Over at Ed Cone's, Eugene Volokh discusses copyright considerations for bloggers: "Generally speaking, the issue under most such laws is the message, not the medium."

Sweet spot, Donna—Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society announces Blog@CIS:

CIS is now blogging on an even grander scale than before. After more than a year of the CIS Blog, we’ve unleashed Movable Type upon the center’s fellows and staff. Check out the new blogs from Stefan Bechtold, Mark Cooper, Lauren Gelman, Elizabeth Rader, Chris Sprigman, and Dan Wielsch

Dr. Bechtold's Link Controversy Page is an old favorite 'round these parts. Happy unleashing to all!

Little time, many links.

• Feast: John's Heart Attack On Bread
• Fascinating: TextAmerica, Today's Images
• Fotografia: Shelley Powers, on assignment
• Force: Playground Law, via Matt Round
• Farce: Mad Kane's parody interview with Donald Rumsfeld
• Fungible? The George Bush weblog; Dubya's Daily Diary
• Fashion: the most well designed pair of maternity jeans on the planet

Ed Poll writes LawBiz Management, in connection with his law business consulting firm ("LawBiz") in Venice, CA. Ed's posts examine a variety of business concerns of interest to lawyers, including billing, profitabilty, finance, and marketing:

The biggest Web question for small-firm lawyers today isn't whether to have a homepage - just about every lawyer who wants a place online has one by now - but rather how to evaluate whether that Web site is effective.

Ed "has practiced law for 25 years, was the CEO and COO of several manufacturing businesses and has been a consultant to small and large law firms for 15 years."

Howard came through with the answer to my question yesterday: may members of the general public now take notes while attending argument before the Supreme Court of the United States? Yes. "Supreme Court Groupies, Take Note!," Tony Mauro, 5/5/03:

The U.S. Supreme Court's hoary and inexplicable policy against note-taking by the public in the Court chamber — which Blackmun first complained about in 1988 — has been overturned.

Its demise came without fanfare and without public notice, but Court public information officer Kathy Arberg confirmed last week that sometime last November the policy against note-taking was "no longer enforced" by Court Police officers.

Mauro credits Ted Metzler of the Supreme Court Blog with the discovery, and cautions Supreme Court visitors to continue to watch where they put there elbows.

David C. Sarnacki and friends write Domestic Diversions:

Welcome to Domestic Diversions, a collaborative weblog based in Michigan and focused on relationships, families and family law. As we walk upon this new path, we hope to unfold petals which advance the mind, arouse the heart and amuse the spirit. We hope that a bit of our souls may meet along this path.

This new site is an eclectic mix of law, policy, family, poetry, and practical suggestions—fun and useful.

As always is the case with this annual event, The Italian American Lawyers Association dinner last night with the California Supreme Court was great fun. Some highlights:

• Though it may be some time yet before anyone Stealth Discos a sitting member of a high court, it was a treat to join our table companion Justice Moreno for a phonecam shot. (That's me left front, trying hard not to do Justice Moreno lasting injury with my unborn child.)
• Chief Justice Ron George took the opportunity to lay to rest once and for all the rumor that the reason none of the members of the Court ran for governor was their inability to garner support from 65 registered voters. It turns out the Justices are constitutionally prohibited from serving as governor during their term of office, even if they were to resign the post for the purpose. (Sounds like someone actually researched this, hmm?)
• The recently released California plain-English jury instructions are in the public domain (although the "official publisher" is LexisNexis).
• The Court periodically is hearing argument in locations other than San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, and broadcasting these sessions through an outreach program with local high schools. (Example: Fresno.)
• A good tiramisu was had by all.

Tony Mauro's Legal Times article of today's date ("Oral Arguments Commence at U.S. Supreme Court") describes how digital recording and electronic briefs are being incorporated into the daily business of the Supreme Court of the United States:

Before the session began Tuesday, technicians were testing the Court's sound system, which for the first time is making digital recordings of Court arguments — in addition to the reel-to-reel tapes used for the last 48 years. The test of digital recording is meant as a backup to the traditional system, which has produced low-quality recordings on occasion in recent years.

"It's a small step but an important one," says Northwestern University political science professor Jerry Goldman, who first noticed the deterioration in sound quality and urged the Court to try digital taping. If the experiment is successful, Goldman, whose Oyez Project Web site carries audio of past Supreme Court arguments, believes the digital recordings will be much easier to work with and could be more quickly accessible to the public.

