Stanford Center for Internet and Society

I imagine the subset of individuals that read the Center's blogs but not, for instance, Boing Boing to be in the (low) single digits. I still could not resist posting this news story about bearded, community-gardening, anti-surveillance activists in Philly whose house was raided, initially without a warrant. In fairness, the facts are disputed: for instance, local police are calling a structure on the top floor of the raided house a possible "bunker," whereas resident Daniel Moffat (pictured) is calling it a definite "greenhouse."

Nestled in among the latest round of public comments solicited by the Federal Trade Commission on “behavioral advertising” was a little gem: a filing by the Newspaper Association of America arguing that online news outlets have a First Amendment right to track the activities of website visitors in order to target advertisements to them.

I had the pleasure of participating in the excellent Legal Futures Conference sponsored by CIS and Google last month, where I was on a panel of “lightning talkers” tasked with answering the following question in under five minutes: “What single fact or data point about the current world of content and technology tells us most about where the Information Revolution will stand in ten years?”

On the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Dan Slater notes the growing reaction against Rowling's copyright claims against RDR Books, and generates a spirited discussion of her position. Read it all here.

Today on Slate, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu lays out an excellent explanation of why RDR Books has the right to publish the Harry Potter Lexicon, and why J.K. Rowling's copyright claims to the contrary are misplaced. Read the article here.

Pat Aufderheide, Peter Jaszi and their colleagues at American University's Center for Social Media have released a fantastic new study on creativity on the web -- and the threat that overly-aggressive copyright enforcement and so-called "anti-piracy" software pose to free speech.

Read the full study here, and view a slew of videos that represent the creativity that digital media has unleashed.

Music sampling has suffered a strange fate at the hands of copyright law. It should fare well under the fair use doctrine. In general, it's very transformative, uses small amounts of the copyrighted work, and there exists little possibility that the new work would serve as any plausible substitute for the old. Yet there are precious few cases that even address the application of fair use to music sampling.

I'm afraid much of this is due to the refusal of music publishers, record labels -- and even artists -- to raise the defense in the first place. A case in point: The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Bridgeport Music v. Justin Combs Publishing, which affirmed copyright infringement liability against the defendants, including Bad Boy Records, the label founded and still headed by CEO Sean "Diddy" Combs. (The opinion also reversed an absurd punitive damage award. Read a full copy of the decision here.)

Proposed Reporters' Shield Law Overdue but Underpowered
This week's Circuit Court column is about the proposed federal reporters' shield law that just came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While we need a shield law, this one has a loophole for situations where the leak is criminal or tortious activity, and the loophole may just be too large for this version of a shield to do the trick.