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“The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is providing an opportunity to all interested persons to file comments to a motion requesting a stay of its final rule which clarifies that transmissions of a broadcast signal over a digital communications network are not exempt from copyright liability under section 114(d)(1)(A) of the Copyright Act.”
StateWatch.org reports that the Commissioners’ stated: “Where traffic data are to be retained in specific cases, there must therefore be a demonstrable need, the period of retention must be as short as possible and the practice must be clearly regulated by law, in a way that provides sufficient safeguards against unlawful access and any other …
This Federal Register notice for comments from the Copyright Office, with a closing period of September 16, 2002, deals with addressing claims for royalties on copyrighted music that is webcast.
The use of crawlers (automated index tools) to mine data from web sites to create market comparison shopping services for subscribers is the focus of this Wall Street Journal article, Are Bots Legal?. An example of such a service is Bargain.com , whose home page proclaims, “Never Pay Retail Again!.” Users may search through categories …
DigitalConsumer.org is an advocacy group (that states a membership of 44,000) that is promoting a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that supports the right of consumers to use their PCs to make and view copies of digital content (CDs, DVD’s, TV broadcasts) for personal use. The site links to current news on files sharing, copyright …
Judge William S. Ostten of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina, decided in favor of the University of North Carolina in a trademark case against Jack R. Erickson. Mr Erickson ran a now defunct porn website that infringed on the university’s trademark, UNC.
S.B. 1614 would preclude the sale or distribution on the Internet of birth and death records created and maintained by state agencies.
Various flavors of privacy legislation are before state and federal legislators, no doubt spurred on by the PATRIOT Act. Awaiting a vote by the House this month is H.R. 4561 which would “require that (federal) agencies, in promulgating rules, take into consideration the impact of such rules on the privacy of individuals.”
The University of Michigan Library Documents Center maintains a simple but handytext list of e-mail addresses and web sites for members of the 107th Congress.
BustPatents provides, “legal resources and tools for surviving the patenting frenzy of the Internet, bioinformatics, and electronic commerce.” The site hosts a useful annotated list of national and international patent resources.
“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review announced in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that it would provide the panel with a copy of what is expected to be a signal ruling on the Justice Department’s request for broad new wiretap powers.” A copy of the opinion is available at: The court was …
The Center for Digital Government and Government Technology announced their 2002 Digital Legislatures Awards. The top honor went to the Arizona State Legislature web site.