Scrivener's Error

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Scrivener's Error	Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

26 March 2010

link to: 12:39 [GMT-6]

Excessively Aged Internet Sausage Links

Late again, I know; hopefully, I'll be able to get back on track next week, including the unconscionably delayed Package and GBS essays. In the meantime, though, chew your way through these sausages (but please, please don't inquire how they were made — especially not the first one).

In remarkably restrained language, Carrie Vaughn described why she left the publisher of her NYT-bestselling Kitty Norville series for another publisher. And it wasn't about money. As should be obvious, I was particularly (un)amused by the misstatements made in the comments by "A Publishing Insider."
Starting in June, The Times and The Sunday Times will be erecting a paywall. And as of that time, no further material from those papers will appear here.

I was forced to watch, up close and personal, as NewsCorp did the initial destruction of The Times in the late 1980s. As a matter of principle, I don't link to material behind paywalls (it's not that I think paywalls are inherently evil so much as that such links don't belong in a free-to-read blawg... not to mention that I'm too cheap to subscribe anyway).
Copyrights extend to more than just the copies, even for tax purposes. This is one of those "well, duuuuh" decisions that it seems surprising to find today, because the "answer" is inherent in the underlying copyright law (not to mention the Berne Convention, at a higher level of abstraction). The snarky rejoinder that tax authorities tend not to pay a whole lot of attention to context is probably more than justified...
And now, some tea leaves for Justice Stevens's departure — from an odd perspective. (If you're reading this, you probably appreciate odd perspectives anyway.) The decision issued a few days ago in United Student Aid Funds v. Espinosa, No. 08–1134 (23 Mar 2010) (PDF) doesn't seem to be much of a tea leaf, does it? The key is that it was a unanimous decision turning on a technical question of civil procedure... and it was authored by Justice Thomas, not by Justice Stevens. I was a bit surprised by it, but not a lot: The real question presented is not what was stated on the petition, but the more functionally aware

Is failure to make the required undue hardship finding under § 528 of the Bankruptcy Code a jurisdictional defect that allows an aggrieved party to reopen the judgment as void under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(4)?

The answer to this is pretty darned apparent, particularly in light of Muchnick: No. A finding not made in the course of litigation is not, and can never be, a jurisdictional defect.

I thus find myself agreeing with Justice Thomas. Again. And remembering that Justice Stevens has had a long tendency to not just be in the majority, but to write, hard-core civ pro decisions.
The Somali pirates' business model (HT: Ashley Grayson). Application to intellectual property pirates is left as an exercise for the student.

Non Sequitur, 23 March 2010

Labels: copyright, intellectual property, internet, jurisprudence, life, mass media, publishing

Ritual disclaimer: This blog contains legal commentary, but it is only general commentary. It does not constitute legal advice for your situation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship or any other expectation of confidentiality, nor is it an offer of representation.

All material © 2003–12 except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. This blawg does not use the Creative Commons License, although I'm usually pretty good-natured about permissions for attributed reuse.

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Sausages?

Internet link sausages, as frequently appear here, are gathered from uninspected meaty internet products and byproducts via processes you really, really don't want to observe; spiced with my own secret, snarky, sarcastic blend; quite possibly extended with sawdust or other indigestibles; and stuffed into your monitor (instead of either real or artificial casings). They're sort of like "link salad" or "pot pourri" or "miscellaneous musings" (or, for that matter, "making law"), but far more disturbing.

I am not responsible for any changes to your lipid counts or blood pressure from consuming these sausages... nor for your monitor if you insist on covering them with mash or sauce.

Archives

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Links of Interest

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Writer Beware and the Writer Beware Blog provide essential knowledge for writers who don't want to be ripped off
Writing-World.com published by the former managing editor of the now-defunct Inklings
Agent Research & Evaluation provides both free and paid analyses of literary agents
US Copyright Office, including both registration forms and records and quite a bit of other helpful information
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows searches of granted, pending, and some rejected trademark registrations
US Supreme Court Opinions from the current and past couple of terms
Law Library of Congress includes statutes for free
The Public Library of Law can help you find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through Online Books (University of Pennsylvania) and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
- ClassicCat.net (what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
- Music.Download.com (long-awaited successor to MP3.com)
- Janis Ian (artist)
- John McCutcheon (artist)

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog. Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at < ? law blogs # >.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
- Professor Anthony Arend (Georgetown Law)
- Professor Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA Law) (aka "The Perfesser")
- Professor Jack Balkin (Yale Law)
- Professor Dennis Crouch (Missouri Law) (better known as Patently-O)
- Professor Michael Froomkin (University of Miami Law)
- Professor Eric Goldman (Santa Clara University Law)
- Professor Rick Hasen (Loyola-LA Law)
- Professor Brian Leiter (U of Chicago Law/Philosophy)
- Professor Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law)
- Professor Michael Madison (Pitt Law)
- Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law)
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer (and 'net activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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