Edelman on “Intermediaries’ Role in the Spyware Mess”
Ben Edelman’s latest post discusses intermediary responsibility for adware. The post details how cash goes from advertisers to advertising representatives (“intermediaries”) to adware vendors to distributors. The Legal Liability Question This implicates an essential question: if someone commits an illegal…
BitTorrent Bust and the ART Act
A few days ago the Feds busted the Elite Torrents, who were warez traders using BitTorrent. The target: sites trading the Revenge of the Sith. The timing of this makes me wonder–is the passage of the ART Act, reinforcing criminal…
Lostclicks.com and Click Fraud
Three lawyers have launched a website called Lostclicks.com to drum up business for their click fraud legal campaigns. While these lawyers appear to be involved in the Lane’s Gift and Collectibles lawsuit, the site doesn’t contain the complaint–so it’s a…
Madison on Creative Commons
Mike Madison provides a thoughtful post on why some copyright owners might resist Creative Commons. UPDATE: John Dvorak writes a powerful critique of Creative Commons. Some of John’s arguments are wrong as a matter of law, but his points are…
Compartmentalization v. Immersion in Virtual Worlds
Over the weekend, I heard an interesting presentation by Helene Michel, a business school professor from France. She described the experience with Vacheland.com, a simulation where visitors can manage a virtual farm. The project was initiated by a public agency…
Gates on Information Overload
Bill Gates says that future releases of Microsoft products will help address information overload.
Stanford Online Deliberation Presentation
My notes from my talk entitled “Media Regulation and Deliberative Democracy.” I’m still trying to figure out exactly what “deliberative democracy” is, but the presentation notes recap some of my thinking about the matching problem of marketing.
Travel Plans and Presentations
I’ll be on the West Coast for the next three weeks. During that time, I’ll be making three presentations: Conference: Second Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice / DIAC 2005 at Stanford University Topic: Media Regulation and Deliberative…
New Gripe Site Case–Faegre & Benson v. Purdy
Faegre & Benson v. Purdy, Civil File No. 03-6472 (D. Minn. Apr. 27, 2005). Another ruling in the long-running story of William Purdy, an anti-abortionist who uses extreme forms of gripe sites against his targets. This particular ruling was a…
New Lawsuit Over Blogging–Steinbuch v. Cutler
Steinbuch v. Cutler (D.C. D.C. complaint filed May 18, 2005). Interesting and risqué lawsuit for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress (warning: the complaint is not 100% office-safe). Jessica Cutler ran a blog under the name “Washingtonienne.”…