Captain Copyright - A Canadian Creation. So I'm thinking about whether it is legal and/or advisable to sell my old 1L outlines to the hoard of current 1Ls that would undoubtedly pay dollars for a customized outline.  There was a service called TakeNote @ Cornell that produced custom class notes on red paper, designed to foil would-be photocopiers.  (They hired TAs to take notes during that class that you undoubtedly skipped because of your subscription to Takenote Example of Intro to Wines TakeNote). So I ask - Would be infringing upon a professor's copyright? The concept of copyrighting a lecture (technically, a live performance) was briefly addressed in my copyright class.  Additionally, an excellent law review titled "Note: 'Profiting At My Expense': An Analysis of the Commercialization of Professors' Lecture Notes" by Ashley T. Barnett - 9 J. Intell. Prop. L. 137 (Fall 2001) discusses the issue of commercial note-taking services, advocating that additional protections should be adopted. Does federal copyright law prevent a commercial note service from copying a lecture delivered by a professor? The answer is: it depends. The legality of buying and selling lecture notes or of posting lecture notes on the Internet seems to be a gray area of the ...

The Supreme Court began hearing oral argument for the fall term this morning.  SCOTUS Blog always has great coverage of what cases are being argued today and a preview of the cases this week.  Two interesting criminal procedure cases are being argued Tuesday: Herring v. United States (07-513), on whether courts must suppress evidence seized during an arrest made as a result of faulty information provided by another law enforcement agency Arizona v. Gant (07-542), on whether police must show a threat to their safety or the preservation of evidence to conduct a warrantless search of a car whose occupant was recently arrested. So I was wondering if argument actually influences the decisions of the Justices.  Interesting article from the Yale Pocket Part - an online publication of the Yale Law Journal. Frederick Liu's Citing the Transcript of Oral Argument: Which Justices Do It and Why analyzes empirical data from 1994-2007, examining the number of citations to the oral argument transcript that are included in opinions. Liu also details how Justices use oral argument. The three main reasons Justices cite the transcript are: (1) to describe an advocate's affirmative position; (2) to record an advocate's concession; and (3) to note an advocate's representation ...

Regardless of political affiliation, Tina Fey's grand return to Saturday Night Live to impersonate Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin has people on the floor laughing.  Professor Adler @ Volokh Conspiracy wakes up earlier than I do, and linked the 3 Fey-as-Palin sketches on this blog post with a poll (Palin - Couric is currently leading. Palin & Hillary Press Conference Palin interview with Katie Couric VP Debate - Palin/Biden I was wondering if Fey would be breaking any laws if she impersonated Palin and staged a public rally.  I know it's a crime to impersonate a police officer, so it would likely be similarly illegal to impersonate an acting governor.  But would there be a First Amendment parody exception? The real Gov. Palin

So I'm doing a ton of research for PSLR and came across this sweet Florida statute that was "void for vagueness because it did not give fair notice of what conduct was forbidden and because it encouraged arbitrary and erratic arrests by the police." (Lexis) Jacksonville Ordinance Code § 26-57 provided at the time of these arrests and convictions as follows: "Rogues and vagabonds, or dissolute persons who go about begging, common gamblers, persons who use juggling or unlawful games or plays, common drunkards, common night walkers, thieves, pilferers or pickpockets, traders in stolen property, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons, keepers of gambling places, common railers and brawlers, persons wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object, habitual loafers, disorderly persons, persons neglecting all lawful business and habitually spending their time by frequenting houses of ill fame, gaming houses, or places where alcoholic beverages are sold or served, persons able to work but habitually living upon the earnings of their wives or minor children shall be deemed vagrants and, upon conviction in the Municipal Court shall be punished as provided for Class D offenses." Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 158 (1972). "Four of the ...

New York Times reports that OJ was: found guilty late Friday on all 12 counts stemming from a confrontation in a hotel room last year, including armed robbery and kidnapping. Mr. Simpson now faces 15 years to life for the kidnapping charge as well as a minimum of at least another 10 years in prison on the other charges. His attorney, Yale Galanter, said he would appeal.

Ted Stevens - No Mistrial (Yet!) but Williams & Connolly are good. OJ Simpson - Not Guilty (Yet!) but the jury is out. The Washington Post and the Legal Times have the story of D.C. District Judge Sullivan's harsh words for the Prosecution in the criminal case against Ted Stevens. WaPo - After a surprise revelation Wednesday night that Justice Department lawyers had not disclosed the potentially exculpatory information, the ruling followed a hearing on the matter late yesterday. "Although the court is persuaded there is a . . . violation, the court is not persuaded that dismissal of the indictment or mistrial is the appropriate remedy," said U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. He added that the government's actions had broken his trust in the prosecutors and ordered them to give Stevens's attorneys copies of all witness interviews. "The court has no confidence in the government's ability" to meet its obligations to ensure a fair trial, he said. . . . . The potentially exculpatory material involves remarks by the executive, Bill Allen, a key prosecution witness, to FBI Agents that he believed Stevens would have paid for the renovations if Allen had billed him. Attorneys for the government did not disclose those remarks to ...

Students Rejoice in ... The new building will indeed be awesome.

Update: 9-29 NYT Article - Pirated Arms Freighter Cornered by U.S. Navy NAIROBI, Kenya — The American military on Monday tightened the naval noose around an arms-laden freighter hijacked by pirates, sealing off any possible escape in a standoff near the craggy Somalia coastline Lt. Nathan Christensen, a Navy spokesman, said that “several destroyers and missile cruisers” had joined the American destroyer that was already tailing the hijacked vessel and that the pirates were now surrounded. He would not specify the exact number of warships or what they would do if the pirates refused to surrender. “Our intent is for the ship not to offload any of its cargo,” he said, referring to the 33 battle tanks and large supply of grenade launchers and ammunition now in the hands of a band of pirates. ______________________________________ NY Times has this Reuters article about Somali pirates. Somali pirates demanded a $35 million ransom on Saturday for a Ukrainian ship they had seized which was carrying 33 tanks and other military supplies to Kenya, a maritime official said. . . . . Pirates have captured more than 30 vessels off Somalia this year, making its waters the most dangerous in the world and threatening a globally important shipping lane between Europe and ...