Google has launched a virtual world called Lively.  There’s some news coverage here (via Google.)
I set up a virtual coffee shop, embedded below. If you download the Lively client from Google, you can stop in and re-arrange the furniture (it has been set to public editing).

Unfortunately, you can’t really add anything *too* original, […]

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Personally, I bought the hard copy (I like bound books more than stacks of copy paper), but kudos go out to Jon Zittrain for putting his brand new hot-off-the-press book on SSRN. I’ve made the point before that many authors like reaching the public as much as making money- and often these aren’t mutually […]

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This post is a plug for an article that I’ve recently completed with my colleague Michael Carrier at Rutgers-Camden. The article is here. It is very short (for a law review article — 36 pages) and is our best effort to decisively end to the doctrine of “cyberproperty,” a.k.a. “cybertrespass,” a.k.a. the Internet […]

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In case anyone did not catch it, Rebecca Tushnet has a very nice recap of a recent conference in Iowa on the subject of trademark use. I’m very grateful to Rebecca for all the conference blogging she’s done over the past few years — it’s been wonderful to be a virtual attendee at so […]

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Today there was a hearing convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) on the potentials and policy concerns raised by virtual worlds. Archives of the hearing are here. An MP3 of the proceedings can be found here. Many news reports about the substance here.
Mike […]

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I’m currently writing a book about law and virtual worlds, and in the course of that I’ve been collecting what I hope is a comprehensive list of published law review articles and student notes that focus primarily on the intersection of law and virtual worlds.
The current version is attached below in case folks are interested. […]

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I don’t like to pick on journalists for not being perfect, but I’m constantly surprised at how reporters seem willing to give Google credit for the resources available on the Web. About two years ago, USA Today ran an article entitled “This the Google side of your brain” where the reporter suggested that Google […]

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In the past year, there have been some interesting developments in trademark law and virtual worlds, including the Eros lawsuits in Second Life and increased attention from legal practitioners (e.g., see this from WIPO). So, when I was recently invited by the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal to write about user-generated […]

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The (virtual) law of nuisance and zoning may be entering into Second Life, according to Reuters. “Linden Lab has banned ‘ad farms,’ the small plots of land with gaudy advertisements that are designed to extort neighboring landowners.” I suppose this will be a new way that virtual “neighbors settle disputes“?
The Naked Cowboy is […]

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Unlike Siva and Philipp Lenssen, I can’t manage to blog full-time on all things Google. But I do try to keep tabs on the search giant. After the break, I’ll share a few interesting things that have recently come across my screen.  (Updated: (2/4/08))
No Tags

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But John Havelock thinks it should:
For a generation, Alaska has been the only state that does not maintain at least one law school. Considering the force of Alaska’s identity as an exceptional, independent state with a unique economy and social structure, this is strange.
But Alaska does have a law review.  Why is it at Duke?
The […]

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Last month, Clive Thompson wrote in the New York Times about the Gömböc, which
leans off to one side, rocks to and fro as if gathering strength and then, presto, tips itself back into a “standing” position as if by magic. It doesn’t have a hidden counterweight inside that helps it perform this trick, like an […]

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Amazon.com has had, for about a year, a beta feature/forum called Askville.com. According to the web site:
What is Askville?
Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge
with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic. It’s a
fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a […]

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Like several other folks who blog, I went up to Yale’s Reputation Economies conference last weekend. Plenty of others have offered thoughts about the conference (including Frank here). Eric Goldman has his own thoughts and a good list of links to other blogs and Rebecca Tushnet very helpfully posted panel-by-panel summaries.
It was an […]

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For at least a few years, I’ve had an interest (that I have yet to write on) in the problems of adapting works of intellectual property. E.g. moving from a particular book to a film, from a film to a video game, or from a video game to a film or book. […]

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