Thumbnail of krisnelson.org

As part of a recent attempt to update my personal information online, I decided to update my personal site to better reflect my current activities and background. As part of my content update, I ideally wanted my site to be more dynamic, so that I did not need to touch it very often, yet to still have it be more up-to-date and fresh. My idea was to rely on updates I would make to other sites anyway, and to leverage those updates to drive my personal site too.

How does fair-use law work?

This is an excellent write-up about how fair use works, along with its complexities (and areas where it is more straightforward, generally where courts have already ruled on a very similar use previously).

blawgit

Brett Trout has a useful introduction to “fair use” up on BlawgIT. The goal is to help you “spot the issues” and avoid some common urban legends. Recommended.

Patent simulation study concludes current patent system hampers innovation

A recently published law review article concludes that experiments with “PatentSim,” “a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems,” do not support the general justification of our current patent system.

Disruption and change in publishing

Michael Nielsen wrote a stellar piece dealing with disruptive changes that doom old business models: newspapers and science publishers, to mention his examples. He does a particularly good job at explaining how this could happen even without anyone doing anything wrong or stupid.

IP and Traditional Knowledge

Image via Wikipedia
The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge by Stephen Munzer, Kal Raustiala:
Should traditional knowledge—the understanding or skill possessed by indigenous peoples pertaining to their culture and folklore and their use of native plants for medicinal purposes—receive protection as intellectual property? This Article examines nine major arguments from the moral, political [...]

Copyright Law and Cease-and-Desist Letters

The Volokh Conspiracy has a follow-up to the story about copyrighting cease & desist letters:
The court … in this case … did not decide that posting a cease-and-desist letter is copyright infringement (which would have required considering the fair use defense). Rather, the court was only asked to decide whether the plaintiff could use a subpoena (under 17 [...]

OpenDNS

I have been using OpenDNS for quite a while now to increase the reliability and speed of Internet access. (“DNS” is the system used to translate human-friendly names into computer-friendly numeric addresses.) It’s reliable and invisible. I’m only noticing it again now because I’ve found the Internet service provider I’m relying on at the moment [...]

Simple, Elegent and Useful Ajax Code

Billed as a “showroom of nice looking simple downloadable dhtml and ajax code,” MiniAjax.com delivers exactly that. Recommended.

Disclaimer & Privacy

This is not legal advice. I am not your attorney. I am not licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. I am not soliciting your business. Please see our Privacy Policy.

Copyright

© 2005-2010 by Kristopher Nelson. Want to republish? Get permission. Want to quote? That's fair use.

Site Sponsors

© 2005-2010 by Kristopher Nelson. Want to republish? Get permission. Want to quote? That's fair use. Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha