Lex Ferenda

This has got to be the tech law case of the year! The Times has a report on what must be a one-of-a-kind - an English court (essentially a religious court) considering the rights and wrongs of mobile phones, and more specifically whether the original decision-maker had been justified in refusing permission for the erection of a mast on religious property (on the grounds that people would use the network to get access to pornography, illegal material, etc). Everything from filtering to the great benefits of new technology to the Convention on the Rights of the Child gets a look in here.

As for adults, the risk was that some adults benefiting from the improved transmission in the Chingford area might use a mobile phone to access pornography which was not classed as unlawful by the criminal law.

To bar something which would be of benefit to the public generally because there was a risk that some would be able to access privately material which many Christians and others deplored, was to take an unbalanced approach.

The only think I can say to that is (predictably), amen. Setting aside any architectural/planning issues (not mentioned in this report, although they could well be present), I think the general principle, as summarised in the paragraphs quoted above, is eminently sensible - and perhaps a useful thing to bring up during the next moral scare that means we should ‘ban social networking’ or whatever…

(Another version from the Law Reports here. Not sure about the citation (there’s a WLR Daily: [2007] WLR (D) 241) but the case is In re St Peter and St Paul, Chingford
(Arches Court of Canterbury: 14 August 2007)).

First seen (by me) in the post by the consistently informative Simon Fodden at the consistently useful slaw.ca

I have recently finished reading a translation of Patrice Flichy’s wonderful 2001 book, L’imaginiare d’Internet, published in English this year by MIT Press as The Internet Imaginaire. (MIT Press, Amazon). My French is woeful (and certainly not up to academic reading, and certainly certainly not up to sociology), so while aware of the book (I used a very good Flichy extract in an Open University course I took two years ago), I had to wait for the translation … and then when I spotted it in the US in July, my budget didn’t stretch to the (admittedly pretty) glossy hardback. Thankfully, I nabbed a library copy back in Dublin.

There is very little buzz around the book, it seems, and it’s a shame. (I’m sure that reviews in academic journals etc will make their way into print soon enough, of course). For while it is ‘five years out of date’, and it’s a translation, it should be considered as an important contribution to both the ‘Internet history’ and ‘cyberculture’ fields. Basically, Flichy’s methodology included a fairly close study of issues of Wired (and other sources) in the 90s, alongside contemporary news reports, documents and major histories (e.g. Hapfer’s Where Wizards Stay Up Late, etc). It involves a good dollop of sociological analysis but even in translation, it is far from dense or unreadable. It is one of the few books I have read, in quite a few years reading this stuff, that tries to tackle the ideology and political positioning of the ‘cyberelite’; typically it is either ignored or overtheorised, but this is quite down-to-earth and ‘aware’ of trends in politics, economics etc more generally.

The ‘imaginaire’, left untranslated, is defined in fairly simple terms. “We encounter more than simply a project or common intention; what we witness is a collective vision or imaginaire“. This is discussed in terms of policy-makers, designers and scientists, and (in most detail) communities and community leaders. I can’t think of a book that has tackled the questions Flichy does in this way at all - and the reader is left with a desire to chase up some of these sources, particularly those relating to the mid-90s period, the transition between the old Internet and the beginnings of its commercial phase. Indeed, my one regret is that this translation does not include an ‘update’, as the economic ‘crash’, the continuing process of telecoms industry liberalisation (which Flichy is deeply concerned about even in terms of the 1996 Telecoms Act in the US), the Web Thingey buzz, are certainly subjects that are enlightened by this ‘new’ book, written before they happened.

Via that well-known academic periodical, the Annals of Improbable Research, comes news of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes. I particularly enjoyed the paper that won the Literature prize, which will interest the more library-minded readers of this blog. It’s a paper on how to treat the word ‘the’, concluding that the best solution is making sure to have a cross-reference for whichever option you choose to follow or not follow. The paper by our new celebrity Glenda Browne is very readable (so that’s one point for the improbables over the probables!) and can be downloaded in PDF here. Ironically (or not), it was published in The Indexer - or should that be Indexer, The?

(I also prescribe a good reading of the paper for all those airlines and ticket bookers who record my name as Síthigh, Daithí M and then say that my name doesn’t match. Of course it doesn’t. Or the conference organisers who file my name badge in the S pile (despite my filling in the surname field as Mac Síthigh) and then give me a dirty look for not telling them).

Ireland’s ongoing response to the dot-com crash, a few years on.

Video

(and yes, apparently the maker is actually from Co. Wicklow, where I grew up; it’s a long way from there to BoingBoing).

