The blog
Writing & notes
Essays, notes and reflections on technology, law and life.
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Nutty Power and the RIAA
Gympie, Queensland has a new ‘green’ power plant fuelled entirely by the discarded shells of Macadamia nuts, which burn cleaner than other fossil fuels (less CO2 emission). “Mmm… Macamadamia…” In completely unrelated news, C|Net news has an insightful article examining the validity of the RIAA subpoena process and the potential ramifications of the new bill… Read more →
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Copright May Protect ‘Functional Structure’
Pumfrey J of the High Court of England and Wales yesterday granted leave to appeal in a copyright infringement case between two rival airline ticket-booking software devlopers. Though the competing products were programmed in entirely different languages (Cobol and Visual Basic [heh]), Pumfrey J noted the similarities in ‘functional structure’, drawing an analogy to the… Read more →
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Consumers Challenge Deceptive Hard Drive Marketing
Throughout the day today I’ll be presenting a brief overview of some current happenings in IT litigation; interesting issues continue to be explored by various legislatures, and there are an increasing number of IP/IT cases being heard in Appeal Courts. My Applied Mathematics lecture was cancelled without notice this morning, so I have 3 hours… Read more →
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Congressman Voices Internet Privacy Concerns
Senator Brownback of Kansas, America yesterday introduced a bill which appears to address the privacy concerns voiced by many internet and P2P users over the RIAA’s recent campaign against online music piracy. Brownback said the DMCA subpoena process raises serious privacy and due-process concerns. “There are no checks, no balances, and the alleged pirate has… Read more →
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Punitive Damages
Another quick Tuesday afternoon roundup, meticulously crafted after a long day at university. One can only debate the efficacy of access to the justice system so many times… On with the show: Domain names: 50 000 free .id.au names have been released by aUDA to promote the new local domain suffix. Get yours now (then… Read more →
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Lawsuits and Satellites
The latest in the recent spate of RIAA subpoenas seems to have been served to a 12 year-old girl from New York, America. Realising the unwanted publicity this could generate, the RIAA quickly settled with the girl’s mother for $2000 (several times less than most suits). The child had allegedly downloaded more than 1000 songs… Read more →
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Astronomic Antics
For the public good, I hereby declare that this post will be the last to feature that most accursed of literary devices, alliteration. In the mean time, the European Space Agency is planning to launch a mission involving a craft which utilises an electric propulsion engine (yes, those things out of Star Trek – which,… Read more →
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Leftism
As an undergraduate attending seminars in law school, it sometimes seems as if we are in the midst of an ideological war, fought by unwitting operatives with a surprising amount of aggression. In a law school dominated by postmodern, culturally oppressed, marginalised, victimised, patronised, relativist, politically correct (few of whom are able to argue their… Read more →
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Ban ‘Offensive and Menacing Behaviour’, Alston Argues
Australia’s Minister for Communications, Richard Alston, has proposed to ban the use of the internet for offensive and menacing behaviour, with offenders to face up to two-years in prison, according to a press release issued by the Department of Communications, yesterday. People using the Internet to advocate or facilitate violent protests, for example by spreading… Read more →
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‘Brazen Theft’ at Sydney Airport
According to The Age, two men were successful in a cunning theft of several million dollars worth of high-tech mainframe computers from the cargo and intelligence centre of Sydney International Airport. Authorities are more concerned about the use to which data contained on the servers will be put than the loss of the equipment (they… Read more →