The FCC’s just-released National Broadband Plan has so far failed to catch the public imagination, important and much-needed though it may be.  The problem may be branding.  Google Fiber – the prospect of certain American cities being selected as test beds for a new high-speed Internet service from the Drs. of Don’t-Be-Evil – has economic [...]

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I have spent a lot of time this Spring co-chairing an effort at Pitt to restructure some small parts of our curriculum.  Our labors have not yet borne fruit, but one theme – the notion that law students should learn more about alternative modes of dispute resolution (including but not limited to conventional forms of [...]

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Archiving our digital heritage becomes more important each day. We all generate an incredible amount of cultural and social content. As I wrote in my article, Property, Persona, and Preservation, “Before one can access, one must preserve.” Thus, I am happy to see what appears to be an movement towards greater preservation of our digital [...]

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The folks at CITP and many others are quite excited about open government. One specific project, RECAP, looks to open access to court cases. The briefs and opinions of federal courts would be available to the public. Although I tend to laud this effort, I have also started to press on exactly why such access [...]

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I was re-reading Perfect 10 v Google last night (and Perfect 10 v Visa) in preparaton for a cyberlaw class today and I was struck (again) by the 9th Circuit’s desire to maintain a clear distinction between contributory and vicarious liability in the ISP context.  While noting that the lines between contributory and vicarious liability [...]

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From the Department of You Have To Be Kidding, this article reports:
The yellow traffic light is taking on a new meaning for motorists during these tough economic times: one expensive trap.
According to the National Motorists Association (NMA), some municipalities have been caught shortening the time in which yellow lights are on in order to generate [...]

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Eric Goldman reports here that Rescuecom has dismissed its lawsuit against Google.  Eric strongly suggests this was primarily about Google outlasting a smaller plaintiff with fewer resources, which may well be the case.  And although I was pleased when Rescuecom won on the trademark use issue, as I explained in this post from last year, [...]

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“It must be remembered that, while there are an enormous number of possible permutations of the musical notes of the scale, only a few are pleasing; and much fewer still suit the infantile demands of the popular ear. Recurrence is not therefore an inevitable badge of plagiarism.” Darrell v. Joe Morris Music Co., 113 [...]

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Posted at the request of Prof Giuseppina D’Agostino, Director, IP Osgoode, Intellectual Property, Law and Technology Program, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada:
“(1) We have posted a call for applications for the summer 2010 IPilogue
team and we would be very pleased to hear from students at your own
institution.  The call for editors has [...]

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The coming of spring means that thousands of aspiring lawyers will soon have to choose the law school they will attend. Over the last decade or so, rankings like U.S. News and World Report’s have become increasingly important in making those decisions. How heavily should a would-be lawyer rely on these rankings in [...]

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My household is one of those affected by yesterday’s worldwide PlayStation3 “crash,” which is reported here on CNN (briefly) and no doubt in far greater, and angrier, detail elsewhere.  Sony is broadcasting status updates via Twitter, though none too swiftly.  (Search #Ps3 for updates.)  The Sony PS3 blog has some information.
It will be interesting to watch [...]

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The Sunday New York Times usually offers a number of interesting features on IP and tech topics, and yesterday was no exception.  My favorite piece was this one, about the demise of the old-style Repo Man.  As in so many areas, human judgment and discipline are being superseded by surveillance, data, and automation:
At the core of [...]

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Many of you will have seen the news that an Italian court has convicted three Google executives with respect to postings of a video by users of the YouTube service showing the bullying of a handicapped child.  Despite the fact that Google employees acted quickly to remove the video, three company officers were convicted in [...]

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Readers of this blog will be familiar with my affinity for vampire stories, and the fact that in recent months I’ve been particularly partial to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, although I must admit (I’m sure to Mike Madison’s great relief) that my fascination with the series is waning and I’m trying to expand my “literary” [...]

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Brian Leiter is posting occasional links to law faculty blogs.
Here is an updated version of an inventory of law faculty blogs from around the world that I posted back in 2007.

University of Pittsburgh School of Law
University of Houston Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center
University of Chicago Law School
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
University of Alberta Faculty of Law
University [...]

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While broadening my literary horizons, but still remaining firmly in the pre-teen science fantasy camp, I’ve recently discovered a series of books by Cassandra Clare – the Moral Instruments trilogy (soon to be many more books than a trilogy).  She writes for pretty much the same audience as Stephenie Meyer of Twilight fame so I [...]

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With thanks to Roberto Colon for passing this along to me, a federal court judge in Australia has held that an ISP is not liable for copyright infringements of its users.  Full story here and here.  The Australian copyright test for secondary liability is different from that in the U.S. and relies on a concept [...]

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There’s a new joint venture in town:  A website that aggregates academic research on IT policy, from IP to privacy, to network governance, to the cloud, to antitrust, to economic growth.
Technology | Academics| Policy (TAP).  http://www.techpolicy.com/
Interesting collection of sponsors.  Check it out.
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With thanks for one of my students for fowarding this to me, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court has today cleared Chinese search engine Baidu on claims of copyright infringement for deep-linking to music downloads that infringe copyrights.  Reuters story here.
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