Over the last week or so, there have been some interesting developments on issues that have recently been the subjects of posts on this blogs.
Below the fold: censorship and freedom of expression (online, and in respect of films), privacy (online resources, and google), and the celtic tiger (for the hell of it). …
This post title is the potential cue for every bad lawyer joke you’ve ever told, or for every bad lawyer cartoon you’ve ever seen; don’t worry, I’ve heard or seen them all – it’s an occupational hazard. But following on from my last post about the current state of education inspired by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), I couldn’t let pass without comment a story on the website of Chronicle of Higher Education (the US equivalent of the THES). The piece is here (sub req’d) and here (= hat tip: Mirror of Justice). From the Chronicle piece:
…The Corrosive Effects of Law School
Chronicle of Higher Education Online
June 8, 2007A glance at the current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin: The maddening effects of law school
Research suggests that law school has a corrosive effect on the well-being, values, and motivation of students, say Kennon M. Sheldon, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and Lawrence S. Krieger, a law professor at Florida State University. “Indeed, the emotional distress of law students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students and at times approach that of psychiatric populations,” they write.
A pretty basic question, it would seem, for and from an academic, in quest for answers to which I regularly read the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). This week’s has an entertaining piece by Gary Day headlined “Oi Ofsted, leave them kids alone” (available here (THES; sub req’d) and here), reviewing Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley Education Make you Fick, Innit? (The Tufnell Press, 2007). The Introduction is available to download here here (pdf). The subtitle, “What’s gone wrong in England’s schools, colleges and universities and how to start putting it right”, pretty much explains the book. …
So, according to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (pdf), the First Amendment to the US Constitution requires public disclosure of jurors’ names (Concurring Opinions | CrimProf Blog; see generally Raskopf 17 Pepp L Rev 357 (1990); Litt 25 Colum J L & Soc Probs 371 (1992); Zanzberg (2000); Rousseau 3(2) Rutgers Journal of Law & Urban Policy (2006)). To my ears, this sounds like the premise for a John Grisham novel. On the other hand, revealing the identity of a juror in Australia would be a criminal offence (Freedom to Differ) (a clause just crying out for a movie like The Castle). In Pennsylvania v Long (31 May 2007) the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held:
…Taking in mind the tradition of accessibility, as well as the competing values of openness versus the promotion of jury service, the conclusion is inescapable. We believe the First Amendment provides a qualified right of access to jurors’ names, but not addresses. In this way, the public will be provided with enough information to confirm the identity of jurors when necessary. Disclosing jurors’ names furthers the objective of a fair trial to the defendant and gives assurances of fairness to society as a whole.
Let me take you back to a time in which the market for delivery of letters was dominated by large national monopolies or former monopolies, and impatient potential entrants worried the incumbents. Oh wait; that’s today. Postal workers in various EU countries, unhappy at European plans (existing legislation here) to attain greater liberalisation in the postal market, held scattered strikes in Ireland, Belgium and Hungary, though there was little strike activity in France, and none at all in Germany, Poland and the UK.
But that’s also Ireland of the early 1980s, when a company called Paperlink sought to run a letter delivery service in Dublin. This contravened the Post Office’s monopoly on letter delivery conferred by section 34(2) of the Post Office Act, 1908; and in AG v Paperlink Ltd [1983] IEHC 1; [1984] ILRM 373 (15th July 1983) Costello J held that this monopoly did not infringe Paperlink’s constitutional right to communicate. The effects of his analysis, baleful for most of its existence but now pregnant with positive possibility, are the focus of my paper at this weekend’s conference on The Constitution at 70 (website | brochure (pdf)) organized by colleagues at the School of Law, TCD.…
That is a question posed by Kris Nelson on his blog, in propria persona. As usual, the answer is that “it depends”. I’ve already had a look at the issue from the perspective of potential criminal or civil liability if a user’s wifi is shared by a third party; and Daithí has taken the discussion several steps further. Now, Kris adds an additional consideration, directing the analysis to the terms of any contract between the ISP and the customer: …
As part of Amnesty International‘s and the Observer newspaper’s Irrepressible campaign against internet repression, there will be a webcast on Wednesday 6 June 2007 at 18.30 (UK / 19.30 Europe / 13.30 EST / 10.30 PST) of a major debate on the struggle for freedom of expression in cyberspace. As their blurb puts it:
…Amnesty and The Observer newspaper will use the internet to link activists from around the world to discuss the struggle against internet repression and to celebrate the irrepressible desire of people towards freedom of expression. The meeting will include participation from internet gurus, cyber dissidents as well as net activists, writers and journalists. Everyone will be able to participate to the debate online through a webcast on the day.
The fundamental role of the author in copyright, though essential, is thorny. On the one hand, copyright works require an author to have created them, and the term of copyright is usually expressed running for the life of the author plus a number of years (at present, in most common law jurisdictions, and for most works, that number is seventy). Of course, this simple picture needs modification in the light of: the kind of work created, corporate authorship, jointly created works, works by employees, and so on. But this modification does not undercut the essential view that the author is central to copyright. And yet, on the other hand, overprotection of one author is capable of restricting the next (as I have had occasion to observe on this blog, on more than one occasion). This has given rise to significant scholarship and debate on the role of the author in the history of modern copyright law. The next logical step is to attempt to conceptualise and reconceptualise the role of the author in the face of the myriad challenges to modern copyright law. Tim Wu (blog | log | personal site | work site | wikdipedia) has recently begun to meet that challenge, in a provocative paper “On Copyright’s Authorship Policy” (SSRN) (hat tip: Ray Corrigan on B2fxxx; see also boing boing | in propria persona).…
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