Coming to small claims court: Roadrunner vs. Acme Rent-a-Car Misc. 6/19/2001; 7:21:01 PM 'When Turner signed Acme's rental agreement last October, he didn't notice the warning at the top of the contract that read: "Vehicles in excess of posted speed limit will be charged $150 fee per occurrence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped."' Another idle threat of the "technology paranoids" comes true. Automated speeding tickets courtesy of GPS. Granted, it's private sector right now, but who says that will stay true?

Smart Tags and the Microsoft Problem Revisited Free Speech6/17/2001; 11:12:24 PM 'Here’s the bad news for Microsoft: their SmartTags technology, applied to the web would likely be illegal in most countries outside of the United States.'Here’s the bad news for us: Microsoft’s SmartTags would likely be completely legal inside the United States, when applied to content that originates within the country’s borders.'Why? Something called moral rights. Most civilized countries recognize them; but the United States doesn’t.

Evergreen Albums Music & MP3 6/16/2001; 3:53:14 PM 'This is a study of long-term album sales trends using data taken from the Recording Industry Association of America's web site. The data is downloadable as text files for further analysis- my primary interest in doing this study was to work out which albums and artists have been able to drive long-term sales even after record industry hype had moved on to other, newer records, and whether there were any surprises in the data.

The Wrong Way to Do Dirty Tricks Humor/Amusing6/16/2001; 3:15:08 PM 'A startling report from the Minnesota Senate race provides a stunning example of American politics as tech-cluelessness combined with petty nastiness.'Christine Gunhus, the wife of a U.S. senator who ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 2000, pleaded no contest last week to charges of using a pseudonym to unlawfully send e-mail messages that disparaged her husband's Democratic rival.'That would be unusual enough in itself, but this look at how not to write e-mail nastygrams underscores the risks of using technology you don't understand -- especially when it can reveal your identity.

Bar association may oppose UCITA UCITA 6/14/2001; 6:38:26 PM 'The American Bar Association may vote at its annual meeting in August to oppose UCITA unless the controversial software licensing law is extensively revised. 'The ABA's Tort and Insurance Practice Section, a major group within the Washington-based organization, stated in a recent resolution obtained by Computerworld that UCITA should be "extensively revised" to more adequately reflect current law on licensing intellectual property, "

U.S. judge to hear Yahoo! case of French Nazi ban Country Watch: France6/13/2001; 12:30:48 PM 'In a case with broad implications for free speech on the Internet, a U.S. federal judge has agreed to consider whether foreign courts may determine what Yahoo! Inc. sells on its auction site, a company spokesman said on Friday....'U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose on Thursday rejected a French request to throw out Yahoo!

Harm from the Hague Misc.6/12/2001; 8:20:50 PM 'The Hague treaty is not actually about patents, or about copyrights, or about censorship, but it affects all of them. It is a treaty about jurisdiction, and how one country should treat the court decisions of another country. The basic idea is reasonable enough: If someone hits your car in France or breaks a contract with your French company, you can sue him in France, then bring the judgment to a court in whichever country he lives in (or has assets in) for enforcement.

Microsoft Tries To Get Smart Humor/Amusing6/11/2001; 7:40:10 PM 'Microsoft bashers were out in full-force last week, chastising the company for a new technology in the forthcoming version of its Windows operating system they say infringes on free speech, intellectual property and the copyrights of Web content creators.'What's it all about? Microsoft is considering adding a feature to Windows XP (link to Microsoft XP order info page), due out Oct. 25, that would take users to links predetermined by Microsoft (link to favorable article about Microsoft).

Law Review Article Says Port Scanning Illegal Misc.6/11/2001; 9:13:23 AM From Slashdot:Anonymous Coward writes: "The Journal of Technology Law and Policy has a good article on computer security and privacy.... It's interesting to see the computer security from a lawyer's point of view. Especially interesting are his claims that using nmap is illegal, despite the VC3 v. Moulton case...." Actually, I think the metaphors throughout this piece (not just at the beginning) are what make it interesting, and a big component of law is dealing with metaphors.

Two Heads Up Administrative6/8/2001; 1:48:42 PM Alright, two heads up:1. The previous re-design was not intended to last as long as it has. I will be taking another go at it, and hopefully it will improve the site significantly.Update: I'm not quite done and I need to go do some other stuff, but this ought to be an improvement. Still not happy...2. The winds of change are blowing. I'm not ready yet, and it may not be for a month or two, but this site is slowly packing up and preparing to move to my own webspace.