Cyberlaw Central Blog

Monthly Archives: October 2008

What does “search incident to arrest” mean today?

30th
Oct. ร— โ€™08
By Kevin A. Thompson
A good article over at the Wall Street Journal on the recent controversy over warrantless searches of laptops was pointed out to me by Venkat Balasubramani. Thanks, Venkat! The article is worth reading as it discusses the recent cases involving searches of electronic items at the border (based upon a “reasonable suspicion” test), and contrasts [...]
Posted in Musings, Patriot Act, Security | Leave a comment

10 years of the DMCA

28th
Oct. ร— โ€™08
By Kevin A. Thompson
It’s been 10 years today since President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law. Wired has put together a nice retrospective, available here. They call it a misunderstood law that created the Internet commerce as we know it today. Public Knowledge’s take on the act is here. David Robinson at Freedom To Tinker [...]
Posted in DMCA | Leave a comment

McCain campaign finding unsympathetic ear from YouTube

15th
Oct. ร— โ€™08
By Kevin A. Thompson
The McCain campaign’s efforts to have YouTube deal with DMCA takedown notices directed to its commercials uploaded to the video sharing site differently from other content owners have been rebuffed. Recent commercials have featured clips taken from CBS News and other news sources, which the campaign argues is a fair use of the material. Rather [...]
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Professor Lessig on copyright reform

13th
Oct. ร— โ€™08
By Kevin A. Thompson
Here’s a link to a great article by Professor Lessig on the need for copyright reform. Despite the article’s title, he’s really not defending piracy per se, but merely noting that the law criminalizes certain behaviors that he believes should instead be encouraged. It’s well worth a read. Posting here on the blog has been [...]
Posted in Copyright, Musings | Leave a comment