Posting Nesson Link / Reminder re Issue List

If you reviewed the Dean’s List yesterday you may have noticed Dean Kay’s references to Nesson (professor at Harvard Law) and a current file sharing case ("Harvard P2P Lawyer: File-Swapping Is Fair Use— No, Really!" and "Harvard Prof. Praises 'File-Sharing Radiohead'")

David Marglin will address this topic in class (as a relevant current event – not as part of his lecture, per se), including some detail based on his own experience with the matter. If you have particular interest in this topic, you should review the following:

Read this down to p 14:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13831120/Nessonblog33009

… to where it starts to be TOP EVIDENCE EXAMS 2009...

REMINDER: Please send me your issue lists before class tomorrow.

James Martin's Class is now 4/1 :: Reading Assignment

As communicated by Korey, class we had to move a few things around next week. James Martin will lecture on Wednesday 4/1 (regular class time) and John Jeffrey will give a make-up lecture, possibly at my office, later in the month. There will not be a Monday/Tuesday class next week.

James will be giving a lecture entitled "Case Study on CastTV." Note that the subject is not patent litigation as it has been in years past. This class will function to tie much of what we have studied thus far together.

Below is the reading assignment. Each work was carefully selected. Please do your best to get through it before next week as your ability to grasp these issues and engage in class is directly tied to your familiarity with the caselaw and related materials assigned.

1. Surf the CastTV site (http://www.casttv.com/), including the FAQs (http://www.casttv.com/faq)

2. Review the following two cases:

MGM v. Grokster, 545 U.S. 913, 125 S.Ct. 2764 (2005) http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/04-480.pdf

Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007) http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/Perfect10_v_Google/p10vgoogle.pdf

3. Review CRS Report for Congress re: Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings, Inc., 536 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2008) http://wikileaks.org/leak/crs/RL34719.pdf

4. Review the YouTube Terms of Service (http://www.youtube.com/t/terms)

Another good piece on Choruss

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090318/0304264167.shtml

Note about 3/18 Class

Zahavah Levine's lecture is sure to be a highlight of the course. Her new class title and reading assignment are posted with the syllabus below. Please check back in coming days for updates. See you next week!

From Chris Castle

Chris sent this relevant piece as a follow-up to his Choruss discussion in class last month. Enjoy.

http://www.xplosiveworld.com/2009/03/04/dear-jim-griffin-and-the-scoundrels-of-choruss/

Writing Assignment Due 3/18/09

In “RIP: A Remix Manifesto” Larry Lessig captures the essence of the filmmakers’ point with the following statement:

“There is no way to kill this technology; we can only criminalize its use. If this is a crime, we have a whole generation of criminals.”

Comment on this copyleft statement and give a recommendation for legal policy with regard to remixing / similar uses of third party content in the manner that Girl Talk does to create his music. Specifically, should this be legal or not – why? How should the law respond to these uses of third party content?

Please bring your 3-4 (double-spaced) page paper to our 3/18/09 class. Your grade will comprise 20% of your final grade for the course. Email me if you have any questions.

Reading Assignment for 3/4 Class

You should all have the reading assignment by now (it was emailed by Korey). Please contact me at cmak@real.com if you still need it.

See you tomorrow -- we will be having a "decompression" after class.