The Internet Archive, American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and Electronic Frontier Foundation then filed a complaint under seal which challenged the constitutionality of the NSL and the NSL statute.

Last week, Judge Claudia Wilken granted a motion to unseal the case. The docket sheet, pleadings, proceedings and orders in Internet Archive v. Mukasey are now publicly accessible from Justia.

Here is a great new free case law project that came out (or at least I was made aware of :) a few weeks ago. AltLaw.

Right now AltLaw is focused on getting up the Federal appellate opinions online (US Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Courts). They have aggregated opinions for the last 15 years or so (depending on the court), and have done good job presenting the cases in formated text, in addition to providing the original pdf and in a text only format. It looks like these are the slip opinions, but they can be later fixed up to match the text of the official published opinions.

AltLaw is a joint project of Columbia Law School's Program on Law and Technology, and the Colorado Law School's Silicon Flatirons Program. From the about page.... AltLaw's code was/is written by Stuart Sierra and Professor Paul Ohm, with help from Luis Villa, and produced by Professor Tim Wu. And of course the Federal Judges who wrote the original opinions :)

My take is that one of the keys for free case law will be working with the courts to get them to publish their official final opinions online in their final form. 99.99% of the work has been done (trial, briefs, drafts, slip opinion), we just need to ask (beg?) the judiciary to make the last few text changes to the slip opinion, declare it official and put it online. Ideally this would include a form that can be cited at the time of online publication. Professor Wu clerked for Judge Richard Posner, so maybe he can help influence this influential judge from his previous positions regarding a public domain paragraph citation system (see HyperLaw - Judge Richard Posner's letter (pro West citation system, anti-paragraph citation system), Judge Stephen Williams' letter (pro West/slip opinion page citation system, anti-paragraph citation system) and then contrast to HyperLaw's Alan Sugarman's response/letter to Judge Posner). If the final official published decisions are always being made and published first by Thomson-West, then all other publishers will be at a serious disadvantage.

I will repeat one more time for emphasis... It is KEY that NEW official final versions of opinions are placed online for free in a format that can be cited. That is as important as getting the older previous decisions online in their official form, because it takes us forward.

AltLaw is definitely a worthwhile project. You can read more on AltLAw from on Tim's blog. Onward and onward as they say...

Peace,

Tim

:: Free Bird, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd by Lynyrd Skynyrd

One of the cases of interest here in Palo Alto land is the current lawsuit by the founders of ConnectU against Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook gang. In an interesting side light to the case, NYT's John Markoff has written an article on Aaron Greenspan, who developed a social facebook network, called houseSYSTEM, while at Harvard... before either ConnectU or Facebook. The article also covers what Aaron is doing now, including his new company called Qubescape, and a social networking site called Common Room. Of course there is much more about Aaron, Facebook, ConnectU on the blogsphere.

And according to John's article, Aaron has chosen not to be a witness in the following cases...

Connectu, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. et al in the Massachusetts Federal District Court, filings and other documents.

The Facebook, Inc. v. Connectu, LLC et al in the California Northern Federal District, filings and other documents Court.

Finally here is a 2001 article from the Jamaica Observer about a company Aaron started that used some of its proceeds to send computers to students in Jamaica.

In any case the article "Who Founded Facebook? A New Claim Emerges" is an interesting profile of Aaron. I wish him good luck on his new company and projects!

Peace,

Tim

:: If You're Happy and You Know It, My First Album by My First Album Performers

This weeks featured Blawg on BlawgSearch.com is the Law Dawg Blawg from the great librarians at Southern Illinois University Law School.

The Law Dawg Blawg is full of great information and tips for legal researchers, as well as being a central online community setting for SIU Law School. But what makes the Law Dawg Blawg standout are the Law Dawgs. These are Dawgs of Law, who work with and and protect law students, legal librarians, lawyers and their families. Little Sheba the Hug Pug was a special guest law dawg last year!

You can find out what a Saluki is here :)

 

You can also check out the other online resources put together by the SIU law librarian team on their SIU law library site!

