Stanford Center for Internet and Society

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Association for Recorded Sound Collections' conference in Seattle on Friday. In my discussion, about the state of copyright law for recorded sound in New York (a topic for later posts), I recommended a book for further reading about the impact of intellectual property law on music creation.

The book is Joanna Demers' "Steal This Music: How Intellectual Property Law Affects Musical Creativity" (University of Georgia Press 2006). While I don't endorse everything that's said in the book, for anyone who is interested in this issue, it gives an excellent overview of the issue. Especially for those whom are not lawyers, I think that it's very accessible.

My KZSU-FM show, "Hearsay Culture," is now available on iTunes. Go here to find it (note, of course, that you need iTunes installed on your computer), and also check out other events hosted at CIS!

I will get the shows up on iTunes as soon as I can after airing, and am working on getting them on Stanford iTunes. Thanks for listening, and please let me know what you think!

At long last, the article on which I have been toiling for many months is in public-consumption format.

I am very pleased to report that my article, "Secrecy and Unaccountability: Trade Secrets in Our Public Infrastructure," has been accepted at Florida Law Review, and will be published in their January 2007 book. I will be revising the article over the summer, and a draft is now available on SSRN.

Any comments or thoughts about the draft are welcome. And, for those who have wistfully waited for blog entries, I expect to be a bit more active this summer -- until I start going full-steam into my next article.

Starting today, I'll be hosting a talk program on KZSU, 90.1 FM (Stanford's radio station) called "Hearsay Culture." In sum, the show is designed to cover modern technology/Internet issues, but not from a purely law or geek perspective. As I wrote for the KZSU schedule: "A talk show, including guests, that focuses on the intersection of technology and society. How is our world impacted by the great technological changes taking place? Each week, a different sphere is explored." See this link for KZSU's program schedule.

On today's show, I'll be interviewing a professional on-line poker player and exploring his experiences and interactions with the technology. The show will air from 5-6 PM PST on Wednesdays (and be streamed here. Please note that it will be preempted next week, May 10). Soon, it will also be a podcast.

After a lobbyist-induced hiatus, it is interesting to note the various Internet gaming bills recently re-introduced in Congress, which aim to end Internet gaming by redefining what it means to gamble and/or attacking the financial elements necessary to place and collect upon a bet on-line.

The fascinating wrinkle to watch as this battle ensues is the involvement of countries like Antigua. As Reuters reports, Antigua is challenging the United States, in world bodies like the World Trade Organization, over the US' willingness to regulate and criminalize activity that is lawfully conducted, at least in some measure, outside of the United States. In the case of Antigua, this means their various Internet gaming websites, which are based in Antigua but accept bets generated from the United States.

Today, I found out that Brett J. Meyer, a partner at Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn LLP, passed away on March 12 after a bout with cancer. As an associate at Pryor Cashman, I had the pleasure of working with Brett.

In sum, Brett was one of the "good guys." Aside from his superb legal skills, more importantly, he was a great person. Always considerate, respectful, a straight-shooter and generous with his time, he was not only the ideal role model and teacher for me as a mid-level associate learning the ropes, but his personality and demeanor were worthy of similar aspiration.

I have written on this blog a bit about the state of litigation and my beliefs about what it takes to be a "zealous advocate." In my mind, Brett represented that ideal. It is with deep sadness that I note Brett's passing, but I also remember with fondness and admiration the person that I got to know, albeit briefly, as an associate.

In the midst of the various legal battles involving free speech and what can and cannot be said in public spaces -- Howard Stern's laudable battles being foremost in mind -- you may have missed the less monumental but amusing dispute between Fox's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. While not a formal legal action, I'd more aptly describe it as a flame war, but an instructive one at that.

So first the requisite disclaimer: I watch and enjoy Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC, and watched him previously on ESPN. Conversely, while I have watched O'Reilly's show and listened to his radio broadcast, I find it much less entertaining and enjoyable (although his rants are entertainment of sorts). Additionally, Olbermann and I are Cornell graduates, so I am further biased. Olbermann, in one of his most amusing ESPN days, would report on professional sports drafts and note that no Cornellian was drafted -- again. Good stuff.

It disturbs me to no end to say that, when viewing these pictures (warning: they are graphic), it is difficult not to be ashamed as an American, even if these are the acts of a few. What could possibly be the justification? This is apparently being done in the name of the United States.

An anxious (bored?) blog reader (I didn't know there were any!) has just emailed me saying: "It has been so long since you blogged. Your public demands another blog from you! Your last one was on 12/30." True; it's been a while, and I miss public missives so. Thus, rather than do "real work," I will indulge this obviously bored reader and post the following:

First, my apologies. I've been away from things blog as I engage in the time-intensive task of drafting a law review article. I'm halfway through a first-draft, so progress is decent. To my right are stacks of paper that I have organized into general topic headings. My iPod also sits to my right, competing with the stacks for my attention. The iPod is increasingly losing the battle; a fact of which I am proud. I will leave you in breathless wonder about the topic until such time as the first draft is done, so I'm sure of what I say on paper . . . ah, the writing process!

I have been away from blogging the last few weeks primarily because my new (six months) computer's hard drive died. This followed the LCD display dying in week two. Clearly I bought a lemon. Moreover, trying to work on a law review article did not help matters blog.

So now I'm using a relative's new Apple G5. Nice.

But I digress, and, continuing the digression, can now spew forth what might have been posted over the last few weeks. Since I've been away, I have been unable to recommend Andrew Sullivan's excellent critique in TNR outlining why torture as US official policy is devastating to our moral authority and, as a practical matter, persuasiveness, the world over. Its shocking that I feel the need to recommend such an article (I thought this was self-evident), but I commend it to you. The article's (found at http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051219&s=sullivan121905 -- sorry, no hyperlink from this Apple) money quotes: