Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Slate is running a contest entitled "Billable Horrors," which, as the title suggests, is a contest where lawyers are asked to submit "the meanest thing you've ever done to an opponent on the holidays." Unfortunately, I suspect that Slate is right -- many litigators have these stories of acts committed by and against them solely in an effort to ruin, or at least damage, one's holiday, vacation, etc.

Thus is the apparent state of litigation and the practice today. Unnecessary nastiness often rules the day, and civility often takes a back seat to a skewed notion of the "zealous advocate." I may sound like a Polly Anna to some, but so be it -- it does not have to be this way. If good representation of your client is the goal, it is possible to win cases and reach favorable settlements by not being the biggest jerk on the block to your adversary. I'll be curious to see what entries come in, and what wins this dubious, and sad (if we care about the state of the profession), honor.

What is a blog if not an opportunity to implicitly or explicitly convince the wary that you have something valuable to say, and then say it? Or, at least, show that you want to say it, and are willing to brazenly ignore the possibility that no one cares what you think? That's my myopic conception of a good blog, as it would be much less fun and I would not be able to practice typing if it weren't.

So, with that conception in mind, I point you to a recent article from the Los Angeles Times on the legality of Internet gambling, specifically poker, in which I was quoted. It's a very interesting area, from both a substantive and procedural perspective, and it remains to be seen how the law and courts will sort this out. There is no question, however, that it will be sorted out, as the growth in the online poker world is astounding and it's a matter of time before the courts and Congress begin to definitively answer these questions.

The Onion spoofs the RIAA's next possible lawsuit. Good stuff.

The New York State Bar Association's Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal has published Residential Fellow David S. Levine's practice commentary on the personal jurisdictional impact of cease-and-desist letters.

Reprinted with permission from: Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal, Fall/Winter 2005, Vol. 16, No. 3, published by the New York State Bar Association, One Elk Street, Albany, New York 12207.

Intrepid New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is now offering further indicia of the sad state of the world of big commercial music through investigations under the classic anti-"payola" laws -- the laws that make it illegal for radio stations to accept anything of value in return for playing an artist's song, unless it is disclosed on the air.

The New York Post reports that Spitzer reached a settlement with Warner Music, just months after he settled with Sony, over payola allegations. The allegations include payments of straight cash bribes to trips with Madonna, made directly to radio station employees (apparently, in some cases, solicited by those employees).

I have just been made aware of an amazing collection of 1890-1930 cylinders -- the old circular vinyl tubes that predate 78 rpm discs -- that UCSB has put on-line. Dubbed the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project, its goal is to "make UCSB's collection available and a wide range of music from this era accessible to researchers and the public."

It is an impressive collection, and although I have only listened to a handful of cylinders, they are of remarkable quality. For an example of truly dated "humor," check out "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy," recorded in 1908 by Edward Meeker. Aside from oddities like the aforementioned, there appears to be a range of recordings, from opera to pop to waltzes.

The New York Times reports the death of British author John Fowles. It may seem a bit macabre, but the Times' obituaries are often excellent articles in their own right, and this obit is no exception. It is worth reading.

I have enjoyed Fowles' writing (akin to Harold Pinter's), and now I have a better idea why. In discussing Fowles' upbringing, the Times notes: "Similarly, he recoiled from his role as head boy at Bedford School, his prep school. 'By the age of 18, I had had dominion over 600 boys, and learned all about power, hierarchy and the manipulation of law,' he wrote. 'Ever since I have had a violent hatred of leaders, organizers, bosses; of anyone who thinks it good to get or have arbitrary power over other people.'"

My friend Charles, of wedding blog fame, informs me of a hilarious development in the paranoid world of alleged intellectual property rights infringement. It seems that a retail website, which was selling merchandise touting the fictitious drug "Panexa" (PANEXA comes complete with hilarious and fake website, with medication warnings like "PANEXA should not be used to soak up spills or remove stains. This is disrespectful to PANEXA"), believed that such sales constituted copyright and trademark infringement and removed the merchandise. Even more disturbing, this apparently occurred without notice to its creators.

This weekend, I enjoyed a Sunday afternoon/evening relaxing at a wonderful fundraising concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater. The 19th Annual Bridge School Benefit Concert is an impressive musical fundraiser for the Bridge School, a school for children with "severe speech and physical impairments."

Hosting the concert was Neil Young's wife, Peggy Young. The concert had many highlights, but my personal favorites (in no particular order) were: (1) an inspired set by the band Bright Eyes, a Clem Snide/Bob Dylan amalgam (2) Norah Jones' fine cover of the late Gram Parsons' classic "She" (even though Jones spared Parsons' musical partner Emmylou Harris the burden of another curtain call) and (3) David Crosby's and Graham Nash's somewhat rare performance of Crosby's "Guinnevere" (thems some tricky harmonies!).

The Center for Democracy and Technology has posted an excellent critique of the EU's proposal on Internet governance. Aside from general opposition to governmental oversight of the Internet, CDT makes many valuable points about the pitfalls of allowing multiple governments, many not aligned with the Internet's core values, to gain oversight control. An excellent commentary.