The other development — this one on the Court's Web site — will make available to the public the merits briefs in cases scheduled for oral argument. The Court still requires parties to file printed briefs, but also asks them or their printers to file them electronically as well. The electronic versions are being made available at www.supremecourtus.gov through a link to the American Bar Association's publication Preview, which provides summaries and material on upcoming high court cases.

"It's a cool public service, and we're glad to be able to offer it," says Preview editor Charles Williams.

(Links added; too many.) Speaking of progress, if memory serves I believe (?) Eugene Volokh mentioned during the Weblogs and Law discussion last Sunday that the restriction on note-taking by public attendees at Supreme Court arguments has been lifted. Can anyone confirm and/or provide more information?

I was excited to hear (thanks Genie, thanks Dave) that MIT's Technology Review now has a weblog, featuring some of its excellent regular columnists as contributors. Fast Company and Ms. took the plunge earlier this year. By now you're already well aware of the kick Elizabeth Spiers has given New York Magazine, and let's not forget Doc's own Linux Journal.

"Turns out the Internet is a spectacular means of selling subscriptions," says Jeff Jarvis in his very worthwhile interview with Chris Lydon. This makes perfect sense to me. Another dead-on observation from Jeff: "The nichification of America that started with the remote control and the VCR now explodes." (And by no means does it stop with America, as the interview's account of Iranian weblogging momentum goes on to illustrate.)

A speedy recovery and heartfelt good wishes to Chuck Hartley, who has just started treatment for prostate cancer.

Dinner this evening with the Italian American Lawyers Association—not to be confused with the Half Norwegian (on the Mother's Side) American Bar Association (though there is some overlap)—and the Justices of the California Supreme Court.

Dave Fishel is a Washington DC lawyer who writes Braced for Impact [via Ernie Svenson], and has a refreshing perspective not heard all that often in the legal field: "Organizations on the cutting edge shouldn't be using too many tools that are actually out of beta.... connect, connect, connect." Dave's also lending a hand with PDF For Lawyers.

That's how many numbers are in the national Do Not Call registry already, which the 10th Circuit has given the go-ahead for enforcement while its constitutionality is further scrutinized. More at How Appealing; the Los Angeles Times.

Some interesting particulars: As the 10th Circuit's order (PDF) points out (p. 17), since 1995 the Telemarketing Sales Rule has "prohibited telemarketers from making sales calls to persons who had previously stated their desire not to receive such calls from that solicitor." 60 Fed. Reg. 43842, 43854-55. This rule applies to a business "organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members." Id. at 43843 n.14. Moreover, as the order also observes, under the 2003 legislation authorizing the national Do Not Call registry "consumers are also given some mechanism to block non-commercial solicitations by means of company-specific objections to solicitations by charitable organizations." (Order, p. 22; emphasis added)

It should go without saying, but don't let telemarketers snow you. Even if they are exempt from compliance with the national Do Not Call registry, and/or the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see Private Citizen's description of its exceptions, or, as they put it, "loopholes that telemarketers can drive a boiler-room through"), they still may have to stop calling if you ask—nicely or not.

Kevin Heller has news of the $20 million jury verdict in the Lowry's Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason, Inc. case:

Redistributing a financial newsletter could cost Legg Mason approximately $20 million — $800,000 in contract damages and about $19 million in copyright damages. That's how much a federal jury in Baltimore decided the money manager should pay for buying a single subscript.

[MSN Money via today's brief]

More background in my August 11 and August 19 posts.

Thank goodness I finally was able to take some time out this afternoon for lunch and Howard Bashman's interview (on How Appealing; on 20 Questions) with Judge Stanley F. Birch of the Eleventh Circuit. This may be my all-time favorite of Howard's 20 Questions series to date. These would be fantastic in audio...

Some highlights:

On Treating The Judicial Branch Like An Agency

When I began this job our twelve active judges faced case filings totaling about 4,475. Now, the same twelve active judges (and several fine senior judges) must resolve over 7,000 cases. We are all very tired. Many of us are also frustrated with the manner in which we are treated by Congress — both as to our cost-of-living increases (few) and the budget of the Third Branch of government. More than a few in Congress appear to view us as another administrative agency. Our entire budget is less than that of the Justice Department. But then, nobody promised us a rose garden.