A big thank you to the good people at Content and Carrier, who have put together a very helpful list of upcoming cases and requests for preliminary rulings here. If this sort of thing excites you (and I know you’re out there!), this will keep you away from addictinggames.com for a few minutes anyway. My favourite so far is this delightfully complicated Italian matter on media freedom, human rights and more.

Enough of monsters for now.

Peter Leeson has published a paper under the puntastic title An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of a Pirate Organization. A little too late for Talk Like A Pirate Day, but still good - it was published earlier this year and this version is dated October 2nd.

(Spotted in The Atlantic Monthly; Download the PDF here)

Leeson looks at the systems of law and regulation in place on pirate ships of the 17th and 18th centuries, complete with reflections on the relationship between ship governance and the other revolutions of the period. While hamming it up, of course.

An alternative tribute to this developing story, it’s the Monster.ie Mash!

Download it here.

Update: Apparently a few hundred of you think this is worth listening to. Wow! Hello readers from Tom Raftery, Damien Mulley and of course p45rant.net. Anyway, this was a follow-up to the Monster Mash in verse form (which has links to the various bits of news being commented on, giving the context); you might also like the epic tale of the Black Knight and the Monster from Head Rambles. Noting, of course, that the company involved has responded to some of the relevant issues.

I was working on my blog late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For Monster from the Web began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

(They did the mash) They did the Monster mash
(The Monster mash) It was an email smash
(They did the mash) It went out in a flash
(They did the mash) They did the Monster mash

From Gilford Road down in Dublin South-East
To the inboxes of the IT@Cork geeks
The message it came from Monster’s humble abode
But did they get consent? Oh no no no

(They did the mash) They did the Monster mash
(The Monster mash) The speling it waz trashh
(They did the mash) Tom blogged it in a flash
(They did the mash) And so began the backlash

Michele, he was just having fun
The blogging, it had just begun
But Monster, soon they got their wish
When the bloggers put their server on the big blacklist

The scene was rockin’, all were digging the sounds
Of “Pedro” and his comments, round and round,
But the IP address, it told no lies
It seems Monster fights back in a bad disguise

(It made a splash) That awful Monster mash
(The Monster mash) It was a blogging smash
(It was a mash) It caught on in a flash
(The blogging mash) About the Monster mash

Now one man decided to give Tom a ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He left a message and shook his fist
And said, “I’ll see you in court” - well, that’s the gist

(A legal mash) It’s Monster’s legal mash
(A legal mash) But have they got the cash?
(Their legal mash) It does seem quite brash
(A legal mash) To start a legal mash

Now have they thought about their brand
That perhaps we don’t need such a heavy hand
Something quite simple, they could do
Say sorry, tell the truth, and start anew

(There’s a backlash) Against Monster’s mash
(Their email mash) It’s on Digg in a flash
(The spamming mash) It is a culture clash
(But if they trash) We’ve got it in our cache!

Thanks for all the comments! The sequel is here.

Welcome to what I’m told is the first Irish-hosted Blawg Review, coming to you from Trinity College Dublin. Now, today (Monday October 1st) is the first day for our newest cohort of first year undergraduate students. A little late, you say? Well, as this institution of higher learning has been around for 400-odd years (some of them particularly odd), you may be able to forgive our occasional tardiness. Indeed, our continuing students aren’t back for another week (and my own tutorial teaching won’t start for a few more weeks after that); but of course, those of us hard at work on our PhDs have been (cough) working hard all summer.

Finding new distractions is more like it, and this edition of the Blawg Review is one of the best that has come along so far! Today, with a nod to familiar new (academic) year resolutions, I’m taking a look at some interesting blog posts, both from the familiar Lex Ferenda zones of cyberlaw, media studies and legal education, and from the general blawgosphere and the blog o’sphere. For the information of the regular readers (all ten of you … the Lex Ferendans, perhaps?), Blawg Review is a great ‘blog carnival’ site, and you should subscribe to it, if you want to be really cool and popular and the envy of all your friends

For what it’s worth, it’s also Banned Books Week (says the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom blog), and the start of the baseball postseason (with the Baseball Crank (a lawyer and a Mets fan - sorry for your troubles, sir) taking a wry look at lawyers and civility this week). But enough of that, and off we go:

Choose your courses (carefully?)

Lots of people have been writing about a new paper by Douglas Rush and Hisako Matsuo (the paper is here) on course choice at Law School vs success at bar exams. Responses come from the great and the good, including Dave Hoffman, Business Associations Blog, PrawfsBlawg and even Freakonomics. Meanwhile, Charon QC has a podcast about the recognition of for-profit law school BPP by the Privy Council across the water in the UK.

