An essay by Rachel Donadio, in the New York Times Sunday Book Review of 7 October 2007, entitled Libel Without Borders (hat tip: Law Librarian Blog), begins:

When it first appeared in 2006, “Alms for Jihad,� an academic book on Islamic charitable networks by two American scholars, drew scant attention. It sold a modest 1,500 copies and received few reviews. But in recent weeks the book has become an international cause célèbre, after Cambridge University Press agreed to pulp all unsold copies in a defamation settlement.

The angry and defiant reaction of Robert Collins, one of the authors, can be read here (with an update here; and there’s more on the story generally from American Libraries, Chronicle of Higher Education, Critical Mass, Democracy Project, FrontPageMagazine.com, Human Events, Mark Steyn, and wikipedia). In what must be an oversight, the book still remains in CUP’s online catalogue (and that’s the cover image, on the top left of this post, from the same site); I can’t find it on Amazon, but this entry is still on the Barnes & Noble website.

This species of forum shopping is called libel tourism; it is said that it chills investigative journalism; and Alms for Jihad is not the only example Read the rest of this entry »

Under the above headline, Paul Cullen has an excellent piece (sub req’d) on the front page of today’s Irish Times, to the effect that the newly created National Consumer Agency (NCA) is planning a legal challenge aimed at forcing airlines to pay refunds to customers and to display their prices more clearly. The NCA has various airline practices firmly in its sights (and anyone who has been on a plane recently knows exactly what they are), but one line in the article particularly caught my attention:

The airlines are to be asked why … the taxes and charges they collect on behalf of airports are not refunded if a passenger does not fly.

Irish airlines are hardly unique in being slow to refund unincurred taxes and charges (see, for example, the UK’s Air Transport Users Council (AUC) report (pdf) on the issue, and some US stories here and here). One recent online report discussed Ryanair’s less than helpful practices in this area.

Nevertheless, as I have said on this blog before, in my view, as a matter of law, taxes collected but not due must be refunded. In my view, therefore, the NCA has solid legal grounds for this aspect at least of its actions against airlines, and I look forward to further developments in this story!

I have mused on previous occasions on this blog (here and here) as to whether it really is the case that piggybacking on someone else’s open wi-fi connection is a criminal offence. I’m still not sure. Two months ago, the BBC reported Man arrested over wi-fi ‘theft’ and The Register reported Broadbandit nabbed in Wi-Fi bust.

The BBC report began: “A man has been arrested in connection with using a wi-fi broadband connection without permission”; whilst the Register’s report began “A laptop user was collared by police community support officers in west London yesterday for allegedly pilfering someone else’s Wi-Fi”. Read the rest of this entry »

William Safire (NYT bio | wikipedia), a New York Times Magazine columnist on language, has the following vignette in today’s column (sub no longer req’d!):

A Pet Named Peeve

Two cheerful dogs grace our household, but in my imagination we also have a dog named Peeve. He is perpetually grumpy; complains about his dog food, collar is too tight, bed lumpy, not getting enough exercise, all that. What especially gets his hackles to rise is human language he doesn’t understand.

Disinterested puts him off. When he turns his nose up at a bowl of dry kibble and I say, “Whatsamatter, disinterested in eating?” this erudite Portuguese water dog emits a low growl. He and I know that word means “objective, fair, without a partisan slant or pecuniary involvement.” But it is used by writers who mean “uninterested” and allowed to stand, reeking of misuse, undermining clarity, by editors who could (not) care less. I can’t tell you what my pet, Peeve, scornfully does on a newspaper that treats the language with such unrespect.

Exactly!

Over on Lex Ferenda, Daithí has highlighted that, in the US, Fox News has written to US Republican Presidential candidate John McCain asking him to stop using a clip of his own words from a debate in a political advertisement. In fact, not content with taking on one presidential candidate, Daithí points out that they have decided to take on all of them, writing to them all in similar terms.

