As many know Detroit is in the news. A recent L.A. Times story asks “Are the Big Three worth saving?” Now I hate the Pistons and have never been to Detroit, but that does not mean I think the auto industry should implode. Yet, with $25 billion in loan guarantees in place and new [...]

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Having suggested some conditions for the coming digital library of Alexandria, I should have commented on this Google deal earlier. But I’ve been way too busy to read the details in the proposed settlement. No one can doubt its importance–as Mike has said, we may be “seeing the early stages of the beginning [...]

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Yes the favorite oddity of American culture is back and just in time for Halloween. We don’t mind ultra-violent films but say porno or show some nudity and it’s time to ban a film. First, note that part of the ad campaign for Zack and Miri Make a Porno have dropped the “Make a Porno” [...]

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Auto-tarnishment? Via.

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If J.K. Rowling sues over these, I’m inclined to offer pro bono representation!

Many more here.

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A blog on intellectual property law carries a burden of commenting on compelling IP policy issues of the day, and the pending settlement of the copyright infringement lawsuit over Google Book Search is about as compelling as it gets.  I’ve read only a smattering of blog commentary on the proposal, but Neil Netanel at Balkinization [...]

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Over at Conglomerate, Shubha Ghosh is posting on what he calls IP 3.0, or the turn toward transactional analysis and teaching in intellectual property law. Shubha is right that teaching and studying IP in a transactional context is one of the great unexplored frontiers of IP.  Back in 2002, I taught a course that closely [...]

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From different corners comes new of IP law professors as entrepreneurs of different sorts, trying to impact the world of IP, creativity, and innovation in ways that are non-traditional (for law professors, at least):
Prof. Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown) is helping to organize the “Organization for Transformative Works.”  The OTW site is here.  The mission, as Rebecca writes, [...]

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Via the Digital Humanities blog, I learn that George Mason University has released a statement strongly defending the Zotero project, which is under attack by Thomson Reuters, proprietor of EndNote.  My earlier post on the EndNote/Zotero lawsuit is here.
This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart might say.  The role of universities in the IP [...]

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Via.

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I like this Melissa Etheridge song a lot:

But, I can’t help noticing that it owes a little bit of its melody to this song, bizarrely enough. Listen closely to Etheridge’s guitar riff about 1:16 in for the clearest example.

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Via.

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From the manufacturer:
… we manufactured these disembodied hands from soft foam to look like the real thing. These hands do double-duty as wrist-rests, so they don’t just take up space on your desk, but are actually useful!

Features

Soft foam wristrest
Shaped like a bloody disembodied hand!
Perfect for Halloween as a prop, [...]

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Scott Brown has decried friend congestion on Facebook, and proposes a (sun)setting to do something about it:
[M]aybe [this is] the answer: A Facebook app we’ll call the Fade Utility. Untended Friends would gradually display a sepia cast on the picture, a blurring of the neglected profile—perhaps a coffee stain might appear on it or [...]

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From here:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is suing a company that sells voodoo dolls in his image along with pins to stick in them and a satirical biography, court officials said Thursday.
The same company also sells a similar kit with a doll resembling Socialist standard-bearer Segolene Royal, whom Sarkozy beat in last year’s presidential [...]

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For some time, Brett Frischmann, Kathy Strandburg and I have been working on a framework for studying what we call cultural commons:  collaborative institutions that structure the production, distribution, and storage of knowledge.  (Here is the first paper of what we hope will be a long series.)  There is no single, right, rigorous definition of commons, [...]

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Legal scholars spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to understand the content of the law.  They usually spend less time trying to understand the behavior of lawyers in regard to the law.  One categorical exception is the group of scholars who think and write about legal ethics.  A different exception, prompting this brief post, is [...]

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Eak the Geek a.k.a Eduardo Arrocha is a first year student at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

Story here. Of course IP oriented legal scholars know that Tattoo Law is a burgeoning field. See also.

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