As today is the kickoff for the FIFA World Cup 2006 (football or soccer for you non-sports fans, and “football” or “soccer” depending on where you are and what your inclinations are, perhaps even “futbol”.) I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the legal aspects of the World Cup. It seems that is not just the world cup of futbol, but also for lawyers. Some of the primary legal areas include: Employment law (all those getting sick around the time their favourite squad takes the pitch), the sex-trade (some countries have legalized, others have not and issues . . . [more]

The International Internet Preservation Consortium -- netpreserve.org -- hasn't found its way on to Slaw yet.

I get a thrill when I look at a letter written over three hundred years ago — like the one excerpted just above. It’s one of the documents in the Canada-France Archives: Nouvelle France, Horizons Nouveaux / New France, New Horizons, a repository of historical documents that I think we haven’t pointed to before on Slaw. Their own description is as follows:

This database contains descriptions and reproductions of documents related to New France (correspondence, reports, maps and plans, and drawings) included in fonds and series conserved at the Centre des archives d’outre-mer (Aix-en-Provence), the Centre historique des Archives

. . . [more]

Dear Slawer-friends –

The Ottawa Citizen (main newspaper of Canada’s National Capital Region) featured today a full two page story in the tech weekly section, written by Peter Hum, on Government 2.0 Think Tank (“G2TT”), a private association dedicated to open source government. This marks the official launch of G2TT. More information on the association can be found in the G2TT Charter.

Aside from the interesting aspects of implementing web 2.0 in governments, I suspect that Slawers may be interested by one of the challenges identified in the first G2TT project – Project Eureka: Uninformed Copyright. By uninformed . . . [more]

Slaw readers know the value of a taxonomy.

This new blog is an example of how narrow the topics can be, and yet how much can be contained in the discussion. Apparently Ken Adams (US) is somewhat of an expert on drafting contracts, and he’s just started up a blog on the topic. Here’s what he says about the blog:

[The blog] has a specific function. Even after a couple of books and a dozen articles, I still have lots to write about. I’ll continue to use articles to lay out my thoughts on bigger topics, but that leaves plenty of tricky smaller issues of contract language. The . . . [more]

The recent posts about managing email reminded me that the summer seems to be a good time to tackle “non-legal” reading. For those interested in some eclectic choices, read on (all choices are available at Chapters.ca):

– Getting Things Done (David Allen). Many may already know of this book – for me it was an easy to read guide to productivity. The author tackles all kinds of common behaviours and situations (including email management) and offers simple, logical and practical solutions.

– The Microsoft Crabby Office Lady Tells It Like It Is: Secrets to Surviving Office Life (Annik Stahl). I . . . [more]

How does a Federal Budget “slip” through Parliament?
Story . . . [more]

I suppose it should be obvious, given that Google does it so prolifically, that linking from one site to another is a non-issue legally. Still, occasionally a less-than-geeky supervisor may idly question the legality of linking. If this happens to you, direct them to:

Michael Geist, Internet Law in Canada, 3rd ed. (Concord Ont: Captus, 2002) pp. 473-492, and
Teresa Scassa and Michael Deturbide, Electronic Commerce and Internet Law in Canada , (Toronto: CCH, 2004) pp.355-374.

These Canadian authorities agree that the main area of action has been copyright infringment. Links that do not automatically activate, and which do . . . [more]

Cindy Chick has an interesting post on email management and the art of getting things done. She’s included some great tips like this one:

“If you keep all your archives in your inbox, note that you can push the current actions folders to the top by simply putting an asterisk in front of the name. I use this same technique in my pending projects folder to push the projects I’m actively working on to the top.”

Another tip Cindy mentions, the use of current projects folders, is one I try to adhere to. However, when things get really crazy, my . . . [more]

Statistics Canada released a report today via The Daily: Aboriginal people as victims and offenders. This might be useful to people working on behalf of First Nations, and anyway contains data we all should be aware of. . . . [more]

Google is releasing Spreadsheets in beta. After consuming Writely, the giant is turning its attention to a browser-based spreadsheet app to offer a free alternative to Microsoft’s Excel. One neat aspect of Google Spreadsheets is that they are easily shareable.

To apply for your invitation go without delay to: http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/try_out.html . . . [more]