Buy new books

Wendy Seltzer at the Citizen Media Law Center’s blog wrote about the Harvard Coop’s unusual argument that ISBNs are protected by copyright and taking them down can get you kicked out of the bookstore. Then again, Simon Fodden at slaw.ca wants to buy the Magna Carta…

Take advice from those who have come before you

Bridget Crawford has some detailed advice for the new feminist law professor; this covers everything except the sunscreen.

But why bother with another year in the academic world? Well, you could do worse than take a look at Scott Greenfield’s Top 10 Reasons For Keeping Law Schools (and his follow-up on whether law school is really that bad…

Find out about financial assistance

Our own Ed wonders whether there should be a Blogging Scholarship at law schools. A great idea!

Look for a new job

Daniel Schwartz and George Lenard have written at length about background checks, with an eye to how new technologies and new procedures make the job of the checker so much easier.

Stay out of trouble

Brett Trout, who has been blawgging for years and is in tour with a new book on cyberlaw, has put together some practical tips on keeping your blog out of court. If turning to Crime 2.0 might seem tempting, see Sox First (the sox being the 2002 federal law rather than the triumphant Bostonians), looking at increasing interest in policing virtual crime.

Start a campaign

Students love campaigns, and new technological toys, too. But poor Verizon got themselves in a spot of bother this week, with a decision (quickly reversed) to deny service to pro-choice activists NARAL, on the grounds that the messages would be ‘controversial or unsavoury’. ‘Blandness and depoliticization‘, said Frank Pasquale at Concurring Opinions, in a great post that weaves together net neutrality, freedom of speech and economics. Susan Crawford explains why it matters.

Take up a new sport

In the hockey world, pre-season has just finished, but the owners of the New York Rangers just bodychecked the National Hockey League. Or, to be more precised, filed suit in a dispute over control of the Rangers’ website, reported by the SportsBiz blog.

Run for election

Eric Turkewitz, the New York Personal Injury Lawyer, previews a case coming up soon in the Supreme Court, where the system of elections to judicial offices in New York State is being challenged. Just keep an eye on the rules: Overlawyered and What About Clients both report on the fuss over Texas Senate candidate Mikal Watts and his seemingly iffy tactics in relation to contributions to judicial candidates..

Work on your Facebook profile

Kevin O’Keefe (from the provocatively-titled Real Lawyers Have Blogs) weighs in on law firms and social networking.

Dress appropriately

Geeklawyer in England has a fun little tale about his fomer co-blogger Ruthie and her pre-trial nightmares.

Read something new

Martin Weller (the Ed Techie) set up a distributed conversation on ‘the future of content’, and the legal issues are expertly handled by Ray Corrigan at B2fxxx. And I can’t help but mention the New Zealand law-by-wiki project.

Dig out your old lecture notes

Last week, I was at the GikII workshop (say it ‘geeky’, or any way you want to) in London. I summarised all the presentations here. The presentation and questions by Fernando Barrio is picked up by Virtually Blind: is Second Life a patent-free zone? Apparently so, says the small print. Not so fast, says the rest of the world. Jordan Hatcher did one better and found his slides on tattoos and copyright law picked up by BoingBoing (more from Jordan’s own blog here. Hans Peter Lehofer at Content and Carrier kindly refers to my own net neutrality presentation in a lovely post (including Shakespeare) on net neutrality in Europe.

Find out what’s going on in your neck of the woods

Fiona de Londras at the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights in Cork has started a new blog on, well, criminal justice and human rights! This post on secret detention is a good taster of what’s to come. Indeed, Darius Whelan’s post at Irish Law Updates highlights a busy year ahead at University College Cork. A short hop away, Lilian Edwards is gearing up for the launch of ILAWS at the University of Southampton.

(Especially for postgrads): watch out for your supervisor!

Finally, my supervisor Eoin O’Dell, who blogs at cearta.ie, has returned from a summer blogging break, with a post about a controversial Irish libel case and what it means for Irish defamation law and for bloggers.. So I had better get back to work!

Thanks for reading this week’s Blawg Review. Daithí Mac Síthigh (da-hee mac shee-hig) is my name, and I’m writing a PhD on new media regulation (and doing a bit of teaching, a bit of research, and various other things) at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin. Lex Ferenda is my blog, eighteen months old and acting as a PhD sandpit, a soapbox, a testbed and so much more. I’d love to have you as a regular reader, and would welcome any comments.

Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.