Category:
Technology Law
“Second Life” a Tool for Terrorism? Crazy . . . For Now.
For those of us who practice in the technology law field, one of the most exciting and novel areas is what’s happening in virtual worlds and with “massive multi-player online role-playing games” (“MMORPGs”). The variety and depth of the legal issues are fascinating, and I’ll do my best to cover them in this blog and on […]
Tagged MMORPG, Second Life, virtual property, virtual reality, virtual worlds
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“Where you at? Oh, nevermind . . . “
Does the flood of information ever end? Do we have to know everything about everyone—in real time? While location-tracking software is not new (well, not too new, anyway), Google’s expected move into this market only further reinforces Scott McNealy’s eerily prophetic saying, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” But now when you “get […]
Tagged apps, Google, gps, litigation, location, location software, location tracking, privacy, subpoena
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Just Plain Creepy
I know advertisers are constantly looking to determine how effective their ads are, but this story is just creepy. Not necessarily for what it is at the moment—which seems harmless—but for what it can (and will) lead to in the not-too-distant future. It seems that advertisers, in their never-ending quest to gather as much information as they […]
Tagged advertising, data collection, face recognition, security, technology lawyer
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Is Facebook the New Crack?
I’m not sure whether to be amused or upset by this story, but I thought it was worth a quick post. It seems that a petulant 19 year-old in Florida took the law into his own hands when he was told by a Starbucks customer that he couldn’t use the customer’s laptop to check his Facebook […]
Tagged crime, Facebook, felony, social media, social networking
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Odor in the Court!
Fart. Fart. Fart. It’s not often a lawyer gets to use that word in a courtroom once, let alone repeatedly. But sometimes the practice of law in these modern times lends itself to some unusual—dare I say fun?—cases that are not your traditional fare. Or perhaps I should say, “iFart,” which is a bit more apropos here. Flatulence—or more specifically, fart noises—is apparently […]
Tagged declaratory judgment, ifart, infringement, iphone, litigation, Massachusetts, trademark
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Kindling a Derivative Works Controversy
When I heard the Author’s Guild claim that Amazon’s new Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature violated an author’s copyright, all I could first think of was . . . good grief. And being a lawyer with a good stable of Yiddish terms, the phrases “oy vey” and “meshugenah” came to mind also. This nifty feature allows the Kindle to read the e-book’s […]
Tagged Amazon.com, contracts, copyright, derivative works, fair use, fixation, infringement, Kindle, licensing, litigation, originality, sound recording, translation
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