Eerily familiar. Too often do I also hear this lament from members of the state judiciary. It's a dangerous trend. There are three branches of government for good reason.

On Copyright

In our society of free men (and women) and free markets, the necessity for informed citizens and consumers is essential. Uninhibited access to information and the ability to process it, critically, is central to our way of life — politically and economically. But therein lies the problem, the marketing monopoly that inheres in copyright represents a conflict between two fundamental tenets of American society: free speech (and the concomitant right to hear it) and free enterprise. With the advent of the transmission copyright and the technological age of communication and learning, we are called upon to reconcile, balance and harmonize these forces in a manner true to our history and enriching to our future.

On Eldred

With regard to Eldred v. Ashcroft, had I been on the Court, I would have been a respectful dissenter (if I could not have persuaded my colleagues to follow the correct path as Justice Breyer gallantly attempted to do).

[...]

Is a Constitution for all the people or only the privileged few?

Enough teasers, there is much, much more, get over there and read the whole thing.

Government Computer News: "What's RSS? And should agencies syndicate their data?"

Bob Ambrogi, "So, OK Chris, put me down as a 10:"

Blogs are more the Web than the Web ever was before. I shoot out a strand to connect to that blog on law and then to that blog on journalism and then to that blog on tech. And some of those blogs shoot strands back at me. And others I didn't even know about shoot strands at me. And pretty soon we have this simple but enormously intricate web of interconnection, pulled together not by any single interest in a single topic, but by our many overlapping interests in dozens of topics. Blogging emphasizes who we are, not what we are or where we work or where we live. It is a new form of communicating and connecting and, for that reason alone, it is revolutionary.

Well put.

Jeneane Sessum's dogs sleep with the fishes, while Hanan Levin finds Nemo in a likely spot (scroll to 9/27/03).

First year law student laloca writes Baggage Carousel 4 [via Catherine Berlin]. Her thought provoking post from September 29 considers "the right to bear... children?" and the fertility effects of DES.

Jon Healey previews the re-release of Napster, scheduled for Thursday, and a proposal due out tomorrow from the Distributed Computing Industry Association designed to pay the music industry for works shared over P2P networks. ("New Napster to Play by Music Industry's Rules")

Jube Shiver Jr. analyzes the 9th Circuit's decision yesterday in Brand X Internet Services v. FCC (PDF), which struck down FCC rules preventing other Internet service providers from selling high speed access over cable networks. ("ISPs to Get a Crack at Cable Broadband")

Bicoastal perspectives on the Golden State:

• Nick Denton: "Some territorial units are just not meant to be."
• Bill Maher: "We're home to Disney and Hustler, the Partridge Family and the Manson Family. [laughter] We can drink a Mudslide and a Sex on the Beach during an actual mudslide while having sex on the beach!" ([Update]: I know; unsexy.)

Why are there user fees for PACER?

In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.

[Link added, from the FAQ for Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the case and docket information retrieval service for Federal Appellate, District, and Bankruptcy courts.] At $.60 per minute OR $.07 per page, I wonder if the PACER system loses money, breaks even, or turns a profit? (I'm sure this information is available somewhere...?) Regardless, I'm guessing that because a system is in place at the Federal level—even if it may not be the least cumbersome and/or least expensive available given current technology—state courts may wind up leading the way in the use of RSS as a streamlined information distribution format. Rory Perry (Clerk of the Court, Supreme Court of Appeals for West Virginia) has been at the vanguard of movements in this direction, and now offers an early draft of a resource page for courts on weblogs and syndication. [Via Ernie Svenson] Bravo Rory, I'm pointing friends in the California court system your way.

(Note too that according to Rory's sidebar, as of 10/03/03 the top Google result for courts public access is the PACER Service Center Home Page.)

With everyone in the US singularly obsessed with baseball at the moment, a reminder seems in order that Canada has the legitimate action this month. The Rock Paper Scissors 2003 International Championships will go down on October 25 in Koolhaus, Toronto. About 1,000 of the world's best players, including athletes from the UK, six US states, and Canada, will compete for $5,000.00 (CDN) and the coveted RPS Champion of the World title (2nd place $1,500.00, 3rd $500.00). Video clips available at the site provide a preview of the drama to come. It's not too late to take a run at the title; rules and strategies are available here.

