The New York state legislature is reviewing two proposed laws that would seemingly make it mandatory for operators of blogs, websites, etc., to take down anonymous comments upon request “unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name and home address are accurate”.

Also included is an obligation for any website “where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages” must develop infrastructure and contact mechanisms for a.) allowing takedown requests to be submitted and b.) for contacting anonymous posters and seeking their . . . [more]

The National Post recently presented the interesting case in which a New Jersey judge must decide whether someone can be “electronically present” in a car, even if they physically aren’t there, and, if so, whether the person can be held liable for events that take place, or that are caused by their electronic presence.

As the status of the various Criminal Code provisions concerning prostitution floats its inevitable way upward towards the Supreme Court, now that the Ontario Court of Appeal has struck down some of them, readers of Slaw might like to learn something about how the matter is handled in other countries. The ever helpful Legal and Legislative Affairs Division of the Library of Parliament’s Information and Research Service has released online a “Prostitution: A Review of Legislation in Selected Countries” (by Laura Barnett, Lyne Casavant, and Julia Nicol) [PDF].

The countries examined are Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden, . . . [more]

Since it’s not sponsored by the regular legal conference outfits, a conference in Toronto next month may have flown under the radar for the Slaw community. The first Symposium on Criminality in the Art and Cultural Property World will be held at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West, Toronto, on June 15-16, 2012. Next month, Toronto will be the centre of the art-legal world.

The conference is co-chaired by Bonnie Czegledi and Mr. Justice Patrick Healy, Court of Quebec, Criminal and Penal Division, Montréal, formerly Professor Healy from McGill, and the speakers are quite literally, the world’s experts: Lawrence . . . [more]

The International Labour Organization (ILO), the agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues, is seeking ratification of its eight conventions covering fundamental labour standards by 2015. The ILO Core Conventions are as follows:

In the Supreme Court of the United States decision of Kansas v. Marsh Justice Antonin Scalia stated,

It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case-not one-in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby.

The court was considering the constitutionality of the death penalty in the Kansas, where the statute specifically provided for this . . . [more]

We have discussed on Slaw the mandatory disclosure of information from Facebook pages in civil litigation, and the disclosure of FB passwords to prospective employers. I do not believe that we have discussed the disclosure of information from FB in the course of a criminal investigation.

A German court has recently ordered disclosure of the content of private messages and pictures from a suspect’s FB pages. A write-up of the case appears in International Law Office.

Is this just another search warrant for a computer? Would courts where you are have any difficulty with an application for such a warrant? . . . [more]

Victor Willis, lead singer of the Village People, that camp disco-era singing group, has won an important victory in a California court. Willis wrote YMCA and other hit tunes performed by the group, the copyright to all of which wound up in music companies, as is so often the case for musicians starting out. However, US copyright law was revised in 1978 to include “termination rights,” a provision enabling creators to resume ownership of the copyright after 35 years. Despite various arguments by the music companies, the court accorded Willis the rights to the songs at issue.

According to the . . . [more]

Today is Earth Day, or as the United Nations calls it, International Mother Earth Day. It was first celebrated in 1970, which also coincided with the founding of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA has a webpage highlighting the history of the agency and the role it has played in promoting environmentalism,

It may be hard to imagine that before 1970, a factory could spew black clouds of toxic into the air or dump tons of toxic waste into a nearby stream, and that was perfectly legal. They could not be taken to court to stop

. . . [more]

An interesting human rights case is making its way to the European Court of Human Rights where the British government is set to defend the right of employers to ban employees from wearing the cross at work as it is not a ‘requirement’ of the Christian faith

We may not be the most wealthy nation in the world, or have the most powerful military. But when it comes to the legal influence of our constitution on other countries, it seems that Canada tops the list.

This Tuesday we celebrate the Charter’s 30th anniversary, and there is plenty to rejoice about. The New York University Law Review is publishing an article in their upcoming June issue which mathematically calculates the relative global influence of the constitutions of different countries, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms surpasses even our American neighbours. The finding is so surprising in some . . . [more]

This weekend near midnight on Saturday, will mark 100 years since the unsinkable ocean liner hit an iceburg on its maiden voyage and sank; which around these parts is a big deal. The magnitude of the event was so great that it resonates 100 years later. This event has entered our popular conciousness as it is common to hear of something that did not go well, that it was a disaster of “titanic proportions”; in a way the sinking of the Titanic has become the standard by which disasters are measured. Have you ever felt that you were “arranging . . . [more]