The Archives
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The News
Suit Happens
My favorite part of the newspaper is the comics. I personally like Calvin and Hobbes, but that one hasn’t been in the papers for about fifteen years. I settle for the “news of the weird” stuff these days. You know, stuff like “Kitten Rescues Family from Burning Home” or “SWAT Team Requested for Violent Midgets” that makes you chuckle for a few seconds. (The name of the newspaper in the second article is one letter away from The Onion, which made me do a double-take. It’s just good to know the police are available to take care of even small problems.)
Sometimes, they involve crazy lawsuits that make you scratch your head and curse lawyers. You don’t read a lot of these cases in law school, since by definition “the crazy lawsuits” aren’t really good for demonstrating an awful lot of law or legal theory. But they’re still hilarious in their own right. For instance, Destructoid has an article about a lawsuit filed by a man who claims the creators of a video game made it “too addictive.” Scoff!
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A Day in the Life
New for 2010: Self-Mocking Lawyers
This is an actual law firm; they take personal injury cases and advertise on the New York City subway system, and probably on TV and the radio, too. I’m glad someone finally understands my pain.
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The News
A Magical Wonderland
The internet is a funny place. In the very first days, when it included computers at all of four universities, the internet was very clearly an extension of the “real world.” For a great number of years, people just used their actual names on the internet: see the 1982 Usenet discussion of the creation of the emoticon. (This discussion quickly deteriorated into arch-nerdery, because the guys on the internet in 1982 were arch-nerds.)
At some point, (perhaps the Eternal September?) the internet took a turn for the anonymous.
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The News
Legal Jujitsu
11.18.08 | Permalink | 2 CommentsThe record companies have made headlines for threatening extremely high-stakes and time-consuming litigation against people who have illegally downloaded songs on the internet. The maximum statutory penalty is $150,000 per song you downloaded. At that rate, the record company’s offer to settle the whole kerfuffle at $4,000 seems positively like a bargain.
This strategy relies on the threat of a horrible outcome (downloading a single 12 song album leaves you open to as much as $1.8 million in liability) to prevent these pirates of the internet from attempting to defend their dastardly digital deeds in court. Do note that the record companies, despite the fact that roughly 800% of all albums in America are downloaded illegally, still have enough collective resources to make defending such a lawsuit extremely expensive.
But what if the tables were turned, and the record companies were staring down the business end of a high-stakes and painfully drawn-out lawsuit?
Almost Legally
This site is (almost) ABA-approved
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Just got my first email addressing me as Professor Mauro. Oh, I don't think I'll be correcting this person just yet.
