Law Librarian Blog

An Interview with Obama's Campaign Manager, David Plouffe

The interview was conducted by Lloyd Grove and is available here. [JH]

And the First IHE to Break Into Fortune's Top 100 Workplaces Is ...

Vanderbilt is the first university to be named to Fortune's Top 100 Workplaces, coming in at 98th in this year's annual survey. The rankings are based on levels of credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie in the workforce. [JH]

HLS Receives $10 Million Gift for Laurence Tribe Chair

The WSJ Law Blog is reporting that Harvard Law School has received an anonymous gift of $10 million in honor of Laurence Tribe. [JH]

Friday Fun: All Beatle Songs Ranked

All 185 Beatle songs ranked with song-by-song commentary and YouTube links. Beatles fans can spend all day listening and debating. Here's the top ten and a video of the top ranked song.

1. “A Day in the Life”
2. “I Am The Walrus”
3. “She’s Leaving Home”
4. “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End”
5. “Hey Jude”
6. “All You Need Is Love”
7. “In My Life”
8. “Strawberry Fields Forever”
9. “Something”
10. “Eleanor Rigby”

Hat tip to Brian Leiter (Chicago). [JH]

Legal Education Commons Launched by CALI

CALI in collaboration with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has launched  the Legal Education Commons, an open, searchable collection of resources designed specifically for use in legal education. Materials include 700,000 federal court decision obtained from public.resource.org and 300 original illustrations from CALI Lessons. The digital collections are expected to grow over time and contributions are welcome. [JH]

Legal Document Software Vendor Interwoven Acquired

Interwoven, Inc., vendor of popular document management software used by many U.S. law firms, has agreed to be acquired by Autonomy Corp. plc of Cambridge, UK, for $775 million in cash.  Autonomy is a vendor of sophisticated search software, e-discovery tools, and other enterprise software.  See the Reuters report via CNET.

Robert Richards

Worried About Gmail Losing Your Files?

GMDesk is an free application that lets you run Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps as a free stand-alone application to do all your mail handling, calendar event reading etc with. The little app is driven by Adobe Air. GMDesk backs up your Gmail data to your computer or attached hard drive, a plus should something ever happen to Gmail servers, but Tom Mighell reports that you can't print from most GMDesk-archived files. Hopefully an upgraded version will add the print feature. [JH]

Earn a Certficate in Copyright Management from SLA

The Special Library Association (via Click U) now offers a Certificate in Copyright Management.  The program consists of 5 online courses (and a 6th just on Canadian copyright law for Canadians), with 2 in-person courses at the SLA conference in June in D.C.  Participants may enroll in 1 or several or all courses.  These are practical courses for librarians and others who need to ensure copyright compliance and understand copyright, fair use, management copyright and license agreements and more! 
Here are the Course Titles:

• Introduction to Copyright Management Principles and Issues
• U.S. Copyright Law Principles
• Canadian Copyright Law Principles
• International Copyright Law Principles
• Digital Copyright Issues
• Library and Special Library Copyright Issues
• Managing the Use of Copyright Materials (Annual Conference)
• Managing Enterprise-Wide Copyright Education (Annual Conference)   [RJ]

More New Titles on LLRX.com for January

New on LLRX:

Collaboration Through Wikis at Hicks Morley
Heather Colman explains how wikis were an ideal KM solution for her law firm. Quick and easy to set up, requiring little IT support, wikis support central data repositories and provide features including search capabilities, email, RSS, and also allow users to create a taxonomy of subject tags to classify information.

A Compilation of State Lawyer Licensing Databases
Trevor Rosen and Andrew Zimmerman's guide focuses on websites that will help you determine whether a lawyer is currently licensed to practice in a particular state.

Art of Written Persuasion: Part IV - What Makes a Good Problem-Solving Model?
Following up on his commentary about how problem-solving models can help lawyers (and law students) to solve legal problems systematically and to communicate legal solutions persuasively in writing, Troy Simpson discusses what makes a good problem-solving model.

Burney's Legal Tech Reviews: A Review of the 8GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro
Brett Burney returns with a review of the well designed, low cost, high capacity SanDisk Cruzer Micro, which includes U3 technology that turns the flash drive into a portable computing environment.

