, and Copyfight. (Hey, I managed to get in two non-Berkman Center blogs. That's an accomplishment.)