From here:
Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized on Wednesday for “chest pains” in Hawaii, but the controversial radio host (who also had a syndicated TV show at one point) is not dead contrary to a post made by Wikipedia early Thursday morning. The commentator’s page was edited briefly to say that December 30, 2009 was the day [...]

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For the second time in two days, Google has shown up on my “hmm, what’s going on there?” radar. Today I want to put search behind me and look at how Google is alleged to have leveraged its video content position by changing the terms of service for YouTube’s APIs (application programming interfaces) to [...]

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This is being widely reported elsewhere, most notably by Michael Geist (who includes a copy of the 47 page decision) and ArsTechnica, among others, but the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of California has granted summary judgment to the film industry in its suit against Gary Fung and isoHunt, a BitTorrent search site. [...]

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I’ve been reading up on Wikipedia’s copyright policies lately and found some interesting items tucked away in the Wikipedia copyright policy guidelines and copyright FAQ.  This is not to criticize the people at Wikipedia as they are working to do something really unique and original with little in the way of financial backing.  But as [...]

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I appreciate Frank’s addition to the discussion here, started by Greg and based on Frank Raff’s NY Times Op-Ed. That said, I think we’re at least somewhat talking around each other, and the major reason is that the primary legal structures designed to handle the problems that Raff is really upset about — Google’s dominant [...]

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I just want to respond to Rob’s and Greg’s concerns about Adam Raff’s “search neutrality” editorial in the NYT today. On the basis of the many articles I’ve written on search (as well as discussions with individuals who have problems similar to Raff’s), I found the editorial both informative and compelling. Principles of [...]

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American University law professor and madisonian.net contributor Mike Carroll asked me to post a link to the annual fundraising drive for Creative Commons, where Mike has been a board member since its founding.  Happy to!
Here is Mike’s pitch.  To donate and to read more, click over to the Creative Commons site:
Dear Friends –
I’m asking you [...]

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Greg usefully started the conversation on today’s NY Times Op-Ed by Adam Raff, founder of “foundem.co.uk,” a UK price comparison site, by asking, “What is search engine neutrality?” I was drafting a too-long post about this when I noticed Greg’s was already up, so thought I would shorten mine considerably. My short answer is to [...]

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Adam Raff, in an Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday, says that Google
“faces a difficult choice. Will it embrace search neutrality as the logical extension to net neutrality that truly protects equal access to the Internet? Or will it try to argue that discriminatory market power is somehow dangerous in the hands of a [...]

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I call friends and family during the holidays. For me, unlike email and social networking options, talking to someone is a more intimate and fun experience. Regardless of how one “reaches out and touches someone” as AT&T used to say, it is easy to take the ability to do so for granted. As I thought [...]

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So here’s some controversial advice:
“So that’s your advice is it? As my agent? On the week my book comes out in paperback, I should produce my own pirated version and give it away free? Why don’t I just punch my publisher in the face? That would be less work.”
My agent rocked back in his [...]

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According to today’s NY Times, the most pirated movie of 2009 was the popular Star Trek prequel.
The award for “most notorious film piracy”, however, goes to X-Men Origins:  Wolverine which made it to illegal file-sharing avenues on the Internet one month before being released in the theaters.
Other movies that made 2009’s “most pirated” list included [...]

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Here’s just a little free association for what I hope are ongoing happy holidays for everyone. Sherlock Holmes opens on Christmas Day and is a front runner for holiday films I want to see. I happen to think that Robert Downey Jr. is in a great groove. I loved his acting in Chaplin and am [...]

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Although I tend to prefer less regulation in many cases, the pictures below seem to call for a little more discussion about how products are marketed to kids. Candy in that mimics many of the attributes of adult products such as cigarettes probably makes it easier for a kid to think they ought to try [...]

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[H/T here to the IPKat, and particularly the AmeriKat.]
In this recent post I pointed to the recent statement of the United States at the WIPO meeting considering an proposed international treaty governing copyright in works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or have other disabilities.
Earlier in the Fall, the US Copyright Office issued a Notice [...]

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I am a big fan of the Planet Money series on NPR. Any student struggling with the economic aspects of business associations can use Planet Money and NPR’s other financial series, Marketplace, to get grasp of what is going on. Marketplace tends to focus on the day’s events. PM takes a little time and explores [...]

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From the Department of Joys of the Season to You, Too comes news that the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership not only owns a trademark registration for the phrase “Light Up Night” but is now — and I mean that almost literally, as in “in the middle of the holiday season” — sending out cease-and-desist letters to [...]

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