Peace,

Tim

:: Check It Out, The Lonesome Jubilee by John Mellencamp

Today Google filed an answer to Viacom's complaint, basically saying Viacom's complaint is in conflict with the DMCA (the "careful balance" established by Congress between copyright holders and the Internet users and companies). There is the standard paragraph by paragraph admit and deny the allegations and facts stated in Viacom's complaint and...

then the Defenses:

1. DMCA Safe Harbors Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part because Defendants are protected by one or more of the DMCA Safe Harbors in 17 U.S.C. S 512.
2. License Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by licenses, express and implied, granted or authorized to be granted by Plaintiffs.
3. Fair Use Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of fair use.
4. Failure to Mitigate Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part because Plaintiffs have failed to mitigate their damages, if any.
5. Failure to State a Claim Plaintiffs' allegations fail to state a claim for copyright infringement of any work not listed on Exhibit A of the Complaint.
6. Innocent Intent Plaintiffs' damages, if any, are limited by Defendants' innocent intent.
7. Copyright Misuse Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of copyright misuse.
8. Estoppel Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of estoppel.
9. Waiver Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of waiver.
10. Unclean Hands Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of unclean hands.
11. Laches Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of laches.
12. Substantial Non-Infringing Use Plaintiffs' claims are barred in whole or in part based on the doctrine of substantial non- infringing use, although Defendants submit Plaintiffs bear the burden of proving the doctrine's inapplicability.

You can see all the e-filed documents for Viacom v. YouTube / Google here. They are updated daily, and you can subscribe to an RSS feed to be alerted to new documents.

We will be adding more cases in the near future as we build this section out. The current cases we are tracking can be seen on our Cases in the News section. All for free... of course :)

Prediction -- Google wins based on the DMCA Safe Harbor defense.

Peace,

Tim

:: It's Not Safe, I'm With Stupid by Aimee Mann

I had a great meeting yesterday with my friends at vLex.com. vLex has relaunched their Website, which has laws from many different countries (vLex is based in the EU, and have offices in South America and the USA ). I was given a full tour of the vLex system. They have nicely cleaned up the user interface. The only thing I would add is having the country flags on their home page glide back and forth like album covers on iTunes :)


vLex also has great plans for their future, which I am sure they will announce when they are ready :) vLex truly listens to their users, as the product development shows. I am very excited about the new vLex features that will be coming online, and have full faith that what they are doing will be a huge win for practitioners throughout the world. Check them out at vLex.com. And best of all the USA information is free :)

Now I am going up to Bellingham and Seattle to see Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog, interview students and drink beer (with Kevin, not the students :). And I have to find out what Avvo is doing, beyond the rumors (maybe a Zillow of lawyer owned homes :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Now More Than Ever, Whenever We Wanted by John Mellencamp

Congrats to Susan Athey who was just awarded this years John Bates Clark Medal in Economics for the top young economist under 40. She is the first woman to have won the medal. This is a BIG deal in the male dominated arena of economics.

You can read more about her work on the American Economic Association site here and visit Susan's Web page at Harvard here. Many years ago, I had a few classes with Susan and she was very nice and very very smart (she once taught our class when the teacher was out, even though she was in it herself :). While she was getting her PhD from the Stanford Business School, she was the obvious star among the economic students going into teaching/research. Needless to say it was early attention that was well deserved and an initial light on what was to come. Again congrats to Susan.

UPDATE: Susan's former classmate, co-author and Melbourne Business School Professor Joshua Gans has written up what Susan did to win the award and added some good stories to go along with the research.

Peace,

Tim

:: The Law and Economics Podcast, Journal of Law, Economics and Policy at George Mason University

Here are some photos from the Jurist 10th aniversry conference.

Jurist's Bernard Hibbitts opens the conference.

Terry Davis, Secretary General, Council of Europe via Video

Geoffrey Corn makes a point about US prisioner policy, while Jonathan Freiman listens.

