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Eames: The Architect and the Painter

By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 12:55 pm

The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America’s most important designers. Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a mind-bending variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life – from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age – has been less widely understood. Read more » about Eames: The Architect and the Painter

Casablanca Mon Amour

By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 12:47 pm

Casablanca Mon Amour is a modern road movie that encapsulates the more complex and fractured nature of living in a world where TV and wars compete for headlines and occupy imaginations.

Using movies as a road map between yesterday’s Hollywood and today’s Morocco, Casablanca Mon Amour offers a Moroccan perspective on the long and entwined relationship between Hollywood and The Arab/Muslim World. Read more » about Casablanca Mon Amour

First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age

By Marvin Ammori • January 31, 2012 at 6:43 am

Next Friday, February 10, the Stanford Technology Law Review is holding its annual symposium, and this year's topic is an important one: First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age. Of the three panels, one is devoted to privacy and another to copyright. The third is devoted to a long, ambitious law review article ... written by me. Read more » about First Amendment Challenges in the Digital Age

Fire in the Blood

By Documentary Film Program • January 26, 2012 at 4:03 pm

An intricate tale of “monopoly, medicine and mass murder”, FIRE IN THE BLOOD is the story of how Western governments acting on behalf of pharmaceutical companies blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the Third World in the years after 1996 – causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths – and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back. Read more » about Fire in the Blood

Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think

By Jennifer Granick • January 26, 2012 at 11:47 am

The recent Department of Justice decision to indict Megaupload for copyright infringement and related offenses raises some very thorny questions from a criminal law perspective. A few preliminaries: I’m responsible for the musings below, but I thank Robert Weisberg of Stanford Law School for taking the time to talk through the issues and giving me pointers to some relevant cases. Also, an indictment contains unproven allegations, and the facts may well turn out to be different, or to imply different things in full context.

DMCA SAFE HARBOR: BELIEVE IT AND IT WILL BECOME REAL: As a matter of criminal law, the discussion of whether Megaupload did what it needed to do to qualify for the DMCA Safe Harbor misses the point. Did they register an agent? Did they have a repeat infringer policy? These are all interesting CIVIL questions. But from a criminal law perspective, the important question is did Defendants BELIEVE they were covered by the Safe Harbor? This is because criminal infringement requires a showing of willfulness. The view of the majority of Federal Courts is that “willfulness” means a desire to violate a known legal duty, not merely the will to make copies. Read more » about Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think

The SOPA-PIPA Saga - Freedom of Speech vs. Net Neutrality

By Allen Yu • January 25, 2012 at 6:54 pm

Many - like me - watched with great interest the defeat of SOPA and PIPA last week. The unpopular bills were defeated due in no small part to a well-coordinated high-profile protest by Internet companies like Google and Wikipedia. Millions flocked to sign and send petitions to denounce the bills.The rapid mobilization of public opinion surprised many, prompting many to pronounce in a new era of Internet-based mobilization. Read more » about The SOPA-PIPA Saga - Freedom of Speech vs. Net Neutrality

Hawaii Legislators Introduce Autonomous Driving Bill

By Bryant Walker Smith • January 23, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Six state representatives in Hawaii have introduced a bill (HB 2238) that would direct that state's "director of transportation, in consultation with the insurance commissioner and the examiner of drivers of each county," to "adopt rules in accordance with chapter 91 providing for the operation of autonomous motor vehicles on highways within the State." This follows developments in Nevada and Florida. Read more » about Hawaii Legislators Introduce Autonomous Driving Bill

Who Will Regulate Robots?

By Ryan Calo • January 20, 2012 at 3:51 pm

As robots leave the factory and battlefield and enter our homes, hospitals, and skies, it is not clear who will come to regulate them. But we can begin to spot some interesting patterns. Students of this transformative technology should keep their eye on both the claims and disavowals of authority over robots by state and federal agencies. Each hold potential dangers for our civil liberties and for the future of robotics. Read more » about Who Will Regulate Robots?

The Rise and Fall of Personal Computing

By Stuart Soffer • January 19, 2012 at 11:23 am

Finnish organization Asymco publishes a series of graphics trending 35 years of computing technology. These are great graphics, identifying the disruptive displacements including recent mobile computing. While not on topic, these graphs provide great historical context to our Internet platforms today.

http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/17/the-rise-and-fall-of-personal-computing/ Read more » about The Rise and Fall of Personal Computing

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