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Saturday, February 08, 2003

Actual Malice

There's a great new first amendment and media law blog by New York attorney John Maltbie, appropriately titled Actual Malice. John is a friend of Kevin's, who provides some key background. ;-) (That sound you're hearing is the clickety-clack of the little marbles rolling around in the brains of several law students who are, for the first time, becoming clear on what to do with their degree.) [Update: oops, John is a John, not a Kevin, as previously posted.]

posted by Denise at 8:08 AM
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Friday, February 07, 2003

Adverse Possession

Two Texans have been indicted for stealing shuttle debris, and face penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment and $250,000. (Coverage at The New York Times, CollectSPACE.) FindLaw has the paperwork (Hipp; Gaudet). To check in on the "who owns the debris?" debate, see Politech (here and here), Howard Bashman Ernie Svenson, Michael Wasylik and Jeneane Sessum (here and here).

posted by Denise at 5:12 PM
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Unorthodox

Fishrush: "Imagination without proper legal representation is dangerous." (Much more imaginatively presented over there, I assure you.)

posted by Denise at 1:54 PM
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Thursday, February 06, 2003

FindLaw's New Look

So, FindLaw has updated its homepage. (I just keep wondering where it's registered.)

posted by Denise at 6:29 PM
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Tell 'Em What They've Won

Amanda Butler and a bevy of Baudes appear to have put The Blawg Ring over the 100 mark. (And there was much rejoicing.) And Naked Ownership serves up Louisiana law (and crawfish?), as previously noted by Ernie.

posted by Denise at 5:35 PM
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Great Minds

This (Desire: Connecting With What Customers Want, Fast Company, Feb. '03) suggests Bill Breen has read The Support Economy, but I don't think the authors meant to imply that Oprah is the finish line...

posted by Denise at 11:20 AM
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Remote Control

From Law.com (The National Law Journal): Web-Enabled ADR and Extranets Serve Client Needs. From the above article: elawyering, the ABA's portal and "catalyst for lawyers to adapt and flourish in the new technology-driven economic order." (Ok, so the jargon is a trifle grandiose, but you might find a useful resource there or two.)

posted by Denise at 9:32 AM
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Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Fun With Licensing; Invoking The LazyBlawg

This exchange involving Phil Ringalda, Hylton Jolliffe, Donna Wentworth and the Corante Terms of Use page is an entertaining and elegant example of noting, fixing and moving right along. Donna's post also reminded me, by pointing to Shelley Powers (please see her post here and its links, trackbacks and comments), that there's a need/demand for an IP blawger to write an article or a post with a "Licensing 101" theme aimed at Web material in general and weblogs in particular. An overview of the relative risks and benefits of front-end licensing would go a long way toward helping people evaluate whether Creative Commons or one of its precursor "just add water" solutions (e.g., those rounded up once upon a time by our friends at Berkman) would work for them, whether they might wish to consult with an actual lawyer about their licensing concerns (hopefully not as painful as it sounds), or perhaps, for them, "licensing-schmeisensing, long live the circle-c ©." I'd do it, but I just have too much on my plate in the immediate near term. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to write a topical piece that any number of, y'know, actual publishers might be interested in, or to do what your blog does so well and forego the middle-person. (Need a research starting point? Try Aaron Swartz's License Haiku...actually, here are a couple of more serious links that just sort of highlight the need for a current and focused exploration of the topic. If you know of or have the time to track down other potentially pertinent analyses, now would be a good time to LazyBlawg them.) This also gives me a chance to say "hey!" to Rick Klau's friend Eric Heels (who recently has drunk the weblog Kool-Aid and is wondering what happens next; this is what happens next), and note that his newly bloggified and eye-catchingly-domained site ("beaver law" can be really intriguing) has an article about copyright and self-publishing: How to Write, Copyright and Publish Your Own Book. However, the article is oriented toward, as titled, a book and not a myriad of Web-based material, and it doesn't tackle the uses, benefits and/or potential drawbacks of front-end licensing. O magic LazyBlawg, you are hereby invok-ed.

posted by Denise at 2:35 PM
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Ladies And Gentlemen, Start Your TiVos

You might not want to miss today's episode of The Screen Savers, which will feature author and blogger William Gibson and, as if that weren't enough, promised TiVo tweaks. By the way, select - play - select - 3 - 0 - select still works to convert the >> button into a 30-second skip, but you may have to reprogram this after the software has updated. Om Malik explains at Red Herring why he thinks TiVo is ubiquitizing itself out of existence, but I'm guessing his guesses about an AOL Time Warner acquisition were written before this news broke.

posted by Denise at 10:08 AM
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Antidotal

In a considerably lighter vein than Colin Powell before the U.N., pay a visit to The Academy, authored by several recent law grads who surface periodically from their "regularly scheduled billings" to give each other rafts of grief, note questionable (and hilarious) jurisprudential linguistic choices, and discuss the finer points of rubber bath mat design. Loving this. [via The Blawg Ring]

posted by Denise at 8:32 AM
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Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Undoing A Judgment, Without A Retrial

My RSCH appellate group colleagues Jim Martin and Ben Shatz have the cover story (PDF) in this month's Los Angeles Lawyer magazine (PDF of issue here), discussing stipulated reversals on appeal of judgments entered by trial courts. This is something parties might wish to do, for example, as part of a settlement reached during an appeal, but decisions and legislative changes in recent years have made the process more complicated. The article provides context and guidelines pertinent to obtaining such a reversal under California law.

