Archive
Category: Weblog
Random assortments, selected for semantic content.
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Andersen v Monsoon Multimedia Inc: Enforceability of the GPL to be Tested in US Court
The GNU General Public License (‘GPL’) is about to be tested in a United States court. Two developers have brought suit against a company using open source software in its commercial product without disclosing the downstream source code. Their cause of action is copyright infringement — that is, that the defendant’s conduct falls outside the… Read more →
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That the Bill Be Read a Second Time… More Thoroughly
While conducting some research on extraterritorial copyright infringement, I noticed a new bill that was tabled in the Commonwealth Parliament today. The Cross-Border Insolvency Bill 2007 (Cth) (second fireading speech) is essentially designed to transplant the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law into Australian law. Among its… Read more →
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White Cows in Green Fields? Gateway Shareholder Class Actions Proceed
Last September, Gateway Inc, a United States manufacturer of consumer computer hardware, announced its intention to accept a takeover offer made by Acer Inc, the American subsidiary of a Taiwanese hardware and systems manufacturer. Acer offered cash consideration of USD $1.90 per share, valuing Gateway at just under USD $710 million. Well, it seems that… Read more →
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Plaintiff Wins YouTube Defamation Action
A Finnish teacher has won a defamation action against his 15-year-old student, who posted an injurious video on YouTube. The video was filmed at a school party and depicted the teacher singing (poorly, one presumes). On YouTube, the video description read ‘Karaoke of the mental hospital’. Whether this in itself would be defamatory in a… Read more →
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Criminal Copyright Infringement Sanctions against Simpsons Movie Pirate
According to this press release issued by the Attorney-General’s department on Friday, a search warrant was executed at the premises of a 21-year-old Sydney man, who was arrested on charges of commercial copyright infringement. The accused is alleged to have made a bootleg copy (‘cam’) of The Simpsons Movie with intent to distribute commercially. Curiously,… Read more →
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Breaking news: Kiefel appointed Justice of the High Court of Australia
According to a report in The Age online, Justice Kiefel of the Federal Court of Australia has been appointed as successor to Mr Justice Callinan, who must retire by 31 August 2007. Ms Justice Kiefel was born in Queensland and studied at Cambridge. Her Honour has handed down some important trade practices, immigration and taxation… Read more →
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Survey finds teenagers disrespectful of copyright
This piece is almost Onion-worthy for its obviousness. According to a study conducted by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times, teenagers don’t understand copyright law. This is hardly surprising, given that most politicians — heck, even lawyers — exhibit similar deficiencies: Among teens aged 12 to 17 who were polled, 69 per cent said they… Read more →
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Google (tr verb): see search
On Thursday, Merriam-Webster and Oxford University Press announced the newest additions to their respective dictionaries. Among new science and technology words are agritourism, biodiesel, mouse potato, ringtone, spyware … and google. The word google is defined as a transitive verb meaning ‘to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on… Read more →
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Equity and Trusts Law Notes
This announcement will be of interest primarily to fellow law students. In preparation for next week’s examination, I have uploaded the entirety of my Equity and Trusts notes and summaries to this website for your perusal and edification. It is a somewhat unfortunate tradition that most law students keep their materials to themselves. In an… Read more →
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Creative Sues Apple over iPod User Interface; Apple Counter-Claims
Creative Technology, manufacturer of digital music players, last Monday announced that its United States subsidiary, Creative Labs, has commenced proceedings against Apple in a United States federal court for alleged patent infringement. The United States Patent and Trade Mark Office issued the relevant patent (‘the Zen patent’) to Creative on 9 August 2005. According to… Read more →