Advocacy groups are lobbying for the repeal of CIPA’s (The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000) web filtering requirements for public libraries that receive federal funds. An ACLU press release and a preliminary research report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argue that the use of such filters is ineffective in preventing access to harmful… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Monthly Archives: September 2002
Australian Jews Win Landmark Racist Web Site Case
The Adelaide Instituteweb site will be offline in four days in accordance with an Explanatory Memorandum and decision in Jones v Toben by the Federal Court of Australia. The site will continue to be available via the Web Archive, for which I have provided the following link which is illustrative of some of the content… Continue Reading
Third Annual E-Government Study
Darrell M. West, from the Center for Public Policy at Brown University, published a report this week evaluating e-government initiatives on the state and federal level. The report, U.S. State and Federal E-Government, Sept., 2002, is available via Mr. West’s site, Inside Politics. From the press release: “West…. and a team of public policy students… Continue Reading
State Government and E-Procurement
A new grant report, State Government and E-Procurement in the Information Age: Issues, Practices and Trends, from the PriceWaterhouseCooper’s Endowment for the Business of Government, reviews e-procurement techniques that can save money and develop and speed services to consumers. Continue Reading
DOJ Indictment for Criminal Copyright Infringement on Web Site
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California indicted Dennis Baker of San Jose, California for the operation of a website through which he marketed pirated copies of game and business software. Continue Reading
The National Strategy to Secure CyberSpace, For Comment Draft 2002, September 18, 2002.
From the White House, this 65 page PDF draft report is divided into 5 content areas: Home User and Small Business; Large Enterprises; Critical Sectors (federal government, state and local government, higher education and private sector); National Priorities; and Global. Public comments on the Draft Strategy to Secure Cyberspace will be accepted until November 12,… Continue Reading
Public Performance of Sound Recordings: Definition of a Service
“The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is providing an opportunity to all interested persons to file comments to a motion requesting a stay of its final rule which clarifies that transmissions of a broadcast signal over a digital communications network are not exempt from copyright liability under section 114(d)(1)(A) of the Copyright Act.” Continue Reading
EU Data Protection Commissioners Oppose Data Retention
StateWatch.org reports that the Commissioners’ stated: “Where traffic data are to be retained in specific cases, there must therefore be a demonstrable need, the period of retention must be as short as possible and the practice must be clearly regulated by law, in a way that provides sufficient safeguards against unlawful access and any other… Continue Reading
Royalty Rates for Webcasters Under Review
This Federal Register notice for comments from the Copyright Office, with a closing period of September 16, 2002, deals with addressing claims for royalties on copyrighted music that is webcast. Continue Reading
Comparison Shopping Sites and Deep Linking Controversy
The use of crawlers (automated index tools) to mine data from web sites to create market comparison shopping services for subscribers is the focus of this Wall Street Journal article, Are Bots Legal?. An example of such a service is Bargain.com , whose home page proclaims, “Never Pay Retail Again!.” Users may search through categories… Continue Reading
Protecting Fair Use Rights in the Digital World
DigitalConsumer.org is an advocacy group (that states a membership of 44,000) that is promoting a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that supports the right of consumers to use their PCs to make and view copies of digital content (CDs, DVD’s, TV broadcasts) for personal use. The site links to current news on files sharing, copyright… Continue Reading
UNC Wins Trademark Infringement Case
Judge William S. Ostten of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina, decided in favor of the University of North Carolina in a trademark case against Jack R. Erickson. Mr Erickson ran a now defunct porn website that infringed on the university’s trademark, UNC. Continue Reading
