Embrace file-sharing, or die is a new article from Salon, available free and in full-text (but requiring that you view ads in between pages). It is actually the text of a presentation made last week by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, to the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and the… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2003
MA Budget Only Available Online
To save printing costs of approximately $50,000, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced that the new state budget will be available in only one format, online. For those citizens with no access to the Internet, the governor’s office recommended using public library access. Continue Reading
Slammer Virus Update
Via Politechbot, an informative update on the Slammer virus published in IEEE Spectrum Online. David Litchfield, co-founder of the UK security firm Next Generation Security Software Ltd was interviewed and states that they “first found the vulnerability and reported it to Microsoft in May 2002.” Continue Reading
Court Switches to PDF for Slip Opinions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit posted the following statement: “As of February 4, 2003, opinions are available as PDF documents to better represent the formatting of the printed slip opinion.” Thanks to Donna Cavallini for the link. Continue Reading
New Blogging Tools for an Expanding Market
For those who subscribe to the WSJ, Big Internet Players Show New Interest in Weblogs notes how the expanding blogsphere is now attracting the interest of big name players, such as the global internet company Terra Lycos, which launched its Blog Builder tool last week. See also this related article on IDG.net. Continue Reading
New Bill on Electronic File Format Standards
Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) introduced H.R. 490, The Instructional Materials Accessibility Act of 2003, on January 29, 2003. The bill would “define the specific technical parameters of the national electronic file format to be used by publishers of instructional materials in the preparation of electronic files suitable for efficient conversion into specialized formats.” Thanks to… Continue Reading
FTC Spam Workshop
The FTC announced a free, three day forum, April 30-May 2, open to the public, consisting of fourteen separate panels, each addressing different aspects of the spam email issue including legislation, security, privacy, law enforcement, and blocking software. The text of the Federal Register notice on this forum is available here, and references a recent… Continue Reading
Electronic Data Collection on Transporation Manifests
In a post on January 6, 2003 I noted a proposed rule from DOJ that would subject transportation manifests to electronic monitoring. On February 3, EPIC filed comments on the privacy implications of this rule with the INS. For the first time, data would be collected electronically on all U.S. and non-U.S. residents. Continue Reading
GAO Report on Smart Card Technology
Electronic Government: Progress in Promoting Adoption of Smart Card Technology. GAO-03-144, January 3. Highlights in PDF. Continue Reading
USPTO Hearing on Protection of Copyrighted Works
The USPTO held a hearing yesterday in accordance with the requirements of the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002 (known as the TEACH Act), Public Law 107-273. See my previous post here on this issue of protecting digitized copyrighted works that are used in distance education. Public comments from the Federal Register notice… Continue Reading
State Laws on the Web
Recent postings on the ABA SOLOSEZ listserv highlighted two useful resources for state law research, each compiled by members. From Bob Ambrogi, State Laws On The Internet, and from Frank J. Kautz II, A Directory of States that includes links to: state homepages, state courts, state statutes, state bar homepages, state consumer protection resources, and… Continue Reading
Microsoft Wins Stay from Fourth Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an order (in PDF) granting stay of the District Court Order in Microsoft’s ongoing battle against Sun Microsystems. This permits Microsoft to delay adding Java to updated versions of Windows XP. Microsoft’s press release on this news is available here. Continue Reading
