From the New York Times, “An Effort to Upgrade a Court Archive System to Free and Easy“:
For those searching for federal court decisions, briefs and other legal papers, there is no Google. Instead, there is Pacer, the government-run Public Access to Court Electronic Records system designed in the bygone days of screechy telephone modems. Cumbersome, [...]
Peter Suber writes:
Yesterday Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act. . . . The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law. The premise is false and cynical. If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, [...]
From the New York Times:
Employees fired after cooperating in sexual harassment investigations may sue for retaliation, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case concerning the scope of a federal law barring sex discrimination in the workplace.
If it seems obvious that a worker who cooperates with an investigation that reveals sexual harassment by her supervisor [...]
A longstanding part of U.S. law, known as the exclusionary rule, is getting bruised. The rule requires courts to exclude – or throw out – some evidence seized by law enforcement through illegal searches.
But a ruling last month by the Supremes allowed the prosecution of an Alabama man on drug-possession and gun-possession charges despite the [...]
An intriguing, far-ranging perspective on scholarly publishing that ties early 3rd century revolutions in scholarly publishing with modern trends towards open access and digital archiving:
Instead of using the noble scroll, Origen decided to take advantage of the page structure of the humble codex. Dividing each of two facing pages into three columns each, he began [...]
In my view, the fact that criminal procedure rules are judge-made led fairly directly to the exclusionary rule. Put simply, the exclusionary remedy is the one remedy that judges can completely control. There are a variety of ways to enforce rules of criminal investigations, such as lawsuits, criminal prosecutions, and internal discipline. But all of [...]
The Founders might have used quill pens, but they would roll their eyes at how, in this supposedly technology-minded era, we’re undermining their intention to encourage innovation. The U.S. is stumbling in the transition from their Industrial Age to our Information Age, despite the charge in the Constitution that Congress “promote the Progress of Science [...]
Evidence Faulted in Detainee Case – NYTimes.com:
With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.
The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the [...]
Sam Kamin at PrawfsBlawg points out that the New York Times has discovered SSRN. He writes:
It’s actually a pretty decent synopsis of the SSRN phenomenon, noting that it takes away the power of gatekeepers, makes scholarship available to the masses and lets them decide what’s worthy, etc. It points out that sexy still sells, noting [...]
Revision3 CEO: Blackout caused by MediaDefender attack – ars technica:
Revision3, the Internet television network behind popular shows like Diggnation, experienced a serious network failure over Memorial Day weekend. CEO Jim Louderback revealed today that the outage was caused by a massive denial of service attack that he says was perpetrated by MediaDefender, a file-sharing mitigation [...]
Viacom Ups Ante In YouTube Copyright Spat: Google More Than A Mere Enabler – washingtonpost.com
Cynthia Brumfeld noticed that Viacom actually raised the stakes in a recently (.pdf) amended complaint from April. In addition to pointing out that YouTube hosts all kinds of copyrighted content, the company emphasizes that YouTube is guilty of public performance of [...]
This blog represents my views, my opinions, and my thoughts at a moment in time. It's focus is on law and technology, along with history, education, science, and anything else that strikes my fancy.| © 2005-2010 by Kristopher Nelson. Want to republish? Get permission. Want to quote? That's fair use. | Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha |
Follow me on Twitter