Fox are playing a dangerous game here (well, dangerous for them, at any rate). There is a very strong argument that First Amendment political speech concerns make this advertisment a non-commercial fair use (don’t just take my word for it; Michael Geist thought so too during a similar Canadian flap last January). And an express Federal Circuit Court holding to that effect would certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons for those broadcasters like Fox who continue to insist on restricting copyright in political debates which they host / broadcast. In fact, Fox seem to be the main holdout against Lessig’s petition to the US political parties and broadcast networks to license Presidential debates freely after they are initially broadcast – either by putting the debates into the public domain, or by permitting anyone to use or remix the contents of those debates, for any reason whatsoever, so long as there is attribution back to any purported copyright holder. Fox declined! On the other hand, CNN immediately agreed; MSNBC started a dialogue with Lessig about its policy; and both ABC and NBC have now substantially come on board. Fox looked silly when they didn’t catch this wave; and, with their current actions against political advertising, they now look positively antediluvian.

Update: Lessig has a typically punchy post about this episode here. A sample:

It is time that the presidential candidates from both parties stand with Senator McCain and defend his right to use this clip to advance his presidential campaign. Not because it is “fair use” (whether or not it is), but because presidential debates are precisely the sort of things that ought to be free of the insanely complex regulation of speech we call copyright law.

It is not just the US networks who have heeded the Lessig plea. Michael Geist has made a similar call in Canada; as have I in Ireland; and I now learn from Peter Black’s superb Freedom to Differ and from the ever-excellent House of Commons that a similar call has now been made in Australia:

Election debates should be openly available: Expert

… Dr Matthew Rimmer from the ANU College of Law said that Australia’s political leaders have already embraced new media such as YouTube and Facebook as political tools, and that the ALP has called for a debate to be broadcast on YouTube. He said both parties should go a step further to ensure that digital copyright issues do not become an impediment to the sharing of election debate broadcasts.

“Whichever television networks or internet media end up broadcasting the federal election debates, it’s important to the health of our democracy that people are free to capture and distribute the dialogue of our prospective leaders so that they can make a more informed decision,â€? Dr Rimmer said. “New file sharing networks and technologies mean we have more potential than ever before to choose the time and place in which we consume media – provided we are not restricted by unnecessary copyright requirements.â€? …

I hope his call has a better response than mine did. In the meantime, when will Fox live up to their motto “We Report. You Decide”?

Two stories from the BBC news website this week caught my eye, and I think they make an interesting pair put side by side.


First, on Tuesday: Huge pirate music site shut down

British and Dutch police have shut down a “widely-used” source of illegally-downloaded music. A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK. The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning. …

Then, on Wednesday: Anti file-sharing laws considered

The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior politician has told the BBC’s iPM programme [and here's iPM's blog post on the story]. Lord Triesman, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills [with special responsibility for Intellectual Property and Quality], said intellectual property theft would not be tolerated.

“If we can’t get voluntary arrangements we will legislate,” he said.

The comments could prove controversial with privacy advocates and internet service providers. Lord Triesman called on internet service providers to take a “more activist role” in the problem of illegal file-sharing. … The Internet Service Providers Association has always maintained that it cannot be held responsible for illegal peer-to-peer traffic because it is “merely a conduit” of such material. … The British Phonographic Industry was pleased at the government’s tough line. … The iPM programme also spoke to renowned blogger Cory Doctorow [blog | wikipedia] who described the idea as “misbegotten”. …

Doesn’t Tuesday’s story demonstrate the redundancy of Wednesday’s? I am reminded of the old nursery rhyme:

…
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
…

According to this site, on Saturday, 26 October 1968, Ireland defeated Australia (Wallabies) 10-3 in a rugby (union) match held at Lansdowne Road, Dublin.

That date is also the birthday of Canadian actor Tom Cavanagh, best know for his role in the almost unbearably cute but still strangely addictive 2000-2004 tv series Ed (wikipedia entry | fan site); (it’s still running on TV3 – listing here). Sample line:

I am a lawyer, I own a bowling alley. Two separate things.

George Orwell (left) wrote that when he was about sixteen, he “suddenly discovered the joy of mere words, i.e. the sounds and associations of words. The lines from PARADISE LOST,

So hee with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labour hee.

which do not now seem to me so very wonderful, sent shivers down my backbone; and the spelling ‘hee’ for ‘he’ was an added pleasure”.

(See his essay Why I Write, in which he concluded that writers typically write out of sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, or political impulse – if you’re a blogger, which one explains you? Do you recognise yourself in his conclusion that “[a]ll writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery”?).

Anyway, I was reminded of this when I recently came across John Wesley’s wonderful post on PickTheBrain about George Orwell’s 5 Rules for Effective Writing Style. Here are edited highlights: Read the rest of this entry »