LibertyVoice

Even happily employed people give the ‘positions vacant’ columns an idle scan every now again. But what if a job unexpectedly came up that seemed tailored to your very skill set, involving work you could do standing on your head? If the pay and conditions were good, would you consider it? Maybe. But what if that meant ‘sleeping with the enemy’? Could you become an MPAA file-sharing investigator?

Source: Sleeping With The Enemy: Working For The Pirate Hunters

Today the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in the case of Vernor v. Autodesk [PDF], making an important ruling about copyright, software and the first sale doctrine. At a fundamental level, however, one could wonder whether the case is all that big a deal, since the first sale doctrine concerns rights that the owner of [...]

Mashable has this little story and video of a couple in Japan getting married in a ceremony performed by a robot. Looks like it went off without a hitch. But it’s an interesting harbinger of some of the legal questions that will arise as intelligence based on nonbiological substrates gets more human-like. Is a marriage [...]

Recording today’s episode of This Week in Law was super fun. I enjoyed the conversation with Denise Howell, Carolyn Wright and Merlin Mann. Neato discussion about copyright, Twitter, Creative Commons and other awesome stuff. And you can even hear Denise rap at about the 47 minute mark. Here’s the video:

Watch past episodes of TWiL over [...]

Salu, Inc. v. Original Skin Store, Slip Copy, 2010 WL 1444617 (E.D.Cal. April 12, 2010)
This is kind of a wonky trademark/domain name case. So if that’s not in your wheelhouse, don’t strain yourself.
Plaintiff sued defendant for infringement of plaintiff’s registered trademark. Defendant moved for summary judgment, claiming that the asserted trademark registration was obtained [...]

And you should have heard what the judge said in open court!
Lipps v. Lipps, 2010 Ark. App. 295, 2010 WL 1379803 (Ark. App. April 7, 2010). [Read the opinion]
This is one of those cases that’d do well as a movie on Lifetime Television for Women. Unlike other cases I talk about on this blog, this [...]

Image via Wikipedia

Supreme Court overturns Second Circuit, holding that a copyright plaintiff’s failure to register the work before filing suit does not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction.
Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, Slip. Op., 559 U.S. ___ (March 2, 2010) [View opinion here]
“Subject matter jurisdiction” refers to a court’s power to hear the matter [...]

The Legal Service Corporation (LSC) was established by Congress in 1974 to secure equal access to justice by providing civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. Today, LSC helps fund nearly 140 legal aid programs across the country in their efforts to represent the poor on a number of vital issues such as combating predatory lenders, [...]

(Also posted on Huffington Post)
According to news reports, the Obama administration will decide by November 16 whether or not to move the cases of the 9/11 defendants from the Guantánamo military commissions system to U.S. federal courts. It should make this important move and put an end to a shameful era in American history.
I am [...]