In a ruling Monday, the California Supreme Court interpreted the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996 “literally,” reversing a Court of Appeal ruling, and holding that under the statute internet publishers cannot be held liable for publishing defamatory information that originated from another source. In so holding, the Court brought California into line with other jurisdictions across the U.S. in recognizing the immunity of internet “distributors.”

The case is available in pdf format: Barrett v. Rosenthal. And the EFF has an overview of the decision along with links to other relevant documents.

Presumably this would mean that California bloggers . . . [more]

Steve’s last post on Second Life IP infringement reminded me of this news that broke a few days ago: Universal Music Sues MySpace for Copyright Infringement – (New York Times, Nov. 18/06, registration may be required to access).

About the lawsuit:

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is seen as part of a strategy by Universal to test provisions of a federal law that provides a “safe harbor” to Internet companies that follow certain procedures to filter out copyrighted works. The law requires sites to remove such content after being notified by the copyright holder.

If Universal

Check out this Wired Magazine article on Second Life’s challenges with copyright protection, and the resulting legal battle.

The economic infrastructure of the SL user community is now being threatened by a software program that can duplicate any “in world” item on demand. The article provides an interesting discussion on the valuation of virtual goods, and how devastating this new ‘Copybot’ could be to SL merchants.

The response by Linden Labs is also very interesting. Beyond the idea of banning members who use the software, LL has also excluded the possibility of using DRM technology, or (ack!) IP lawyers. . . . [more]

Dans la même mouvance de ce que dit précédemment relativement au projet de loi 48 relatif aux amendements de la Loi québécoise sur la protection du consommateur , je suis sous le charme d’une disposition en particulier qui, en comparaison des autres dispositions applicables dans les autres provinces et autres États, correspond au standard le plus protecteur.

«Le commerçant doit présenter ces renseignements de manière évidente et intelligible et les porter expressément à la connaissance du consommateur. »

Inspiré du modèle d’harmonisation des règles régissant les contrats de vente par Internet (art. 3.2), la disposition s’approche de celle de l’ . . . [more]

I was tremendously relieved to read Robert Ambrogi’s post on law.com yesterday “Farewell Web 2.0, Welcome Version 3.0”. I no longer have to feel guilty about what I know (or don’t know) about web 2.0.

PS – for those who aren’t already following the law.com BLOG Network, I highly recommend it. . . . [more]

This Ariadne article asks the question that we’ve all been asking, and which Simon may have answered…

Search Engines: Is Google Building on Shaky Foundations? . . . [more]

Nominations close this week for the 2006 Weblog Awards. How about we all drop by and nominate Slaw in the ‘Best Law Blog’ category? . . . [more]

A question arose on how to cite to a blawg or blog in a footnote or bibliography.

From my quick scan of print citation guides, it would appear that the print guides have yet to catch up with the blog phenomena (although I stand to be corrected and please do correct me if you find print/published examples on this topic).

The page here on the online site for the Chicago Manual of Style has an example of citing to what they call a “weblog entry or comment” (scroll down the page).

In addition, although the new 6th edition of the . . . [more]

…to post a comment will have posted comment number 2000 on Slaw. It took us almost a year to get to 1000 and not quite six months to reach the double millennium. Excellent. . . . [more]

Switching from Canadian culture (hockey and the Criminal Code) to global culture…

Wednesday evening I attended a “meet-up” for the Web 2.0 people in and abouts Toronto, a follow-up to the Mesh conference held last May and to be reprised in May 2007. I ran into few people I had met at the original conference, but talked to a number of fellow bloggers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. A number of people stood out to me in my conversations, and one in particular I thought Slaw fans should know about: Juan, who has a blog on migration and global culture.

Global . . . [more]

Because PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii are due out today and Sunday, respectively, I thought it might be appropriate to make a very brief visit to one small aspect of an internet subculture. Gaming is not something I do — though I suspect that within it lies much of all our digital futures, law people’s included — so I’m going to deal only with a part of gamer language — “leet” or “leetspeak”.

What is it? Leet is a kind of cant or jargon designed to create a community in the know and to exclude all others, rather like law, . . . [more]

Aside from “Law Librarian” and “Slaw contributor” one of my alter-egos is a Minor Hockey Referee in the Hockey Canada system. I have always been somewhat amused by the dichotomy between my days and my evenings. In one pursuit I research, organize and provide access to legal information; in the other pursuit I act as judge, jury and executioner (if you will allow my to coin that phrase), enforcing the rule book (penal code) of Hockey Canada. In one pursuit I deal with a lot of whining and players who just cannot believe that they can do anything wrong, in . . . [more]