Issue-spotting the Live Web, attorney Denise Howell muses about cutting edge technology-related legal issues.
Denise Howell is an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer who enjoys broad industry recognition for her expertise on the intersection of emerging technologies and law.
Ed Champion is investigating whether certain bloggers included in Amazon's Kindle launch were made "Kindle Blogs" without authorization or licensing. He cites two examples (Daniel McGowan and Cork Gaines) of bloggers who apparently are included in the Kindle Store without their permission.
The recent and unexpected passing of my grandmother (she was the only 98-year-old I've known who could, and did, blindside hundreds with her death) opened my eyes to the fact that death in 2007 has become an online, interactive experience. The mortuary partnered with MeM.
Forget about things like the fact Google's at $741 and Apple's at $191. Were you to try to rent a car at San Jose Airport tomorrow (Wednesday), you would discover that every single vehicle — from every single carrier — is spoken for.
Robert Scoble is wondering whether accessibility laws may cripple videocasts (and presumably podcasts). Scott Bourne had an interesting (if inconclusive) post on the subject last year, and the head lemur posits that the touchstone (in the context of the Target case presently in the news) may be whether or not you're doing e-commerce.
Then get on over to Ed Bott's Microsoft Report, where his poll on digital media ethics has garnered an overwhelming, and highly educational, response.
WikiPatents, "a public community that reviews US patents and pending patent applications," is one year old and now home to information and commentary about over 10 million patents and patent applications. It also is as far as I know the only place you can sort patent data by whether the invention in question is amusing, clever, complex, efficient, historic, important, innovative, interesting, practical or simple.
If you're doing business on the Live Web, get thee this Wednesday, October 10, to EFF's Bootcamp, "a one-day session for Web 2.0 workers on user generated content:"Does your interactive company have to contend with the maze of laws dealing with user privacy and publishing user content?
Dennis Kennedy pointed me to Shelley Powers, who pointed me in turn to Slashdot and Professor Lessig. All concern a lawsuit pending in Dallas, TX against Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons concerning Virgin's advertising use of a minor's picture posted by the girl's youth counselor to Flickr under a CC-Attribution license (which permits commercial use).
Through his always enriching podcast, I've heard Cory Doctorow give variations on his privacy talk at least five or six times over the last year. The most current iteration is available at Intel's/Josh Bancroft's BitStories.
Some very competitively interesting Web companies are being launched and/or featured today and tomorrow at TechCrunch40. In the wrap-up portion of the Community Collaboration session, former Napster executive Don Dodge was quick to note that many of these companies depend on user submissions and uploads to populate their services, and they need to be managing the IP considerations on the front end.