LibertyVoice

Freedom and internet

Opening Government Data: Federal Register Goes XML

Great news today on the open-access (OA) front with the federal government’s announcement that the Federal Register, the daily compilation of proposed and final regulations to be issued by federal agencies, will now be available in XML format. (Want to see a sample? Here is today’s issue as an XML document.) This is great [...]

On Corporate Compliance

My colleague and friend Miriam Baer has posted her latest piece, Governing Corporate Compliance (soon to appear in the Boston College Law Review), on SSRN. Here’s the abstract:
In light of the financial meltdown of 2008, it is reasonable to question whether the prior decade’s emphasis on corporate compliance – the internal programs that corporations adopt [...]

FCC to Propose Net Neutrality Rules

New FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski threw down the network neutrality gauntlet in a speech today [PDF] [HTML] at the Brookings Institution, announcing his intention to start a formal process that would result in adoption of binding regulations. [There is good news and blog coverage from AP, Wired, and Washington Post.] His proposal would turn [...]

Ellen’s Dances: Infringing?

Reuters reports that he major record labels have sued the producers of The Ellen DeGeneres Show because they do not secure copyright permission to play the songs when Ellen dances around like a goof (and sometimes her guests do too).
I draw three lessons:
1. When someone accuses you of infringement and asks why you did [...]

Social Marketing Article Published

From blog post to journal article! I am pleased to report that the new issue of the University of Illinois Law Review includes my article, Disclosure, Endorsement, and Identity in Social Marketing. The ideas for the article began in posts on this blog, starting here and continuing here.
Here’s the full abstract of the new article:

Social [...]

Judge Issues Lori Drew Opinion

This isn’t exactly fast-breaking news, but since I wrote a long post last year about the Lori Drew case and then noted the judge’s decision to rescind her conviction, I wanted to point out that the judge has now issued a written opinion explaining his reasoning. Eric Goldman has some cogent analysis. Like [...]

Invasion of the Copyright Parasites

I still subscribe to my local newspaper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, in dead-tree form. One evening in early August, just before my vacation, as I perused the ever-shrinking opinion page, my eye ran across this headline: “MEDIA, OLD AND NEW ‘FREE-RIDING’ AND COPYRIGHT.” The authors, Dan and David Marburger, argue that news [...]

Adjusting Facebook Privacy

Michael Zimmer has updated and re-posted his extremely helpful directions for adjusting Facebook privacy settings. Do yourself a favor, stop what you are doing, go read and follow his instructions.

Kosher Certification

The ACLU has filed an interesting lawsuit in Georgia challenging the state’s kosher labeling laws. At first I thought the argument was that the state could not crack down on deceptive labeling. But it turns out, as the ACLU’s complaint makes clear, that there is not consensus about the requirements of kashruth among Jews [...]

Did the Tenenbaum Judge Botch It?

As you know, Joel Tenenbaum lost against the RIAA and is now on the hook for $675,000, pending a hearing on the constitutionality of those damages. Several lawyers I’ve talked with have suggested that Judge Nancy Gertner, who presided over the trial, committed reversible error by issuing a directed verdict on the question of infringement. [...]

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