Check out LLB's earlier post for more articles.  [RJ]

LC Launches Twitter Feed

Here. [JH]

Copyright and User-Generated Sites

The February 2009 issue of ABA Journal features a fine article by Steven Seidenberg on recent copyright law developments respecting user-generated Websites such as YouTube.  “Copyright in the Age of YouTube," Featuring insightful comments from IP scholars and practitioners, Seidenberg discusses three cases respecting Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act dealing with the procedure for dealing with allegedly infringing materials posted on an online service: Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., No. CV 07-03783-JF, slip op. at 6 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2008)(holding, while ruling on a motion to dismiss, that a copyright owner “must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright” before sending the Internet service provider a takedown notice, or risk liability for misrepresentation under Section 512(f) of the DMCA); Io Group, Inc. v. Veoh Networks, Inc., No. C06-03926 HRL, slip op. at 28-29 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 27, 2008) (holding, while ruling on a summary judgment motion, that an online service was protected by the “safe harbor” provisions of Section 512 of the DMCA in part on the grounds that the online service lacked the ability to identify or control infringing activity on its site, and that there was no evidence that the online service had “failed to police its system to the fullest extent permitted by its architecture”); Viacom Int’l, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., No. 07 Civ. 2103 LLS (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 13, 2007) (original complaint and other selected documents available at http://www.viacom.com/news/Pages/youtubelitigations.aspx) (alleging, among other things, that YouTube has taken insufficient steps to stop infringing activity which it is able to identify and control). Seidenberg also discusses the potential implications for ISPs of the civil forfeiture provisions of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for In­tellectual Property Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-403, S.3325.

Robert Richards

Professionals and Web 2.0

CCH recently undertook research to better understand the relationships between Professionals, Information and Web 2.0 applications by surveying more than 200 CCH customers from professional service firms and academic institutions across the Asia Pacific region. They were asked a range of questions on how they use Web 2.0 applications in their workplace and how they expect to use these applications in the future. The questions focused on four elements of Web 2.0; wikis, blogs, social networks, and RSS feeds and readers. 

Over 90% of professionals believe that Web 2.0 has relevance in the workplace. 59% of Professionals use Web 2.0 resouces at least once a week and and 43.7% use it for work purposes. These figures are set to increase over the next 3-5 years according to the report. Other key findings include:

• Legal professionals have higher adoption of Web 2.0 applications compared to Accounting professionals.
• The primary professional use for Web 2.0 is research, current awareness and communication with peers.
• Trust in Web 2.0 applications discourages many from using the applications in a professional setting however, this will change over the next 3-5 years.
• Peer reviewed information will become increasingly more valuable over other traditional sources.

Check out CCH's report, Professionals and Web 2.0. [JH]

The Jeffersonian Ideal and the Internet

About David Post's In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (Oxford UP, Jan. 2009), Larry Lessig writes "reading this beautifully written and extraordinarily diverse work today is what it must have been like to know or read Jefferson then. Post has crafted an experience in understanding that allows us to glimpse the genius that Jefferson was, and to leave the book astonished by the talent this extraordinary writer is."

From the product description:

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson, then the American Minister to France, had the "complete skeleton, skin & horns" of an American moose shipped to him in Paris and mounted in the lobby of his residence as a symbol of the vast possibilities contained in the strange and largely unexplored New World. Taking a cue from Jefferson's efforts, David Post, one of the nation's leading Internet scholars, here presents a pithy, colorful exploration of the still mostly undiscovered territory of cyberspace--what it is, how it works, and how it should be governed.

What law should the Internet have, and who should make it? What are we to do, and how are we to think, about online filesharing and copyright law, about Internet pornography and free speech, about controlling spam, and online gambling, and cyberterrorism, and the use of anonymous remailers, or the practice of telemedicine, or the online collection and dissemination of personal information? How can they be controlled? Should they be controlled? And by whom? Post presents the Jeffersonian ideal--small self-governing units, loosely linked together as peers in groups of larger and larger size--as a model for the Internet and for cyberspace community self-governance. Deftly drawing on Jefferson's writings on the New World in Notes on the State of Virginia, Post draws out the many similarities (and differences)between the two terrains, vividly describing how the Internet actually functions from a technological, legal, and social perspective as he uniquely applies Jefferson's views on natural history, law, and governance in the New World to illuminate the complexities of cyberspace.

Scanner Turns Books Into Audio Files

Plustek's $700 Book Reader V100 scans books through OCR software that understands words even when they’re faded or smudged on the physical page. It can duplicate books in PDF and various other file types. But the killer app is that the scan also automatically creates MP3 files of books. This means you can create an audio file of any book to accommodate student needs in just a few steps. Sight-impaired students are not the only ones would can benefit from this scanner. Many ADD students also prefer to listen to text because it is much easier to concentrate when listening instead of reading text. Details on Wired. [JH]

Has Your Bank Receive Its TARP Money?

ProPublica has a nice mash up that identifies each financial institution that expects or has received bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Click on the markers for the amount given to each financial institution. As of Jan 27, 2009, $302.23 billion worth of bailout money has been announced for 355 institutions. Check it out. [JH]

Sleep-Emailing?

I'm sure we've all know a staffer we thought was sleepwalking at work but what about this? In the Sleep Medicine journal, researchers report a case in which a woman emailed her friends during a sleepwalking episode -- a behavior that has since become known as sleep-emailing. Details on ABCNews.

