Microsoft’s Ironic Poker Game: But are they bluffing this time?

Saturday, April 12th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »

Back in February, Network World ran a story that Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux operating system and guru of the Linux kernel, believes that Microsoft is bluffing in its threat to sue for patent infringement. NW quotes Torvals ...

Hulu and the NHL, follow-up

Monday, March 24th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | No Comments »

In response to a comment received putting succinctly Mr. Bettman's effect on the NHL, I would like to present two screen captures comparing the customer relations aspects of licensing issue manifestations. We have the new South Park Studios web site, which ...

Hulu and the NHL

Monday, March 24th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | 2 Comments »

Michael Geist pointed out that the NHL webcast on Hulu.com is blocked to Canadians. It was pointed out in the comments that it seems blocked to other non-Americans as well. I added my $0.02 (i.e. this is my ...

Collective mens rea? Or a lack of musical supply…

Thursday, March 20th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »

Ben Jones of TorrentFreak published an article a couple of weeks ago discussing the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey in the U.K., in which it was revealed not only that so-called "piracy" is rampant, even among the generally non-criminal element. ...

Selling your everything: Non-comp clauses, IP, and employment contracts

Saturday, March 8th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | 4 Comments »

I would like to write, today, about a murky subject I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks. The various forms the germ of this post has assumed over those weeks all stem from a particular type of clause ...

Joomla Demo Camp – Vancouver

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology | 2 Comments »

I am spending this evening at the Joomla! Demo Camp at The Network Hub in downtown Vancouver. Joomla! is an open-source content management system (CMS) that makes creating sophisticated websites with dense, extensive, and/or media rich content as easy as posting ...

Shysters be Gone, part III

Thursday, February 21st, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Legal Explorations | 1 Comment »

In part II, I identified two types of antisocial behaviour which we attempt to prevent, restrain, correct, punish, etc., with law: “those which harm the integrity of society, potentially leading to its collapse; and those which alter the dynamic ...

Reconstituting the Copyfight Polarization, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Corporation

Monday, February 18th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Intellectual Property | No Comments »

I was recently discussing with a colleague on Tazzu the new allies the Copyfight seems to have found: Tazzu Discussion Thread: "The Forces of CopyRightness gain another ally" Ars Technica: The Privacy Commissioner is not a big fan of the ...

Shysters be Gone! part II

Monday, February 11th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Legal Explorations | 1 Comment »

We ended the first post in this series with the question, "Whence comes the ethical imperative, 'Don’t be a Shyster!'?" Now we will get into it: I would like to draw an ephemeral line between moral and ethical laws - just follow ...

Ford gets confused and shoots itself in the foot

Friday, January 18th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Intellectual Property | 5 Comments »

So Ford Motor Company is a little bit confused. They are claiming some form of intellectual property in photographs of specific Ford Mustangs. Not in the abstract image of the iconic car, but in the photographs taken by ...