Mom found this. Air and hotel for the family stay at Disneyland, 1973. I think I still have an E Ticket somewhere, which then only related to air travel in the Flying Saucer sense.

Busy in these parts. Back atcha soon.

Declan McCullagh; Howard Bashman; GrepLaw; Stan Morris [via GigaLaw]; Jason Hoppin [via The Recorder and Law.com].

"Troll Reversal" [via Law.com], discussing a Third Circuit decision to lift an injunction on the sale of plastic, smiling, pot bellied, neon haired trolls. The appellate court found the trolls could be derivative works entitled to a mandatory license, and faulted the lower court for generalizing about the trolls covered by the injunction, which never were subjected to an "exacting comparison" with the Danish copyrighted trolls (book your seats early for that day in court).

Jeneane is right that Christopher Locke's interview on today's Marketplace Morning Report is a nine minute adreneline rush, particularly his musings about growing up saturated by globally connected, seamless electronic publishing. (See also, tangentially, the outline and slides from Dave Winer's presentation at eTech.) I need to trade in the economy model brain for the roomy, luxury ride (complete with on-board blogging, of course) to fully grasp that one.

With all the blogging going on, deciding who gets a conference press pass must be getting tougher. -Later, Doc:

"Aside: I got an email today from another conference where no visitors are granted permission to report on what's said there. They want me to sign an NDA before I even show up. Pretty self-limiting, no?"

Particularly given these things aren't cheap, yet thanks to the real-time coverage I bet O'Reilly's already hammered with registration requests for the next one.

Proud to say my firm is committed to this. [via Law.com]

In the "looks awful, but must feel great" category.

Which is about how much time I'd like to spend with all the links and concepts scrolling down Doc's blog today as he writes from eTech. Hoo-wee! Must come back to this.

In honor of today's cinematic festivities, more proof that micromarkets are alive and astoundingly well: The R2-D2 Builder's Club (who needs ILM?), and Star Wars Chicks, where you can pick up a recipe for Kenobi Cutlets if you seem to have misplaced yours. [Via The Screen Savers] Also, it seems that people are spending more than 500 million hours on average per week in their vehicles (my own commute artificially inflates the number), so look for cars to offer hands-free blogging any day now, and check out Dr. Will Fitzgerald's Digital Car Journal. (On hiatus? Say it ain't so.) -[Later: "The wireless manufacturers will be the deliverers, and the automakers will be the enablers, based on the irrefutable view that the cell phone is king." Andrew Cole at Telematics Detroit 2002, via c | net News.com.] Finally, a bout of uncharacteristic insomnia had me watching Carson Daly's late-night show on NBC (Last Call). Good music goes well with the wee hours, and Ben Harper makes that slide guitar wail.

...until the Copyright Office decides whether or not to accept the rate structure recommended by CARP.

ReplayTV users: best stock up on your favorite shows now, 'cause after June 3 you may have company. [Via FindLaw, c | net News.Com]

Rick, you give great RSS. I was willing to stay the course, but that line about "travel" and "my Radio's not always on" - well, you were obviously trying to let me down easy. So I've started seeing other people (Julian at VoidStar, and I'm holding out for Ev if he thinks he can handle it after eTech). But hey, stick around, the more the merrier. Off to browse here to see about a little "take" to go with the "give." (Your suggestions are appreciated. Think OS X.)

FindLaw has a Flash game. Westlaw has wireless. [Via Jaclyn Easton, Going Wireless]

Uh huh, and I love it too. I believe some wise folks may even have written books about it. Speaking of which, I keep meaning to mention how important I think it is that legal professionals spend some quality time with Dr. Weinberger's book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined. When Cluetrain came out, and then Gonzo Marketing, I gave copies out like candy ("Trick or Treat!") so that we in the legal field could start to think about more effective ways of communicating with each other and the people who foot the bill for what we do. I'm doing the same now with Small Pieces for a different reason, one I mentioned in a more light-hearted vein earlier: we're the ones with all the litigation. As lawyers and courts shepherd more and more Internet-centric disputes through our darned-fine-but-less-than-perfect legal system, they will find their jobs made easier - and the quality of the emerging law improved - if they are informed by what Dr. Weinberger calls the "pineal" nature of the Web: a creation that is at no level pure technology, but instead is pervaded with "human intelligence - and more - down to its smallest building blocks." (p. 161) When disputes are viewed through the lens Dr. Weinberger supplies, the task of balancing equities toward a just and workable result is given a turbo-charged boost.

