Kindle Follow-Up
Bad news on the Kindle text-to-speech issue. Here’s an overview by Lawrence Lessig. There is also some interesting discussion in the comments following his post. It looks like the device, which is already laden with DRM issues, just became a little less enticing to consumers.
Text-to-Speech on the Kindle
At the risk of turning this into the Cory Doctorow fan club, I point you to his thorough examination of the argument being put forth against the text-to-speech feature of the Amazon Kindle by Roy Blount Jr., president of the Author’s Guild. The problem is another good example of where technology is testing the viability of the existing copyright laws. As an author and copyright activist, Mr. Doctorow has a unique perspective on the issue.
Websites and Personal Jurisdiction
R. David Donoghue over at the excellent Chicago IP Litigation Blog has a write-up of Richter v. INSTAR Enterprises Int’l, Inc., a case from the Northern District of Illinois where a company’s website was found to be insufficient to create personal jurisdiction. This one caught my eye because we are currently covering jurisdiction in Civil Procedure, and if I had come across the same story a week ago, I would not have understood the implications. It’s nice to have these kind of concrete illustrations of how the topics we cover here in school will apply in the real world.
Doctorow on TWiT
I used to subscribe to This Week in Tech, but after a while I just couldn’t keep up with it given my ever-growing list of podcasts. However, the most recent episode came to me down the pipe of Cory Doctorow’s Craphound podcast. Cory is a guest, along with Ryan Block and Gina Trapani and Robert Heron. The topics covered include the recent New Zealand copyright blackout and the Pirate Bay trial. It’s full of interesting discussions. Especially entertaining is hearing Cory riff on copyright. The man knows the issues inside and out. As I have been recently reminded while reading his essays collected in ©ontent, he has seen copyright laws and treaties being drafted. He has argued on behalf of the consumer while working for the EFF, and he is full of passion when it comes to fighting against ill-concieved copyright laws.
Tweeting
With so much writing and reading required for school, I have found Twitter to be just right for personal output. It’s also a great tool to improve writing skills. The 140 character limit requires you to communicate a clear thought succinctly. My stream is primarily personal, which at the moment is all law school all the time.
And now I find, via the Creative Commons Blog, that it is possible to license your tweets via Creative Commons. Go to TweetCC and select your favorite flavor of CC license.
