Category Archives: Information

Should law school be reduced to two years?

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This weekend the NY Times is running an online debate entitled “The Debate over Law School.” The main focus is whether law school should be reduced from three years to two.  Geoffrey R. Stone says “The critical question is what law schools can do to educate future lawyers that legal practice cannot do.” In addition:

Does the three-year program of legal education work well? This depends entirely on what legal educators do with the three years. If legal educators are lazy, uninspired or indifferent to their responsibility to educate, three years is certainly too long. But if they are thoughtful, focused and creative, three years may not be long enough.

Rose Cuison Villazor says:

Ultimately, the question about reducing the cost of legal education should be less about its length but rather its quality. Law schools must put greater emphasis in developing and strengthening programs that would help law students become engaged and ethical lawyers. These include increasing the availability of skills-based courses, clinical and internship programs, enhanced academic support and mentoring services, providing more mentoring and offering more interdisciplinary courses. By enhancing the traditional model instead of radically changing it, many law students might just view their legal education as an important investment in time and money.

For more, go to the main debate page.

H/T to Therapeutic Jurisprudence page on Facebook.

New article on SSRN: “Civil Procedures for a World of Shared and User-Generated Content”

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I’ve posted a draft of my forthcoming article Civil Procedures for a World of Shared and User-Generated Content to SSRN. It’ll appear in print in the University of Louisville Law Review. Here’s the abstract:

Scholars often focus on the substance of copyrights as opposed to the procedures used to enforce them.  Yet copyright enforcement procedures are at the root of significant overreach and deserve greater attention in academic literature.  This Article explores three types of private enforcement procedures: direct enforcement (cease-and-desist practice); indirect enforcement (DMCA takedowns); and automated enforcement (YouTube’s Content ID filtering program).  Such procedures can produce a “substance-procedure-substance” feedback loop that causes significant de facto overextensions of copyrights, particularly against those creating and sharing User-Generated Content (“UGC”).  To avoid this feedback, the Article proposes descriptive and normative frameworks aimed towards the creation of better procedures. Looking to the source of procedures, the relevant actors, and the functions of enforcement (the descriptive framework), the Article suggests principles of transparency, participation, and “balanced accuracy” (the normative framework) that might lead to private enforcement procedures that accommodate the reasonable cost and efficiency needs of copyright owners without trampling on UGC.

You can find the abstract and download the article here.

David Letterman’s live IP demand to Joaquin Phoenix: real or hoax?

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I’ve read many a cease-and-desist letter, and I’ve even written a few, but I’ve never seen an IP demand issued personally on late-night TV. Here’s David Letterman, complaining to Joaquin Phoenix about the use of portions of Phoenix’s infamous 2009 Late Show appearance for a new movie. Many will recall Phoenix’ bizarre, bearded 2009 appearance, where Phoenix claimed to be quitting acting to become a hip-hop artist. Since then, it’s come out that the appearance was part of a Borat-style false-reality performance, as part of Casey Affleck’s mockumentary I’m Still Here.

During yesterday’s interview, the two performers (Phoenix now cleaned up) discussed the film. After pleasantries, Letterman shifted into the IP issues (about 2:45 in). According to Letterman, his lawyers said he could sue, but that Phoenix’ lawyers claimed the use was fair use because it was for a documentary. Of course, it turned out to be otherwise — in Dave’s words, “Guess what, it’s no documentary. It was a theatrical ruse.” Moreover, he said, “I’m in it . . . at a pivotal point in the film.”

And now the demand: “Now you owe me a million bucks.” Ultimately, Phoenix promised, “We’ll work it out,” asking “but, can we talk about it privately?”

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I find it odd in these days of sophisticated transactional lawyering that — regardless of any possible fair use — a commercial use like this would not have been cleared, in writing, in advance. Indeed, considering the “pivotal” role that the 2009 Letterman show appearance played in the film, it would appear crucial to nail down permission for that piece of IP, fair use or not. This is a film, where real money is at stake and risk-taking is usually quite low.

So is the demand real? Who knows. But for what it’s worth, a Letterman writer earlier claimed that Dave knew that the earlier, original 2009 appearance was a hoax. So I don’t know, but I sure hope that Dave’s demand is a gag. Considering that the Affleck/Phoenix movie is intended to explore the relationship between media and celebrity, it would be fitting to add our society’s constant stream of IP demands to the mix.

But then again, sometimes a demand is just a demand.

Does an Apple a day keep the Newsday away?

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A few days ago, I posted a YouTube video showing a viral ad from Newsday advertising its new iPad app.  The video shows a guy using an iPad to swat a fly, with the iPad shattering. Cool!

But the video is now down, and I wonder why. It wasn’t taken down by a DMCA take-down sent to YouTube, because the video now says it was removed by the user. An article at Networkworld.com confirms that Newsday removed the video. A Newsday rep stated: “We have taken the commercial ‘Flypaper’ down and its short, glorious run appears to be over.”

But why? Was the notoriously thin-skinned Apple upset? If so, that’s idiotic. Is Apple worried that people will start assaulting insects with their technology? Remember, Apple: iPads don’t kill people, people kill people!

Bottom line: if Apple is putting pressure on Newsday, shame on Apple. If Newsday — a news organization — is caving to demands from Apple, then double-shame on Newsday.

But as pointed out by Networkworld.com, we don’t know (yet) what happened, and Newsday is being tight-lipped with the reasons.

Well, Apple? Newsday?