Author Archive | David Post

Two interesting developments this past week in the ongoing transformation of copyright law and copyright principles on the Net. In Boston, BU grad student Joel Tenenbaum was found liable for willfully infringing copyright* by (admittedly) downloading copyrighted music (using KaZaa and other p2p file-sharing services) and reproducing and re-distributing the downloaded files. It’s only the […]

A few months ago I posted a comment on reports that the City of Philadelphia was disciplining several police officers who had allegedly made racially derogatory comments while driving around town in their squad car (accompanied by a journalism student from Temple, who made the comments public). It struck me then (and strikes me now) […]

July 4, 1776 – entry in Jefferson’s “Memorandum Book”: “Pd. Sparhawk for a thermometer 3/15” Somehow I’ve always loved that – that on the day Congress approves the revised version of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson heads into town to buy a thermometer. And regarding co-blogger Kenneth Anderson’s comments on Jefferson’s violin-playing musical tastes: one […]

Over on the Becker-Posner blog, Richard Posner is again contemplating the [bleak] future of the newspaper industry. The problem (as I, too, have blogged about in the recent past) is a serious one — if “the newspaper” as a business model fails (because of competition from the free content available on the Net), who will […]

Maira Kalman, over on the NY Times website, has put together a truly extraordinary piece (I’m not even sure what to call it — an essay with drawings? a pictorial thought-piece?) on Thomas Jefferson. Lovely and lyrical, and it captures something about the guy that’s difficult, sometimes, to capture in naked prose. Jefferson’s undergoing a […]

A truly historic day for US international sport, though I suspect that State-side it got a lot less play than it did over here in Roma (or elsewhere in the soccer-mad world): USA 2, Spain 0 in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup down in Bloemfoentein, South Africa. The Confederations Cup is not one of […]

The answer to the question that I know you’ve all been asking yourselves (i.e., “Where’s David Post, and why hasn’t he posted anything of late to the VC? — even just to pitch his book!) is: I’m teaching this summer at our Rome program, and between adjusting to a new (and very, very complicated city) […]

Take a look at this webpage, purporting to report on a posting of mine here on the VC. Here’s how it starts: David Post at the Volokh Conspiracy writes: Code

There

http://blip.tv/file/2121395/

Sunday’s New York Times brought us some thoughts on the crisis facing the newspaper industry from Frank Rich. He’s not, I admit, my favorite columnist, generally speaking – but it’s actually an interesting and thoughtful piece. The death of the newspaper may well be upon us – though as my friend Gigi Sohn helpfully reminds […]

I suspect that we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the Google Books settlement over the next several months. There will be several hearings about the fairness of the settlement terms in the Fall; the Supreme Court will be hearing the case of Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, which raises many of the thorny […]

It was, quite possibly, the most extraordinary moment in sport that I have ever experienced (and I’ve been around, and experienced [live or on live TV] some pretty fabulous moments – Mazeroski’s home run, Gibson’s home run, Fisk’s home run, Laettner’s buzzer-beater, that crazy shot Jordan hit to beat Utah, Dwight Clark’s catch, Franco Harris’s […]

So today’s Philadelphia Inquirer brings us this news: Five Philadelphia police officers were fired yesterday for alleged misconduct, including two incidents in which officers were accused of using racial slurs. Among them was William Thrasher, 24, who allegedly called African Americans in his 22d District “animals” and worse. Thrasher, who had been on the force […]

In an earlier post, I raised the question of whether a law student whose offer of employment at a law firm has been “deferred” might have a breach of contract claim against the firm. [Putting aside the question of whether they’d want to assert that claim or not] The general consensus of the commentators seemed […]