Colleague Katharine Thompson has shown me how to add “refinements” to my Custom Google Search of Canadian Law Firms.

A search on “wallace” (admittedly not a very sophisticated search if looking for law firm bulletin case comments on Wallace v. United Grain Growers Ltd., [1997] 3 S.C.R. 701) results in a number of hits on the bio’s of lawyers named Wallace.

However, with the prior search results on “wallace”, if you click on the new “Bulletins” refinement button we have added, you generate much better search results of mainly law firm bulletins on the S.C.C. decision in question . . . [more]

The report by Justice Richard Goldstone on the Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, released yesterday, is raising some interesting legal questions.

The report concluded that both Israel and the Palestinians had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity. The most obvious question people are asking is the effect of this report on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Israeli media has stated that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel, as a non-signatory to the Rome Statute. Israeli legal scholars have generally taken a similar position, but this appears to be flawed. . . . [more]

1.
Big fuss yesterday as Google changed its doodle to show a flying saucer over a field of crop circles:

Then Google Tweeted a pair of map coordinates: 51.327629, -0.5616088

Despite much speculation even in the mainstream press — see today’s Globe and Mail, for example — no one seems to have solved the mystery of exactly what Google’s up to. The map coordinates point to Woking in England, by the way. An excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Woking suggests why Google might be interested in this Surrey town:

[I]t is the town in which the Martians first

Steve Rubel has a post today entitled Stats: the Internet in charts.

Before you click on the link, take a guess at how long it would take you to read the entire internet if you printed it off, or how much area that paper would cover.

Or how much video gets uploaded to YouTube compared to new content aired on the 3 major US TV networks. . . . [more]

Some of the most interesting people I know are not lawyers!

This is the premise underlying this, my first, “get to know” post. My intent is to introduce this wonderful community of legal thinkers to wonderful thinkers with something to contribute from other communities. I’d encourage other Slaw contributors to do the same. This is valid online social networking isn’t it? And is building links beyond our immediate social network not a path to greater creativity and knowledge for all?

My first subject is James Chisholm, business simulation designer and principal of ExperiencePoint. We became friends back in b-school in . . . [more]

Although the Canadian government has already taken initiatives to develop social networking tools, they may be getting help soon from Google.

The official Google Public Sector blog has plenty of resources for government technology directors, including the recently concluded Gov 2.0 summit in D.C. last week, chaired by web guru Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, Inc., the guy who coined “Web 2.0.” Videos of most of the presentations are available online.

Last night Google announced the launch of Google for the Public Sector, offering a number of tools that largely already existed, such as website . . . [more]

The web has certainly transformed the travel industry, and given travellers access to all sorts of amazing info about flight options, hotels and everything else business or vacation travellers would ever want to know. My friends and fellow PMAs (practice management advisors) Jim Calloway from the Oklahoma Bar Association and Courtney Kennaday at the South Carolina Bar Association wrote “Sites For Sore Eyes – The Travel Site Less Visited” which was published this month in the ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division eTechnology Newsletter. They mention several sites I regularly use, and a few I don’t, but clearly . . . [more]

Recently, I attended a session that brought together Legal Aid officials and representatives of legal clinics, among others, to discuss how to improve access to clinic services by members of racialized communities. I want to mention only one point that a participant raised at the meeting and that is the use of technology to provide information to people using the legal system (or wanting access to the legal system), ostensibly to increase their capacity for “self-help”. . . . [more]

In case you haven’t kept up to date with the Canadian Copyright Consultations, a grace period has been added to the period for comment, extending it to midnight tonight. Michael Geist has additional details on his blog. . . . [more]

In an earlier posting on Slaw, Norwich Order Applied to Gmail Account, Omar Ha-Redeye discussed the facts, findings and implications of the recent decision in York University v. Bell Canada Enterprises, 2009 CanLII 46447 (ON S.C.). To that excellent posting, I offer some additional observations.

Threshold

First, York University v. Bell Canada Enterprises is of interest in respect of its finding regarding the first element of the test for a Norwich order. Prior to York University v. Bell Canada Enterprises, it was arguably well-established that the first element in the test for Norwich order is that the . . . [more]

New UK Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce later this week a three-month consultation process over lifting the ban on product placement in television programming in the UK. The move responds to plunging advertising revenues in the broadcast sector, and is a reversal of position from that of the previous Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham. Expect debate over the need to find alternative revenue sources for programming, and the erosion of programming quality, creative independence, and the public’s trust due to the blurring of advertising messaging and content.

Under current rules, programmes can show products used as props, but . . . [more]

Creative Commons published a study on September 14, 2009, Defining “Noncommercial”: A Study of How the Online Population Understands “Noncomemrcial Use”.

This Study was commissioned by Creative Commons in 2008-2009 from a professional market research firm to delve into the meaning of “commercial” and “noncommercial” use in relation to online content.

One quote from the Executive Summary:

Perceptions of the many use cases studied suggest that with the exception of uses that earn users money or involve advertising – at least until specific case scenarios are presented that disrupt those generalized views of commerciality – there is more uncertainty