A few years ago, Oregon upped their redemption price for beverage containers from 5¢ to 10¢, and I remembered doing a double-take because it seemed like a pretty big possible shift. I didn’t know it at the time, but Oregon was the first place in the USA to institute a redemption program for bottles and …
Category Archives: law
New Oregon Laws for 2009 list anywhere?
My dad reminded me today that he enjoyed reading about the 700 new laws that went into effect in California today, so I set out to find an equivalent list for Oregon. So far, after half a dozen Google searches I can only come up with the 6 laws listed here from yesterday's Oregonian. Quick …
By listening to this you acknowledge you are: Brian Davidson
I’ve been getting some annoying robot phonecalls recently on a daily basis. They always give me menu options to hear more, but never an option to tell them they got the wrong number (or some guy put down the wrong number). The robot leaves messages with half of their recorded message so when I was …
Continue reading “By listening to this you acknowledge you are: Brian Davidson”
One thing the internet got right
In reading about the copyright insanity of Wal-Mart and Ofoto, I’m reminded of how much better the copyright prevention approach works online. In the (much criticized and abused, but in this case, forward thinking) DMCA, there’s a safeharbor provision for ISPs so that they aren’t responsible for what happens on their network, their members actually …
Worst “journalism” ever.
This Reuters article on critics of Creative Commons is just about the most ridiculous article I’ve seen about CC to date. It reads as if the president of the National Music Publisher’s Association knew the author and basically wanted to get a anti-CC article out there. It contains a few quotes from CC board members …
Strange bedfellows
There’s been a lot of talk about the DVD filtering bill on various copyright/law sites, but what I find most interesting is watching reactions to it outside of the tech law realm. It turns a lot of traditionally friend and foe relationships on their heads. It all started with CleanFlicks, which rents and sells what …
Lessig Keynote from Etech
Lessig Keynote and afterwards discussion and questions, recorded on my iTrip and very lofi (9Mb and 12Mb, respectively). I’m sure high quality versions will be online in the next few weeks, but for now there’s this. Lawrence Lessig Keynote, Etech 2005 Keynote talk and discussion at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference. Lawrence Lessig Lawrence Lessig …
When bad copyright law hurts good singers
My one reality TV show indulgence is American Idol. I accidentally caught an early episode during the second season and I haven’t missed one since. During the two years I’ve watched it, I’ve long wondered why singers choose the songs they do, since song choice is everything in the competition and frequently folks seem to …
Continue reading “When bad copyright law hurts good singers”
Freedom and Comedy
A new feature I wrote on the BART train from the airport to my hotel: Two things that suck about Intellectual Property Law this week
A Whole Lotta Nothing 