Declan McCullagh has a piece today in Wired News about a dispute between Rodale Press (Runners World) and LetsRun.com, concerning a link to a "printer-friendly" version of an online article. [Via Politech] Note that the initial cease and desist letter reported by LetsRun.com (May 10) characterizes LetsRun's conduct as a republishing of the article, "verbatim, without permission," and that the follow up letter (May 13) instead focuses on the hyperlink. (First time I've seen the print journalism term "below the fold" applied to a Web site. Now, does that mean you have to scroll down the initially viewable screen to get there? In what browser/OS? At what screen resolution?) I'm assuming Arnold Kling, Ernie and perhaps Central District CA Judge Hupp may be with me on this one: Caveat Web Publisher. It's hard to see where a bare hyperlink is "copying." If you set up a Web site with hyperlinks which bypass or avoid advertising, and which are viewable in a browser address bar, a mouse-over or otherwise are offered up by your very own site, you have little basis for surprise or outrage if they get used. If you are concerned about this, and are unwilling to rely on the etiquette of other sites (see below), then don't set up your site this way. (Apart from the missed advertising free sites may seek to avoid, subscription-only, paid sites should pay attention to whether they are providing links that let visitors navigate past the toll booth.) Sadly, none of Judge Hupp's comments in the Tickets.com v. Ticketmaster case made their way into a published opinion that would be citeable as precedent (he denied a request for preliminary injunction, more in my article here), and even if they had, district court opinions do not constitute terribly persuasive authority in other jurisdictions. Here's Declan's follow-up on Politech with comments from OSDN Editor in Chief Robin Miller, about the policy of Slashdot and other OSDN sites to "link to ad-laden pages on commercial sites instead of directly to images or to pages that do not allow their publishers some benefit from our link to them," as a matter of good netiquette and mutually beneficial practices, rather than one of legal stricture. And, here's some of the "lively response" Declan's article mentions from LetsRun.com, who says "[W]e Have No Legal Team," and that its accuser's site made use of some of its material: "We want to thank your lawyers for letting us know about this great potential revenue source. We were struggling to make ends meet, train for the 2004 Olympics full-time, and operate LetsRun.com all at the same time. Thankfully your magazine, a major force in the running community, has come to our rescue. We will definitely give you praise if we make the 2004 Olympic team. Thank you for your support." [Via LetsRun.com] (Before jumping in with an "aha, I told you so," remember this is a little different from a lawyer writing with the Internet as a forum for public opinion in mind.)

Howard's having fun on his blog, and so are we (possibly the world's first transition between Supreme Court jurisprudence and the "Ghost World" soundtrack). Good stuff over there.

Ah, the pitter pat of little summer associate feet. Or, in Christopher's case, more like a stampede.

Howard Bashman's comprehensive article today in The Legal Intellegencer discusses how technology is making it easier for lawyers and courts to manage appeals. (He's right on target, a sufficiently loaded laptop lets an appellate lawyer or judge do his or her thing anywhere - have transcripts, law library and briefs, will travel. And lawyers and courts keep working to streamline old processes with new tech - see generally Rory and Rick.) Jaclyn Easton likewise describes, among other things, how wireless connectivity is poised to solve an age-old dilemma for the profession - making sure each and every billable moment of our time is duly captured. In other words, it's hard to get around the fact the tech world just keeps on giving and giving to the legal one . . . psst, McFly? We're the ones with all the litigation. (If it's any consolation - and I don't know why it should be - we appellate types don't actually help sue anyone, just do our best to sort things out later.)

"When is a link a copy, and when is it just a link?" [Testing the Links, Could Legal Challenges Limit Internet Linking?, at ABCNews] [via llrx] "Instead of designing its own site to work around the Web's deep linking feature, the Dallas Morning News sent out its lawyers to force everyone else with a Web page to change their behavior." [Deep Links? Yay!, at TCS Tech Central Station] [via Glenn Reynolds] "Let's say that my site becomes popular and attracts many viewers who used to use the [New York Times] site's own, advertising-filled, table of contents. My parasite has now deprived the Times of advertising revenue." [Deep Links? No Way!, at TCS Tech Central Station] [via Glenn Reynolds]

Part II of Eliot Van Buskirk's interview with Rep. Rick Boucher is available for your reading and downloading pleasure.

Jaron Lanier has wondered whether we should take stock of our current notions of privacy in favor of a more stable society:

"I can see a few rays of hope that dimly illuminate how a society might be pleasant and still protect itself from violent/suicidal cults. Instead of surveillance, a high degree of transparency might protect us from evil. An American supreme court justice famously proclaimed that 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.' While this trope originally concerned censorship, it could just as easily be applied to the balance between privacy and security. The Dutch came upon a version of this. Theirs is a dense society of intense interdependence, and in it one does not close one's curtains. Perhaps we should make all our emails and phone calls freely available to anyone who is interested. Almost no one will be. Once revealed, our fascination with the private lives of other people will be so minimal that our boredom could form the basis of a stable social order."

It strikes me that the proliferation of weblogs fits into this picture somewhere as well. While I cling just as fiercely to my right to keep certain information within the confines of my household as the next red-blooded, that's-what-we-started-this-country-for independent citizen, I can see where Lanier has a point and a vision - one that might go beyond social stability to the developing (and highly centralizing) arenas of knowledge management and wireless communications. As Scott McNealy famously observed, the "jini" may already be so far out of the bottle that we might as well learn to stop worrying and love the Bomb. ("You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.") If you get Tech TV, keep an eye out for Lanier's interview on Big Thinkers - living on in reruns, and worth a look.

Excellent weblog journalism going on courtesy of Dave Winer over here. As Dave points out, "Look what happened to RealNames when their only partnership was with Microsoft. Caveat developer." Interesting that Keith Teare writes one of the reasons Microsoft gave for not renewing its contract with RealNames was, "We do not believe in 'Naming,' we believe in search," and, "Some of us believe search results are a better experience than navigation through naming." Quite apart from the question of Microsoft's motives, in my view the naming versus search approach does have some real problems if you're going to let registrants tie up generic identifiers like "web expert." -Later, more re RealNames:

The Washington Post Slashdot and Newsbytes [via Bret Fausett] ICANNWatch