An interesting story… even Google seems to be pulling back in this troubled economy. Search Engine Land is reporting the shutdown of new development on a number of projects, and Google themselves have acknowledged the shutdown of Google Video, Catalog Search, Notebook, Jaiku, and Dodgeball.

All of these cutbacks were reportedly based on a lack of revenue, which makes sense. But one does have to wonder why a serious effort was never made to let Jaiku compete in the growing micro-blogging market? While Twitter may have been an impossible chase, the association of the Google name . . . [more]

I made that comment as an aside in an earlier post. This thought also ties in with a couple of Simon’s posts, and another of mine.

This is true for not just legal documents, but for things like legislation, business and government policies, and processes.

The operating manual approach means being a slave to precedent documents, processes or decisions and applying or using them blindly without enough independent thought as to how it fits the current situation.

The context approach means figuring out what the facts are and what result is needed, then using precedent as a . . . [more]

♫ What’s new pussycat? Woah, Woah…♫

Words and music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, recorded by Tom Jones.

My old Law School Dean Edwards (Manitoba) used to continually say to us: “Nothing is really new under the Sun”.

I suppose he was trying to give us a sense of perspective in the law – to acquire a gently skeptical eye towards ‘new’ ideas and learn to gauge things relative to their place in the history of things. . . . [more]

“We’ve decided that it will be better for his later development if we speak to him only in legalese.”

. . . [more]

A project that may seem a bit different from Stem’s usual path, this past Monday we launched a new blog to track information and issues related to lawyers facing addiction. This latest website, the Lawyer Addiction Blog, will be tracking the flow of information coming from LAP programs across North America, and increasingly, from around the world.

To provide a bit of background here, on Monday Stem also announced a new client, The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center. As I described with a bit more detail on Stem’s blog, I view this relationship as a rare opportunity; to pair . . . [more]

As you’ll see on Slaw, I’m on about pictures again today — whether they’re worth a certain number of words, how exactly they marry (or not) with language. I suspect my occasional fascination with images has to do with the fact that I spend much of my time swimming in words, stroking for meaning; for those who, like me, are immersed in verbiage it’s important, I think, to pay attention to the visual field and to music as well, so that we are regularly reminded that wordy meaning is only one sort, and perhaps not the most powerful kind at . . . [more]

As this is my first post of 09, I thought I would look back to my predictions from 08 to see how my forecasting abilities fared.

• HIT – Online/Technology Privacy will become a much bigger issue in the mainstream.
• MISS – Someone or thing makes a small dent in Google’s search monopoly owing to privacy concerns (see Ask Eraser).
• Can’t really be determined yet – The settlement of the Hollywood writer’s strike will have implications for the online distribution of content that are not yet anticipated.
• I think I’ll renew this one for 2010 – Google, MS or another larger

Just to keep things current with respect to the Thomas Cromwell Pages, here’s a December 23rd update from the Supreme Court on the status of the new member of the Court, Mr. Justice Thomas Cromwell:

The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, announced today that The Honourable Thomas Cromwell will be sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada on January 5, 2009 at a private ceremony. The official welcome ceremony for Justice Cromwell will take place at 10:30 a.m., on February 16, 2009, in the Main Courtroom of the Supreme Court of Canada.

With winter comes the OLA Superconference. This year, it runs Jan. 28 – 31 at the Metro Convention Centre. Yes, I know that a lot of the program is public libraries oriented, but there are many themes and sessions which will resonate with law librarians. Digitization, information literacy, e-learning/e-teaching, creative organisations, the use of social media – see how professionals in different contexts are handling the issues we all share. I have to say I’m impressed by the roster of speakers as well – Richard Florida, Michael Enright, Justin Trudeau, Will Richardson and Eleanor Wachtel are all on the . . . [more]

I don’t want to make a habit of just reposting my weekly Free Press column to Slaw, but thought Slaw readers might be interested in this one. A year from now we can decide where these predictions stand on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a total failure to grasp reality, and 10 being worthy of Nostradamus.

My arrangement with the newspaper does not allow me to reproduce it here this soon after publication, but you can read it on my blog, in the Canoe technology section, or on the Free Press web site. . . . [more]

Vol. 13, No. 1, January 5, 2009 of Copyright, New Media Law & E-Commerce News is now available. It includes content on:

Music Industry Set to Abandon Mass Piracy Lawsuits

Harry Potter Lexicon Decision Analyzed

Judge Rules Facts Are Not Copyright-Protected

Hasbro Drops Lawsuit Against Makers of Scrabulous

Canadian Copyright Board Increases Tax on Blank Compact Disks

Advice for Obama’s New Chief Technology Officer

Popeye the Sailor Man Now Copyright-Free in E.U.

Stanford Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse

Certificate in Copyright Management for Librarians

Online Copyright Courses

Book: Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians

This e-letter, from 1996 to . . . [more]

Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, of Lang Michener LLP, writes for the Trade Lawyers Blog that a courier package addressed to her as counsel at her law firm was opened by Canada Border Services Agency. The package was sent by Dr. Henry T. King of the Canada-United States Law Institute. CBSA had marked the package “EXAMINED / RELEASED – CUSTOMS – TORONTO – DOUANES, EXAMINÉ / LIBERÉ”. As she points out in her post, this invasion of privacy has ramifications for solicitor-client communications.

Is it simply naïve to believe that cross-border communications are in fact private and that the various national security . . . [more]