Entertainment industry calls for EU internet piracy crackdown - Telegraph

Entertainment industry calls for EU internet piracy crackdown - Telegraph:

"A new coalition group has been formed by representatives from the film, TV and radio industries to lobby the European Union to toughen up its actions against online pirates."

Evolve and Grow or Stagnate and Decay : Learning From Europe - Paul Krugman at the NYTimes.com on Social Democracy, Health and the Economy

One of the keys to life is getting smarter as we go along by learning from others. If we do not learn and evolve, we fall behind, and others pass us. This Darwinian wisdom is omnipresent.

We are not always a fan of Paul Krugman, but he is a learner ... and can help others learn as well, especially in the national discussion in the USA about health care and its relation to the health of the economy, where Europe shows the way it can be done.

Learning From Europe - Paul Krugman at the NYTimes.com

"The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works....

[W]hy do we get such a different picture from many pundits? Because according to the prevailing economic dogma in this country — and I’m talking here about many Democrats as well as essentially all Republicans — European-style social democracy should be an utter disaster.

[W]hat European experience actually demonstrates is [that] social justice and progress can go hand in hand. "

Read the complete article.

Law and Music on Hold - Josipovic Now Heads Croatia - NYTimes.com

Law and Music on Hold - Josipovic Now Heads Croatia - NYTimes.com

Robot Law at Stanford : Legal Experts View Challenges

Adam Gorlik writes in
As robots become more common, Stanford experts consider legal challenges:

"Stanford scholars are among the first in the country to ponder the potential legal questions facing the emerging field of personal robotics. The issues go beyond claims of personal injury and property damage, touching on criminal and civil rights laws as well...."

Read the rest here.

Hat tip to a tweet from Susan L. White:

susanletterman

For lawyers thinking about where to expand their practice, consider Robot law. http://bit.ly/4z4StO 1:29 AM Jan 7th from TweetDeck Retweeted by you and 1 other

Is a Twitter Tweet from a Courtroom "Broadcasting" forbidden by Federal Court Rules? and other new special problems for courts through new technology

Cellphones, modern camera technology, Twitter, Facebook and social media "broadcasting" are keeping the legal system on its toes. Grant Schulte at USA TODAY in 'Special problems' force courts to confront cellphone issues - USATODAY.com writes inter alia that:

"Aside from the noisy interruption of musical ringtones, the technology poses new challenges for judges, who must maintain courtroom décor and consider other legal issues in a world where Facebook, Twitter and cameras are now at the fingertips of many cellphone users.

A federal judge in Georgia in November banned a local newspaper reporter from posting information on Twitter from a handheld electronic device, after the man on trial objected. U.S. District Judge Clay Land ruled that the online microblogging service qualifies as 'broadcasting,' which is banned under federal court rules."

Read the full article here.

Hat tip to a tweet from the Superior Court of Fulton County Georgia:

"RT @USATODAY 'Special problems' force courts to confront cellphone issues http://usat.me?37148400 7:50 PM Jan 4th from web"

Could Google Fast Flip constitute Copyright Infringement of some Text or Graphic Content in spite of License Agreements? New York Times v. Tasini

Is Google "Fast Flip" from Google Labs the way that some Google Search results will look down the road?

It certainly looks possible.

We definitely like Fast Flip, already being a fan of Google Books, which features, e.g., one of our own publications.

You can try Google's Fast Flip at the Google News home page (available as of January 8, 2010) via the corresponding menu item there at the bottom of the left column.

Our question here is whether Google Fast Flip could constitute copyright infringement of any of the content shown, despite Google's general licenses with publishers to publish this material.

The search results of Google's "Fast Flip" show partial "headline" pages of publications in partially readable form together with copyrighted text and graphics. Clicking on a publication zooms that particular partial page into fully readable status withinGoogle's "Fast Flip". Only when that zoomed page is clicked again is the user taken to the original publication.

Jessica Dobias at Social Media Law Student thinks Google may have a found a way around the potential copyright infringement problem raised by Fast Flip by entering into enabling licensing agreements with the publishers, but this presumes that the publishers have corresponding licensing agreements with the copyright holders, i.e. writers and photographers, to use their copyrighted works in the manner that they are being used in Google's Fast Flip. They may or may not have, we do not know.

It all reminds us of the US Supreme Court holding in New York Times v. Tasini (see Mark B. Radefeld, Note, The Medium is the Message: Copyright Law Confronts the Information Age in New York Times v. Tasini, 36 AKRON L. REV. 545 (2003), where database-type use of freelance articles by the New York Times was ultimately ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court as copyright infringement, barring a specific agreement permitting such use.Radefeld in footnote 2 of his note article cited above identifies the ultimate holding in Tasini:

"Tasini v. New York Times Co., 972 F. Supp. 804 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (allowing publishers to place freelance articles in electronic databases under the revision privilege in §201(c) of the Copyright Act), rev’d, 206 F.3d 161 (2d Cir. 1999);Tasini v. New York Times Co., 206 F.3d 161 (2d Cir. 1999) (finding publishers cannot place freelance articles in electronic databases because databases containing individual articles from periodicals do not constitute revisions under §201(c)),aff’d, 533 U.S. 483 (2001); New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001) (holding articles republished in electronic databases are not part of, nor revisions, of periodicals and cannot be relicensed by periodical publishers without the author’s consent)." [emphasis added by LawPundit]