Enhanced Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act of 2005 (S 1004)
Sen. Allen’s anti-spyware law has finally hit Thomas (the law was initially announced in April). Description The law has several substantive provisions, mostly revolving around a central provision making it illegal “to install through deceptive acts or practices software on…
Public Domain Enhancement Act (HR 2408)
I’m a little late catching this, but Rep. Lofgren has introduced the Public Domain Enhancement Act (HR 2408). The law would require copyright owners to pay $1 after 50 years (and each 10 years thereafter) to maintain their copyright; otherwise,…
Intermix Says It Has Settled NY Enforcement Action Over Adware
Intermix issued a press release today claiming to reach an “agreement in principle” to settle the Spitzer enforcement action over Intermix’s alleged distribution of illegal adware. Have the Parties Settled? On the same day, Intermix announced improved earnings. The combination…
More on the Adware Advertiser Witchhunt
I’ve been traveling for 3 weeks, so I missed a lot of good stuff while I was gone. One posting I missed was this one, discussing which stocks should be shorted because of Elliott Spitzer’s enforcement action against Intermix Media….
Patent Reform Act of 2005 Introduced
The Patent Reform Act of 2005 has been introduced. The bill itself is fairly complicated. Rep. Lamar Smith’s press release summarizes the key features: “· Provides that the right to a patent will be awarded to the first inventor to…
Groups Sue to Strike Down Utah’s Anti-Internet Porn Law
King’s English, Inc. v. Shurtleff (D. Utah complaint filed June 9, 2005). As expected, the ACLU is leading a charge against Utah for their latest anti-porn initiative (HB 260). The AP story. Declan’s News.com story. I have already predicted that…
Wal-Mart Won’t Print Photos If They Are Too Good
Because copyright is a strict liability tort, “photofinishers” who print photos (like Wal-Mart and Kmart) can be liable if the customer asks to print photos owned by third parties. As a result, photofinishers are now bouncing photos that look professional…
Talk on 47 USC 230
I’m giving a talk later today on 47 USC 230 at Southwestern Law School. This talk allowed me to organize my thoughts on the state of the law. My slides.
Google’s Human Algorithm
Henk van Ess has been running a series of blog posts at Search Bistro about how Google uses international students to QA the relevancy of its search results. See, for example, his initial post including the advertising that Google ran…
Why I’m Not Excited About a New .xxx TLD
I’m not really a fan of new TLDs. Mostly, I see them increasingly irrelevant, so they generate a fair amount of activity but little benefit. As a result, not surprisingly, I am not excited about a .xxx TLD. Indeed, not…