What Ifs: The Market Structure of Google's De Facto National Digital Library Under the Company's Proposed Copyright Settlement

From its mission of providing digitized books for its ad revenue generating SE business to transforming into an monopolizer of digitized information if the Company's proposed copyright settlement is approved by the courts, Robert Darnton address his concerns about the future of access in Google & the Future of Books, New York Review of Books (Feb. 12, 2009).

Google's record suggests that it will not abuse its double-barreled fiscal-legal power. But what will happen if its current leaders sell the company or retire? The public will discover the answer from the prices that the future Google charges, especially the price of the institutional subscription licenses. The settlement leaves Google free to negotiate deals with each of its clients, although it announces two guiding principles: "(1) the realization of revenue at market rates for each Book and license on behalf of the Rightsholders and (2) the realization of broad access to the Books by the public, including institutions of higher education."

What will happen if Google favors profitability over access? Nothing, if I read the terms of the settlement correctly. Only the registry, acting for the copyright holders, has the power to force a change in the subscription prices charged by Google, and there is no reason to expect the registry to object if the prices are too high. Google may choose to be generous in it pricing, and I have reason to hope it may do so; but it could also employ a strategy comparable to the one that proved to be so effective in pushing up the price of scholarly journals: first, entice subscribers with low initial rates, and then, once they are hooked, ratchet up the rates as high as the traffic will bear.

On the monopolistic structure the proposed settlement creates, Darnton writes

Google will enjoy what can only be called a monopoly—a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information. Google has no serious competitors. Microsoft dropped its major program to digitize books several months ago, and other enterprises like the Open Knowledge Commons (formerly the Open Content Alliance) and the Internet Archive are minute and ineffective in comparison with Google. Google alone has the wealth to digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers. No new entrepreneurs will be able to digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will be protected from copyright liability.

Highly recommended article. For an excellent analysis of the Google settlement, see Jonathan Band's A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement on LLRX. [JH]

Crowdsourcing Malware and Web Filtering

Herdict is a suite of new web-based tools from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, allows users around the world to contribute data relating to PC health and web accessibility. It aggregates individual contributions and seeks to provide real time views of users’ experiences in order to facilitate informed decision making regarding malware and uncensored access to the web. Check out the HerdictWeb for real time results. Great idea! [JH]

Nelson on Judicial Review of Legislative Purpose

Caleb Nelson's (Virginia) article, Judicial Review of Legislative Purpose, 83 New York Law Review 1784 (Dec, 2008) [SSRN], calls attention to bygone norms of judicial review, which often prevented courts from investigating the motivations behind statutes even when the statutes’ constitutionality depended upon those motivations. The Article proceeds to describe changes over time in the practice of judicial review.

From the article's conclusion:

Even if one believes (as I do) that courts should care about the original understanding of the Constitution and that settled historical practices can help to “fix” the Constitution’s meaning on ambiguous points, the Constitution does not reach or resolve many questions about the practice of judicial review. This does not mean that the practice is a usurpation: while the Constitution might not compel judicial review, the Constitution does not rule it out either, and many members of the founding generation anticipated in general terms that the judiciary would refuse to apply statutory provisions that judges determined to be unconstitutional. According to the most sophisticated recent scholarship on the relevant history, however, judicial review did not grow out of the Constitution itself.

Instead, it reflected the application to our constitutional system of preexisting principles—principles about the courts’ role in enforcing limits on the authority that had been delegated to corporate entities, or more general principles “about the hierarchy of law and the duty of judges to decide in accord with law.” On this account, the practice of judicial review stems from a species of general jurisprudence rather than from the Constitution—which makes it quite unlikely that the Constitution regulates the details of that practice (such as the conditions under which courts reviewing a statute’s constitutionality can look behind the statute’s stated purposes and impute impermissible motivations to the enacting legislature). Indeed, even if one believes that the courts’ authority to conduct judicial review stems entirely from the Constitution rather than from the application to our constitutional system of uncodified principles, one still cannot plausibly read the Constitution to supply many details about the practice of judicial review. No one thinks, for instance, that the Constitution codifies the rules of evidence that courts must use in cases implicating a statute’s constitutionality; instead of being restricted to the evidentiary sources of 1788, modern courts conducting judicial review can use modern rules of evidence. There is little more reason to think that the Constitution codifies the practices of 1788 about judicial inquiries into legislative purpose. In fact, one of the primary differences between those practices and their modern counterparts can be cast in terms of evidence: modern courts are willing to impute impermissible motivations to the legislature on the basis of materials that founding-era courts would not have considered.

An excellent article for an ALR course's reading list. [JH]

Amy Sonnie, the Banned Librarian

In 2002 the Texas Youth Commission banned Amy Sonnie’s young adult anthology of creative writing and art by LGBTQ youth. Her second book (forthcoming from Melville House, 2010) traces the untold history of poor white activists allied with the Black Panther Party and Young Lords in the 1960s. Check out her blog, The Banned Librarian and this recent interview of Amy by LibraryLaw blogger Mary Minnow. [JH]