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National Security Letters and the FBI Abuses
I weigh in on NSLs and the FBI with today’s Circuit Court column: FBI Slips Demand Patriot Act Cuts. I think the most interesting part of the column is the end…
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U.S. Copyright Royalty Board Rejects Webcasters Call to Maintain of Royalty Rates
On Friday March 2nd The United States Copyright Royalty Board announced new royalty rates for webcasts, effective from 2006 to 2010. In doing so, Listening Pos…
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A Unitarian in Congress
I suppose that it's a breakthrough, of sorts, that Representative Pete Stark (D-Calif., from Berkeley, of course) is the "first Congress member in hist…
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WIPO Report on Domain Name Disputes in 2006
When I first started my research on legal aspects of domain names about five years ago (the result is available here) I had the feeling that I was beating a dea…
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FCC May Allow Unlicensed use of 'White Space' Spectrum
Techdirt reports that the Federal Communications Commission may start to allow unlicensed uses in so- called "white space spectrum." WSS is the buffe…
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DMCA Safeharbor Faces $1 Billion Test
It's finally happened. Viacom has sued Google for $1 billion in damages for copyright infringement over videos posted on YouTube. This case will be a grea…
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Is Computer Science Dead?
That's the question that greeted me this morning as I read my periodic communique from ACM. http://technews.acm.org/. Reasons cited for declining CS enrol…
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Internet Webcast Royalty Rates: The Same Old Story
It's old news by blog standards, as it happened last week, but the Copyright Royalty Board has announced the new royalty rates for webcasts. No surprise, t…
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Second Life's response to its parodist... and how things change
I will somehow have to catch up with the rest of the bloggers out there, who seem able to hear about, comment on, and get tired of a particular bit of news near…
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Boucher's latest 'digital rights' bill
(This post was substantially updated on February 28th.) Democratic Representative Rick Boucher (from Virginia's 4th district -- the fightin' 4th!) has…
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Jonatahn Lethem's "The Ectsacy of Influence"
Jonathan Lethem's essay "The Ecstacy of Influence" was published in Harper's Magazine back in late January, which makes it ancient in the comp…
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copyright as gavel
I'm pilfering a phrase from Siva Vaidhyanathan, who wrote an excellent article called "Copyright as Cudgel," noting how producers often use copyri…