Category: law

Fri 07 Dec 2007

So, in New York they caught a cop perjuring himself. Big shocker, I know...
Posted a little later in the morning. [ /law ]

Thu 10 May 2007

Just wondering, does my boss ever actually read this blog? Does he know it exists? I doubt he would care if he did, of course, especially since there's hardly anything on it.

I am enjoying what I am doing, quite a bit, and most of the people I work with are nice. However, I can't help but wonder if I would be better off somewhere else. Ah well, I think I'm stuck here for a while.
Posted in the evening, when I really should be getting Isaac in the tub. [ /law ]

Fri 30 Sep 2005

Well, I passed. Yea! Can you find my name?
Posted in the morning [ /law ]

Mon 18 Apr 2005

I'm working on a paper about innovation and intellectual property, and wanted to discuss the bnetd case. I was just reading an amicus brief by the software, music, and movie industry trade groups, (found here) and a sentence jumped out and bit me, it was just SO WRONG:

Faced with the steep costs imposed by digital piracy, many content providers who would otherwise engage in a profitable creative enterprise may simply choose not to invest in the creation of intellectual property at all.

OK, how about "profitable creative enterprise"? Yep, profits are a good thing, aren't they? We gotta have profits, since without profits, the world simply wouldn't go 'round! You know, a drug dealer who decides to advertise by putting tattoos on prostitutes foreheads would also be engaging in a "profitable creative enterprise", too. But that's OK, right? Right?

The point of intellectual property laws, or laws in general, is to make this world, and specifically this country, a better place to live in. Is that so hard to understand? They don't exist just so some venture capitalist has an incentive to give money to long-haired CS majors.

Oh, and the last bit: "may simply choose not to invest in the creation of intellectual property at all." Yeah, those poor people who create video games; I'm sure they'd all get up and become tax attorneys or something because of the "steep costs" imposed that are described above. Right. Or better yet, Microsoft and other big software companies will retool and become hardware companies. Geffen records will disband. And Universal Studios will focus all its energies on its theme parks. Right.

There's something seriously wrong with this country that people seem to actually agree with these arguments. Of course, the silent majority (I'm convinced -- what percentage of the U.S. online population has participated in file sharing?) doesn't, but let's be a little less silent, OK?
Posted after lunch [ /law ]

Tue 05 Oct 2004

Do you know what I dislike? Professors who show up late, then run 10 minutes over on the first day of class.

Other than that, though, the class was pretty interesting.
Posted in the morning [ /law ]

Thu 29 Apr 2004

One down, four to go. Glad that's over with. Don't get me wrong, I liked the class, but class: good, exam: bad.

I wonder, though, on these open-ended policy type questions, if it's better to parrot what the professor thinks, or to disagree. Actually, the best thing to do is probably to come up with some new spin on the idea -- however, that's not likely to happen in the half-hour you generally have on those things. Besides, there's nothing new under the sun, right? Failing that, it's better to be articulate than anything else -- agree or disagree is moot. At least I hope so!
Posted after my Products Liability final [ /law ]

Tue 27 Apr 2004

Just thought I'd share a heart-warming little story about the cops beating up a 71-year-old blind woman. Via Daypop.

Just one reason I never want to be a prosecutor. I'd have to work with these guys.
Posted late in the morning [ /law ]

Mon 26 Apr 2004

In case anybody else who reads this blog is in my Income Tax Class, I thought you might find this concatenation of the professor's powerpoint slides from the entire semester helpful.
Posted around lunchtime [ /law ]

Fri 26 Mar 2004

This morning (OK, yesterday morning, whatever) in Copyright class the professor asks, "Does anyone here have experience with programming?" Then he looks straight at me. Looong pause. "Well, not, um, commercially!"

That's what I get for being all gung-ho with the Apple v. Franklin case earlier in the semester. And that day he kept cutting me off, too. Just can't win, I suppose.

I will say this -- based upon my detailed analysis of the case in question (read: quickly reading two pages before the mangled definitions of computer jargon drove me nuts, and then skipping to the end just so I'd know how it turned out), I'd have to say that if Dworkin thinks defamation law resembles rococo curliques, he oughtta try to make heads or tails out of that crap. Let's make it easy, guys: You copy the code, it's infringment. You don't, it isn't. Okee-dokee?
Posted later still [ /law ]

Thu 04 Mar 2004

Look at this. They're having a nice little pro-abortion propaganda fest up at Michigan Law School, sponsored (if you look at the list) by the law school. Michigan taxpayers' money, at work! Now somebody tell me again why we need the American Constitution Society again? Oh yes, combat the pernicious influence of them evil, horn-bearing Federalist Society people. It's not like the schools will do that by themselves...

Crap, posting stuff like this, I'll never get a job.
Posted before Copyright [ /law ]