ALM's Tony Mauro. He did not know who Bruce was planning on selling ALM to.

Ethan Katsh and Bernard talk while drinking iced tea.

Falcon and prey.

... more photos later.... including Conrad Johnson playing Guitar :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Beautiful Day, All That You Can't Leave Behind by U2

Here's my favorite line from the Complaint: "With respect to Internet websites, the first to enter a market has a substantial advantage." So, how much of a lead in launch time did Facebook have over ConnectU? Facebook launched on February 4, 2004 and the ConnectU website launched on May 21, 2004. So, it only takes 107 days to build such a substantial advantage that your competitors are sent packing their bags and closing shop. Right.

Read the ConnectU Inc. v. Facebook Inc. et al. Complaint

Additional Resources:

• ConnectU, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. et al. Filed on March 28, 2007 in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. From Justia Federal Court Filings.
• The Facebook, Inc. v. ConnectU, LLC et al. Filed on March 9, 2007 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. From Justia Federal Court Filings.
• TheFaceBook v. ConnectU Register of Actions/Docket. From the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara.

Hi Friends,

Here is some interesting news... the United State Patent and Trademark Office has broken all of the static URLs of links to patents. In fact you can not even get a new static URL to link or bookmark to as each URL is now tied to browser session. Erik Heels has a post on this here and what you can do communicate with the USPTO.

Peace,

Tim

:: Building a Mystery, Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan

Actually, USCIS did propose waiving the current $270 fee for T Nonimmigrant Status applicants, who are victims of severe forms of trafficking in persons. However, other than that, the proposed fees for all other applications are higher than the current fees.

With the new fee structure, USCIS contends that it will be able to improve its facilities, upgrade its data systems, expand online services and reduce application processing times.

In the table below, I have itemized some of the changes for the more popular immigration application forms.

Predictably, some politicians and immigrant advocate groups have condemned the increased fees. I can understand some of their criticism because the only guaranteed aspect to this proposal is higher fees. Particularly, where government services are concerned, increased funding doesn't necessarily result in better service.

So, I'm offering the USCIS five ways to win over their critics:

1. Keep the Current Fee Structure. For those applicants who are satisfied with the current level of service provided by the USCIS, let them pay the existing price. If someone doesn't mind waiting from six months to one year or longer, then reward their patience with the lower price.
2. Offer Expedited Service for a Higher Fee. However, if an applicant wants to upgrade to a faster level of service, allow the applicant to pay an express processing fee. Some applicants will find a higher fee worth the expense if they know that their application will be processed within a 2–3 month timeframe. Currently, USCIS offers premium processing for Forms I-129 and I-140. Open premium processing to all applicants.
3. Offer True Online Tracking for a Higher Fee. If FedEx can tell me the location of a package in transit, surely the USCIS can offer a more illuminating case status search than it currently offers. Right now, someone with a pending application may see the following cryptic message: "Case received and pending." Really, this is pretty embarrassing. Pending could mean anything from your file is sitting in a queue behind 70,000 other files to someone is actively processing your application. Give the applicant some substantive information. How far along is the review process? And, whatever information that USCIS shares with the applicant humanizes the process immensely instead of making the applicant feel like they are dealing with an impenetrable bureaucracy.
4. Offer Personal Estimated Completion Dates. The phone company offers its customers a 4 hour service window for repairs. FedEx offers an estimated arrival date for packages shipped through them. USCIS should offer applicants an estimated completion date. On the USCIS website, applicants can look up processing dates, but this is just general guidance that is not particular to an applicant's individual case. USCIS should be able to calculate when a decision will be made based on where an application is in the queue and what items remain outstanding. A simple "USCIS will complete its review of your application within X weeks" will probably be a welcome gesture.
5. Earn It or Return It. Back up a pledge of faster service with a money back guarantee. If USCIS cannot review an application within a promised timeframe, then return the premium processing fee. This then becomes a no-lose situation for applicants. If you're going to charge a premium, then either earn it if you deliver or return it if you fail.