Greg Siskind writes the Visalaw Blog [via Rick Klau]:

I reminded Rick that I actually had set up a blog back in May 1998 before there was even a term "blog." In that year, we set up an "online diary" to keep readers apprised of legislative developments surrounding the H-1B cap. The page was extremely popular and in one day alone received more than 50,000 hits. If you're interested in seeing that page, go to the Wayback Machine and see our site as it looked in December 1998. The link is at http://web.archive.org/web/19980612151807/www.visalaw.com/h1b.html. According to Rick, our online diary would make us the very first law firm to use a blog.

We've decided to revive that online diary and this time use Google's Blogger software to get started. We hope that this service is useful and that readers will send us suggestions regularly on what to include on the page.

To the best of my knowledge this swells the ranks of blogs devoted to immigration law to two, with Randy Tunac's Manifest Border also covering related issues.

That was a subheading in an article about law blogging I wrote what seems like millenia ago now, and a recurrent theme in today's Weblogs and Law discussion at BloggerCon. Dan Gillmor: "The more you guys demystify what you do, the better." The session was excellent, covering all the key topics: copyright and fair use, first amendment protections, on the record and off the record treatment of oral and written material, how copyright principles may have to adapt to a world where everyone can simultaneously and instantaneously publish, privacy and right of publicity issues, and the role of blogs as communication/marketing tools (order intentional) on the commercial side of the law. The session ended with a discussion right in line with Boalt Hall Interim Dean Bob Berring's talk earlier this week about the future of legal research, and prior writings about technology and The New Blackstone.

Pics of Eugene and Doc are in the Carry-On (and include gratuitous shots of my Dock [via Jason Kottke]).

When I mentioned to Hanan Levin that BH apparently has been trampolining off my spleen and pancreas, he of course had just the link:

"Trapped Bear Springs Off Trampoline To Safety"

As of this week the baby has a doctor, so I'm feeling slightly less troubled that having a room still is a ways off. Dr. A. turned out to be a pleasant young South African-Israeli, whose waiting room was packed with a great variety of moms and dads to be, including a couple expecting through a surrogate. I found the whole process of baby doctor selection and designation eye opening. This is how it works (here, and I'm assuming elsewhere): as long as your baby will be born at a hospital in your baby doctor's "jurisdiction," it turns out all you need to know at zero-hour is the doc's name. He or she doesn't need advance notice, or a call from you when labor starts, because the pediatricians patrol the maternity ward regularly looking for the new babies to whom they've been assigned. It's a never ending draft of rookie recruits, with choose-ups happening each morning in the nursery.

Christophe Courchesne is a member of the 3L class and Board of Student Advisors at Harvard Law School. Christophe is attending BloggerCon at the suggestion of his professors John Palfrey and Charles Nesson, and mentions that the Digital Democracy class at Harvard Law will discuss blogging during next week's session, Smart Mobs, Weblogs, Hacktivism: Social and Political Implications of Decentralized Networks, featuring guest Joi Ito.

Christophe has several good comments and observations from BloggerCon, including:

• A comment raised in the education context is that making blogs a fundamental part of education will potentially contribute to dilution of writing's power by eliminating intermediary filters?
• The education forum had a tremendous optimism about the use of blogs in education. As a law review editor and a legal writing teacher, I have tremendous doubt about the editorial quality of work that is published "unedited" (including my own). This presents some tension between the Internet prophecies about the wired democratized future and the values of discipline as to writing skills and "thinking carefully before one speaks."
• Do students who blog develop more finely tuned skills of listening or just a highly developed ability to mouth off within a sophisticated zone of self-publishing?

I don't think these questions can be answered in terms of absolutes. I see weblogs as more of an aid than a threat to edited/quality writing; they make it easier than ever to disseminate. They also can motivate editorial compression in the interest of time (or impulsiveness), and this may may mean an increase in the sum total of unedited or lightly edited writing. My take is the two varieties can peacefully co-exist, both have unique usefulness and value, and good, well considered, well edited writing will continue to distinguish itself from the pack.

BloggerCon is webcasting from two rooms today, including the one where Jeff Jarvis just welcomed attendees to a session on Weblogs and Presidential Politics, joined by panelists Dan Gillmor and Ed Cone. The next session to be webcast from this room will be the Weblogs and Law discussion, led by Eugene Volokh (1:30 - 3:00 Eastern).