derivative work

A recent court denied a motion to preliminarily enjoin distribution of copyrighted dildos, noting that dildos are useful articles, and separating the copyrightable expression from the unprotectible ideas would be … difficult. Bill Patry excerpted some of the best parts of the decision. Conwest Resources, Inc. v. Playtime Novelties, 2006 WL 3346226 (N.D. [...]

I really can’t stand it when politicians engage in cheap & sleazy grandstanding, knowing that what they’re doing is actually irrelevant. I’m speaking of Mitt Romney’s “lawsuit” to get the Mass. courts to step in to force the Mass. legislature to vote on an anti-same-sex-marriage amendment. [nyt 11/25]
Cheap & sleazy political grandstanding may [...]

The Library of Congress / Copyright Office issued its third set of DMCA rulemaking exemptions, just before taking off for the holidays. I was eagerly anticipating the rulemaking (even more eagerly than usual) after David Carson, General Counsel at the Copyright Office, kept dropping hints about the what we could all look forward to at [...]

From my perspective, the Section 230 (qualified by dicta) victory in Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law v. Craigslist (PDF), is fine, unsurprising, but a relief. But more importantly, to me, the case demonstrates a significant and ongoing failure of the public interest tech law community: Explaining to people outside our community [...]

Ah, a fine Sunday morning reading the paper, and trashing media bias and sloppy reporting at the NYT …
This annoying NYT article (11/12) on police witness “sanctuary” policies is a perfect example of how articles can be technically “balanced” but still really suck present an imbalanced picture.
The police witness sanctuary policies basically tell [...]

The NYT has two interesting stories right now featuring, shall we say, different approaches to artists and IP.
The first in a genre near and dear to my heart is a profile of Dark Horse Comics, which “built [their] publishing platform around creators’ rights … [Their] pitch was, ‘We’ll match the rights that you get [...]

“Intelligent Design” advocates lost in Ohio, and the League of Conservation Voters reports that most of their 2006 Dirty “Dozen” lost, and most of their 2006 Environmental Champions won. Ha.

In a time of many horrors, my eye was caught by this outrage [NYT 11/3]:
Under a new federal policy, children born in the United States to illegal immigrants with low incomes will no longer be automatically entitled to health insurance through Medicaid, Bush administration officials said Thursday.
“Children born in the United States” — i.e., [...]

Surprise, having kids and a husband* make it less likely that women will get tenure-track positions or achieve tenure. See the “Marriage and Baby Blues: Re-defining Gender Equity” report (PDF) by Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden (2003).
Thanks to my partner (a postdoc) who sent me this illustrative graphic from the report.
…
* I say “husband” [...]

My friend Liz Henry (aka badgermama) took this very funny picture of a costumed Death in the schoolyard.