I argued yesterday that the advent of e-readers would reduce traditional publishers’ marginal advantage in publishing scholarly books. This makes it possible for others to compete effectively with book publishers. And the logical candidates for this role would be law journals. Branding: Law journals have the sort of branding power that publishers do. If the […]
Archive | October, 2009
Buys-Ballot’s Law
The 2010 election cycle will get going soon, so I thought I’d ask again a question I posed seven years ago: What is Buys-Ballot’s Law, and what penalties are there for violating it? The first person to answer this in the comments from memory will be publicly acknowledged as getting the special Volokh Conspiracy Profound […]
CFPA Update:
The WSJ has a really sharply-worded attack on the CFPA today and mentions a new Blue Dog Democrat proposal (this is the first I’ve heard of that). David Evans and Josh Wright have a new paper posted on SSRN on “The Effect of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 on Consumer Credit.” I […]
Probable Cause and Internet Accounts in United States v. Frechette
Today the Sixth Circuit handed down a case on probable cause to search a home based in large part on a subscription to a child pornography website: United States v. Frechette. I blogged in detail about this issue a few years ago, so I wanted to cover the latest case, as well. The defendant, Douglas […]
Incentives for Targeted Killing
I’ve posted before about targeted killing, and written about it for publication, as well. I’ll be on NPR’s All Things Considered today, in a story by correspondent Ari Shapiro, talking about targeted killings in relation to detention and interrogation. (Now that I’ve seen the story, I see with pleasure that it also quotes Matthew Waxman, […]
Save the Deli
The number of Jewish delis has declined substantially, and the remaining few are in jeopardy. Can a federal bailout be far behind? Personally, I’d much rather my federal taxes go to preserve good corned beef than bad Buicks.
Scoring a Bill that Does Not Exist
The papers are filled with stories (like this one) about the Congressional Budget Office’s conclusion that the Baucus health care reform bill will cost some $829 billion but not increase the federal deficit over the next ten years due to a combination of taxes, fees, and medicare cuts. Only there’s a catch. As the CBO […]
Government Regulation and Copyright, Plus the Word “Always”
Orin and others rightly questioned my use of the word “always” in connection with my statement that the use of the description “property” in the Copyright Wars is ”always” a political move. I overstated my assertion, and should have used a less absolute word. Thanks for the correction. SK very much wants me to make […]
E-Readers, and Going Beyond the Current Publication System for Scholarly Law Books
In earlier posts on this chain, I started by discussing the first phase of the migration to e-books: whether people will start reading the same content electronically that they’ve long read on paper. I then began considering the “second migration,” in which people take advantage of features of the new technology — for instance, the […]
Webcast on The New Forum-Shopping Problem in Bankruptcy
This afternoon I had the pleasure (along with Marcus Cole). of participating in a webcast at the Washington Legal Foundation on our article on “The New Forum-Shopping Problem in Bankruptcy” focusing on the Marshall v. Marshall case. The webcase is available here. It is a bit over an hour long. The working paper that is […]
Prosecutor’s Wearing a Small Cross
Here’s the issue that drew my attention to the “rummy name” case, People v. Morris (Cal. Ct. App. Oct. 5) (which, incidentally, has some quite horrific facts as well as an interesting usage question and an interesting government-and-religion legal question): The prosecutor wore a very thin, metallic cross measuring about an inch by one-half inch […]
What’s a “Rummy Name”?
From People v. Morris (Cal. Ct. App. Oct. 5), Either codefendant Carline Balbuena, whose self-chosen rummy name was “Queen of the Damned,” or defendant James Morris, aka “Ultimate Evil,” delivered the fatal blows to Balbuena‟s three-year-old son, Keith Carl Balbuena (KC). What’s a “rummy name”? My searches couldn’t find a meaning for the phrase, other […]
Does a Cheek Swab for DNA Require a Warrant?
No, says the Indiana Court of Appeals in Garcia-Torres v. State: After comparing cheek swabs with other searches requiring only reasonable suspicion, we conclude that the DNA sample collection technique at issue here, although minimally invasive, is also one of those limited searches that requires only reasonable suspicion and may therefore be conducted without a […]
Flotsam, Jetsam, and __:
Blackstone tells us that “Jetsam is where goods are cast into the sea, and there sink and remain under water,” and “flotsam is where they continue swimming on the surface of the waves.” But there is a third category that the law recognizes, though one that (in my experience) hasn’t made its way into the […]
Workers’ Compensation Benefits “for Psychological Injuries” Due to Employer’s Legitimate “Disciplinary Action and Reprimands” — or Due to Layoffs?
I’m happy to say that the Ninth Circuit has just said “no,” in Pedroza v. Benefits Review Board, though I’m sorry that it took all this litigation to figure that out. Harbor workers are entitled to worker’s compensation benefits for a wide range of job-related injuries, including psychological injuries. And this scheme, like worker’s compensation […]