Congress is set to once again consider the Sen Leahy’s Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeit Act, a truly awful bill (with the appropriately awful acronym “COICA” — which sounds a little too much to my ears like “cloaca,” and if you don’t know what “cloaca” means, you can look it up here . . .). […]
Author Archive | David Post
In Case You’re Wondering What the HIV Virus Sounds Like . . .
. . . Alexandra Pajak, a grad student at the University of Georgia, has made a recording by assigning different pitches to the different DNA sequences. From the snippets available, it sounds pretty good (especially for such a nasty little micro-organism). And it raises the question: With all of the recent controversy surrounding the patentability […]
Jefferson’s Moose and . . . Cricket?
Though faithful readers of the VC will realize that my fondest wishes will come true only when someone explains how my book (on Thomas Jefferson and the Internet) really explains the world of soccer, I’m pretty happy with the connections Samir Chopra draws, over at ESPN, with the world of cricket . . .
Strange California Law:
The Sacramento Bee reports that the founder and operator of NoteUtopia.com, a website functioning as a kind of eBay-like marketplace for (among other things) student class notes, has received a cease-and-desist letter from the Cal State U. Chancellor’s office, informing him that the website violates a state education code section that prohibits anyone from selling […]
Senator O’Donnell?
My guess is that the Tea Party’s great victory in Delaware — in nominating Christine O’Donnell for the Senate — will turn out to be a rather substantial disaster for the movement. There are some serious issues that the T.P. movement is raising — but O’Donnell’s candidacy merely feeds suspicions that the movement is fed […]
Video Games and the First Amendment:
As Eugene noted a while back here on the VC, he helped author (and I co-signed) an amicus brief in the case of Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n, to be heard by the Supreme Court this Term (oral argument set for Nov. 2), urging the Court to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s holding that the California […]
That Good Ol’ American Can-Do Spirit:
Here’s one of the more depressing news items I’ve come across in a while. I am fortunate enough to be able to spend a good deal of my time in the hills of southern Vermont and, as someone who uses inter-city train transportation a great deal (I also spend a lot of time commuting between […]
The High Cost of Copyright:
In my classes in IP law and copyright, I sometimes have difficulty conveying to students the “cost” side of the copyright regime. That is, though we often make reference to implementing the right copyright “balance” in our law, I think students (and others, for that matter) are often uncertain as to exactly what is being […]
Internet “Censorship,” part 2 — Google, Verizon, and Net Neutrality
[Update: AARGH. Mea culpa — I had been working on some documents regarding the VIACOM -Google lawsuit, and then I started work on this posting about the VERIZON-Google announcement about “net neutrality,” and so my initial posting erroneously talked all about the “Google-Viacom announcement,” as many of the commenters pointed out … My apologies for […]
Internet “Censorship,” part 1:
No, this is not about the Verizon-Google deal — I’ll be posting about that momentarily. This is a somewhat more mundane illustration of a different phenomenon (though one that is related, perhaps obliquely, to the issue of “net neutrality” at the heart of the Viacom-Google kerfuffle). It turns out — at least if this story […]
For the ‘Too Good To Be True’ File
So let me get this straight: according to the Las Vegas Sun, the Fab Four, a Beatles ‘tribute band’ [a lousy generic descriptor for bands like this, imho – how about ‘murder band’ instead], is suing the Fab 4, a different Beatles ‘tribute band,’ alleging that The Fab 4 is “essentially identical in sound and […]
Viacom v Youtube, and Why it Matters:
A while back, I posted my early reaction to the SDNY’s decision in the long-running Viacom lawsuit asserting secondary copyright infringement on the part of Youtube. Here’s what I said then: The case was/is enormously important — Youtube was asserting that it was immune under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (specifically, Sec. 512(c)) from copyright […]
Losing the Serial Comma Battle:
A random walk through yesterday’s NY Times pulled up the following: In a story about the Fox v. FCC decision from the Second Circuit, page B1: “The decision, which many constitutional scholars expect to be appealed to the Supreme Court, stems from a challenge by Fox, CBS and other broadcasters to the FCC’s decision in […]
Copyright (and, of course, soccer):
Looking for opportunities to segue from my recent obsession with all things soccer-related to the more mundane matters of copyright law that I usually focus on here on the VC, and lo and behold . . . . Two opportunities, actually: 1. For the “Content Owners, Knee Jerk Protection Responses Of” file: I found the […]
And, In the End . . .
The World Cup final (and the Dutch) are both taking well-deserved beatings in the blogosphere – it was not a very beautiful game to watch, thanks largely to the unrelentingly nasty play of the Dutch. Jonathan Wilson over on SI.com summarized it nicely: At least after an ugly, unpleasant game, the World Cup had the […]