posted by Denise at 1:36 PM
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Rosie Predictions for BLAWGISTAN

Sandra Rosenzweig writes what traditionally is my first stop in reviewing the California Lawyer magazine: the monthly round up of "Technicalities." Sandra's columns ("Rosie's Ramblings"), reviews and tips are invaluable to a modern law practice. Blawgs have been on Sandra's radar since at least last summer (see her August and October pieces), and this month she really goes to town on the subject:
I just heard someone predict, in public to a paying audience, that blogging is this year's killer app. That may be, oh, the 34th time I've heard that prognostication, and all I can say is, "This year's?" Where has this guy been for the last few years?
As Sandra explains, she has been trying different blogging tools and writing her own Rosie's Ramblings blog, where she's enjoying the flexibility a blog can provide a professional journalist: "[I]t's rather fun to fiddle with the design of my (mine, all mine) page and offer stuff that I'd never find room for in the hard copy of CALIFORNIA LAWYER." Her column this month highlights the powerful knowledge sharing aspects of this medium, and the convenience of having "your research, resources and collaborations" reside always at your fingertips, on the Web. Wait'll she hears about Blawgistan and the forthcoming BlawgCafe. Whoa, Rosie!

posted by Denise at 12:22 PM
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Taking Legal Information "To RSS"

Michael, Ernie and Rory have a good discussion underway on uses of RSS in the legal field. I second (third and fourth) Rory's point about docket information, as I mentioned to Howard recently in response to his call for input on an article about appellate court Web sites.

posted by Denise at 8:59 AM
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Using The Source

In a talk last October about digital identity issues, Doc Searls spoke of the need for something to "catch fire" at the open source level. As I paraphrased him from the audience, "Identity infrastructure will be built around sovereign, individual IDs." "Once we empower the customer to come to companies with more ways to relate, we will have the ID structure we want." See also Andre Durand's Three Tiers of Identity: Tier 1 is Personal Identity, "both timeless & unconditional...your true personal digital identity...owned and controlled entirely by you, for your sole benefit." Doc thinks "a killer T1 'Mydentity' app" still is needed, and Andre thinks it won't fully develop until "companies begin to rely upon the integrity of the T1(maintained by the individual)." As a step in this direction, and a spark to the fire discussed by Doc, Andre and friends are piloting Source ID, which seeks, through open source discussion, experimentation and development, to "enable quality assured and privacy enabling identity interchange between businesses and consumers." It's good to know these efforts are being undertaken by folks who seem to appreciate the critical role of a robust, secure, private and individually controlled "Tier 1." (Still skeptical? It's tough to quibble with the priorities of an outfit that occupies space on Chris Pirillo's chest...)

posted by Denise at 8:30 AM
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$50,000 In Your Trash Folder

California Senator Deborah Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) has introduced legislation intended to put more bite in the state's anti-spam laws. Included in SB 12:
This bill would authorize the recipient of a commercial e-mail advertisement transmitted in violation of any of these provisions to bring an action to recover the greater of actual damages or $500 per individual violation, and reasonable costs and attorney's fees. The bill would authorize the court to increase the award to up to triple this amount if the violation was willful or knowing.
Says Senator Bowen, "Contrary to the wisdom of Monty Python, not all kinds of spam go good with eggs." The bill seeks to govern unsolicited commercial email advertisements sent from California or to a California email address. Want to help? Take Senator Bowen's spam survey.

posted by Denise at 6:46 AM
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Monday, February 03, 2003

Shedding Water

Blawger Chuck Hartley might just be this year's Blogwhore. Don't worry, that's a good thing, as Chuck puts it, "one of the true watershed events in the evolution of blogging." You can see his game posts to date here, and follow the game here. Much luck, Chuck and Pongo!

posted by Denise at 3:38 PM
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Out Shouts

Apologies for the slow start this week. I never expected to see two space shuttles and their crews go up like roman candles in my lifetime. It has lowered a pall on my enthusiasm, as well as the knowledge that anything much I might say at the moment is terribly trivial. But the blawgs do go on, and there are a number of things worth mentioning on that front. The Blawg Ring should usher in its hundredth member any time now. Seems like we should be able to come up with some sort of appropriate commemoration for the lucky blawger... In the meantime, be sure to acquaint yourself with Berkman affiliate Derek Slater, who writes A Copyfighter's Musings. Speaking of Berkman, I've been much too tardy in welcoming Donna's and Dave's boss, John Palfrey, to the festivities. Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz, Professor of German and European Law at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo writes the Lenz Blog, and has a number of recent posts with an IP focus. [via Blawg.org, to which Bag and Baggage says "Thanks!" for being noted as this week's "featured feed."] In other blawgy news, Bob Ambrogi highlights legal weblogs in his January column (Lawyers As Pundits, By Way of the Web), and the George Mason University School of Law has included several of your favorite blawgers in its class outline for Internet Research (via Howard). Finally, lots of gratitude, good feelings and therapeutic referrals to all who have dropped by Bag and Baggage since February 13, 2002, when I added the Site Meter; at some point this weekend, the blog had its 100,000th page view.

posted by Denise at 3:04 PM
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That Was Quick

Shuttle debris on eBay. It's a strange world. [via The Washington Post, Wired News, c | net News.com and ILN]

posted by Denise at 9:15 AM
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