Blogger and law prof, Michael Geist, is already in day three of his “30 Days of DRM” [digital rights managementI plan to spend the thirty days before the House of Commons reconvenes to highlight some of the exceptions and limitations that should be included in the event that a Canadian DMCA is introduced. Each day, I will post a new provision, focusing broadly on marketplace concerns, public protection, and fair circumvention. The postings will be collected on a single page to form a compilation of DRM policy issues.

Somewhere in between “Cest la vie”, “Whattya gonna do?” and “Shit happens” falls my new zen koan “Snakes on a Plane”.

WIFE: “Honey you stepped in dog poop again. ”
ME: “Snakes on a Plane…”
DOCTOR: “Your cholesterol is 290. Perhaps you want to mix in a walk once in a while.”
ME: “Snakes on a Plane…”
WIFE: “Honey while you were on your cholesterol walk you stepped in dog poop again.”

You get the picture.

Josh Friedman’s blog “I find your lack of faith disturbing”

I’ll never see the flick, but I might use the line if milk ever . . . [more]

One of our lawyers pointed out the IDI, a European-based service, to me. I haven’t had a chance to use the subscription service myself, but it looks like a fabulous resource. From the English brochure:

The main purpose of the IDI Project is to set up, develop and keep updated a website (www.idiproject.com) on international distribution, where those who are engaged in establishing distribution networks and in drafting, negotiating and managing distribution contracts:

• can find all the legal information they need for doing their job, and
• can exchange views and share experiences with other people having the same

. . . [more]

Looks like Google has finally opened the doors to new Writely accounts.

[Hat tip to Grace] . . . [more]

…gets earnest, might be an even better way to put it. Perhaps stung by the various recent slurs on Wikipedia’s accuracy, the folks at the top have decided to construct the wherewithal for what seems to me will become a self-improving authority machine, harnessing the same distributed, free “improving” urge that got the ‘pedia ballooned to great heights in the first place.

The sharp end of the planned scholar’s movement is Wikicite, the aims of which are to:

Facilitate the citation of all factual assertions. Ideally every non-obvious factual assertion should connect to evidence which corroborates it… Most reference

. . . [more]

Hmm. I didn’t know about InfoSource, the government of Canada’s Sources of Federal Government Information. Definitely time in the penalty box for that. Now, thanks to Slawyer and blogger-in-his-own-right Library Boy, I do. What’s particularly handy is that they offer a downloadable pdf version (in two files). . . . [more]

Le jeune Barreau de Montréal ouvre ses forums!Bref billet pour annoncer, en avant-première, l'ouverture des forums de l'Association du Jeune Barreau de Montréal (AJBM).

The U.S. College of Law Practice Management has released the inaugural issue of Innovaction, an “e-zine” in pdf. It’s splendidly produced, with lots of dramatic colour and interesting articles, as befits a publication with a name like that.

Two of the reasons for its success may not be hard to find: just look for the tiny Canadian flags in their lapels. The Editor-in-chief was none other than Jordan Furlong, whose day job is editor of the CBA’s National, and one of the Editorial Advisory Group was Slaw’s own Simon Chester. Simon was also a member of the . . . [more]

Last week law.com picked up an interesting item from American Lawyer “Software Glitch May Have Erased E-Mail Text in Enron Suits”. The information in the article is inconclusive as to the extent (if any) of the problem or the resolution.

News items such as this are a good reminder of the number of human decisions required to create an “automated” collection of information (or knowledge for that matter). I’m guessing it is impossible today to create a large database and actually test it to make sure it is 100% complete and accurate. Whether it is internal system or third . . . [more]

Stephane Cottin, head of IT and of the registry service with France’s Constitutional Council, has created the tag “wikidroit” (wikilaw) on the del.icio.us social tagging website to compile a list of online collaborative sites (or wikis) on the topic of law.

By creating an account on del.icio.us, people can assign tags or keywords to websites they wish to bookmark and then share those bookmarks with others.

One of the sites Cottin references is LawLibWik created by Deborah Ginsberg (Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology) and Bonnie Shucha (University of Wisconsin). It includes a link to a presentation they . . . [more]

Ahead of the September 30 expiration of the current memorandum of understanding, the United States Dept. of Commerce yesterday announced it has renewed ICANN‘s role in administering the domain name system. According to an ICANN press release and this BBC news report, the new contract is for five years, extending ICANN’s authority to 2011, but is also subject to annual renewal. (I haven’t looked at the contract itself.) As the BBC story points out, this is somewhat disappointing for those favouring a more independent or international authority over domain name administration or, at least, a more transparent . . . [more]

“The time has come for legal scholars and scholarly legal periodicals in the United States to join the movement for open access law.” So says Michael Carroll in The Movement for Open Access Law, a paper in the Villanova Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series. The paper is available in pdf format via SSRN.

From the abstract:

My claim in this contribution to this important symposium is that the law and legal scholarship should be freely available on the Internet, and copyright law and licensing should facilitate achievement of this goal. This claim reflects the combined aims

. . . [more]