Copyright Office to Have “Public Roundtables” About Orphan Works
The Copyright Office has announced that it will have public roundtables to discuss orphan works in DC July 26-27 and Berkeley August 2. This is interesting because, after receiving almost 900 submissions regarding orphan works already, I would have thought…
Grokster Press Releases
The Grokster media frenzy has reached a fever pitch. Not only is the war of words taking over the mainstream press, but we’re seeing a bubble of activity in the press release databases. A couple of examples. Orrick’s Press Release…
Some People Like “Spyware”?
I’m catching up on back reading, and I came across this December 2004 Wired News article by Michelle Delio called “Spyware on My Machine? So What?” [see update below about questions about the article] Anti-spyware advocates are wedded to the…
Alaska’s Anti-Adware Law
Alaska’s legislature has passed SB 140 (to be codified at Sec. 45.45.792, 45.45.794 and 45.45.798), which is awaiting the governor’s signature. This statute contains some anti-Internet porn provisions (probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment and Dormant Commerce Clause), but I’m…
Initial Interest Confusion Talk
I spoke yesterday about the initial interest confusion doctrine at the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago. My slides. I also updated my summarized list of initial interest confusion cases.
No Grokster Opinion Today
The Grokster Watch continues–no opinion today. This releases the anxiety for today, but the anxiety hardly has gone away. My prediction on Grokster (if you came from the NY Times, this link leads to the referenced post). NY Times article…
Mistaken Judgments for Content Labeled Advertising
Last week I applauded the FTC for arguing against the mandatory labeling of commerical emails. In that post, I argued that the labels would increase the rate of erroneous judgments by recipients, because the recipients would mistakenly believe that the…
AOL Advertises on Competitors to Get Traffic to AOL.com
To build traffic for AOL.com, AOL is buying search ads on Google and Yahoo. The article says: “AOL had initially considered spending as much as $50 million on television ads to promote the portal. But that changed after the company…
Good Primer on Spyware
Spyware: Background and Policy Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL32706 (May 18, 2005). This report, written as a primer for Congress, is one of the most balanced descriptions of the spyware issues I’ve seen. (Balance is a…
Update on Click Fraud Lawsuit
I’m a little late blogging this. It appears that the Lane’s Gift and Collectible lawsuit over click fraud is tied up in procedural limbo right now. The suit was filed in state court, the defendants moved the case to federal…