Category: Other Topics
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Copyrights, Fundamental Rights, and the Constitution
There was a lot to take issue with in Scott Turow’s recent op-ed in The New York Times. Turow, who is currently President of the Authors Guild, took to The Times to criticize the Supreme Court’s decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, which brought physical books manufactured and sold abroad within the protective…
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Internet Voting Security: Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True
[The following is a post written at my invitation by Professor Duncan Buell from the University of South Carolina. Curiously, the poll Professor Buell mentions below is no longer listed in the list of past & present polls on the Courier-Journal site, but is available if you kept the link.] On Thursday, March 21, in…
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The District of Columbia Claims Copyright on the Law
Update: They released the unofficial version of the DC Code under a CC-0 License. Josh Tauberer has the backstory. Copyright exists to incentivize people to create new works. The federal government is not allowed to copyright things, because they don’t need the added incentive, and it would be bad if they started charging for access…
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Now Available in Print and eBook: "Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring"
I am happy to announce that my new book, co-authored with Muzammil M. Hussain, is now available in print (Oxford University Press, Amazon, Google Books) and eBook (Kindle). In April of last year, I presented some of our initial findings and described the methodology in a presentation at the Center for Information Technology at Princeton.…
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"What we've got here is failure to communicate"
Since the historic snow storm, “Nemo,” deposited a NOAA-certified 40 inches of snow on my hometown of Hamden, CT, I have been watching from afar to see how the town and its citizens are using a combination of digital technology, the traditional telecommunications network, and mass media to communicate in the aftermath of the storm.…
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Oral arguments in NJ voting-machines lawsuit appeal
The appellate hearing (oral argument) of the New Jersey voting-machines lawsuit (Gusciora v. Christie) has been rescheduled to March 5, 2013 in Trenton, NJ. To learn what this is all about, and why you should attend, click here. To recheck the location, time of day, and date of the hearing before you go down to…
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Where Are the Legal Lossless Downloads?
I must have been very nice last year, because Santa brought me a Sonos Connect Wireless HiFi System and Network Attached Storage (NAS) with Wake-on-LAN for Christmas. This particular combination of hardware can mean only one thing: I will spend the waning days of 2012 and the beginning days of 2013 ripping my entire CD…
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Technology & Nature – Perfect Together?
The ongoing recovery from Sandy’s devastating impact from the Caribbean to the East Coast of the U.S. – particularly New Jersey and New York – highlights for me the complex relationship between nature and technology. Satellite technology and meteorology were vital in predicting the storm and undoubtedly saved lives. No matter the accuracy of the…
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Voting machine lawsuit, oral arguments, venue change
For those who were considering attending the oral arguments December 4th of the appeal of the Gusciora lawsuit about New Jersey’s voting machines–which I encourage you to do–the location has been changed from Jersey City to Trenton. Location: 8th Floor, N. Wing, Hughes Justice Complex, Trenton, NJ. Date/time: December 4th, 2012, 10:00 a.m. Postponed until…
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Facebook Copyright Statement: Not Entirely Silly
There’s a meme going around on Facebook, saying that you should post a certain legal incantation on your Facebook wall, to reclaim certain rights that Facebook would otherwise be taking from you. There’s an interesting counter-meme in the press now, saying that all of this is pointless and of course you can’t change your rights…