Of Fleas And Krystal

It's a 'Flea World' After All: Should the Grokster Inducement Test for Secondary Copyright Infringement Liability Be Limited to Technological Cases?: "The Flea World decision does not directly state that Grokster is only available in cases involving technologies for copying. However, by the manner in which it distinguishes Grokster from the 'ongoing,' non-technological business of a swap meet, the Flea World opinion strongly implies that Grokster should be limited to such technological cases."

Here's Professor Patry on Flea World [via Marty Schwimmer].

Related question: whither the inducee? See Clive Thompson in Wired, quoting Eric Garland, CEO of market research firm BigChampagne: "Frankly, given how easy it is to avoid detection, it's kind of amazing anyone still gets caught. 'At this point, it really seems to be gross negligence on the part of the filesharer.'"

[Tags: mgm v. grokster, copyright, secondary infringement, arista v. flea world, p2p, big champagne]

Newly Minted

A friend and colleague of mine would like a new phrase, please. One that describes the frustration at being unable to hit pause or rewind on real life as in the digital world:

For example, if I'm listening to the radio on the way into work and I hear a good song or a good joke, I'd like to hear it again right then, but can't. Or if one of my girls has just asked me something that I missed because I was distracted, I'd like to just be able to hit the eight-second replay button as I can on TiVo. Sometimes I find myself not paying attention to something and must remind myself that
there is not back-up tape or transcript for what is happening.

Seems like ground Urban Dictionary or Wired's "Jargon Watch" should already have covered, but I like "Singularity Itch," which would translate into a desire to hurry along the inevitable merger of human and machine intelligence. Once the Singularity arrives, we'll presumably have the successors of Google and TiVo on board at all times, with the ability to record, playback, and search Life As We Know It — eliminating pesky senior moments certainly, but also preserving every bit of awkward teen angst with brutal clarity.

[Tags: singularity itch, neologisms, singularity]

My Guess Is, 'Brrr'

Chilly, or guerrilly?

[Technorati tags: public disputes; participatory law]

Is That A Gauntlet In Your Pocket?

In Blawg Review #60, Marty Schwimmer asks a host of questions and mines for insights around the central question, "Is this Administration acting lawfully?":

I can't answer these questions. And these questions are more important than pretty much any other question – because they go directly to whether we are in fact a nation of laws, where no one is above the law.

I'm glad Marty put the administration and the blawgosphere on the spot, and also that he included Jurist's Paper Chase in his list of on point resources. (Belated congratulations to Jurist on its 2006 Webby Award; more Webbys.)

Advanced Maneuvers

[This happened last week, but recovering sufficient energy to post took awhile.]

9:30 a.m.

Depart house with ambitious assault agenda and limited ammunition: a bag of yogurt covered raisins, one talking dump truck, one talking bulldozer, and one smallish GladWare® full of baked cheese puffs. (Eric Cartman is never far from my mind when I break these out, but there's no ignoring their power.) First stop: the dentist for my son Tyler's routine checkup and cleaning. Yes, 2.5-year-olds go to the dentist, and it's comical: toothpaste everywhere, floss in hair, utter fascination with "Mr. Thirsty." We emerge a little wetter for the wear but mostly unscathed — and with another little race car for the ammo stores, courtesy of Dr. Jeff.

10:04 a.m.

Arrive Newport Beach police department to present newly obtained auto registration and clear up two fix-it tickets for expired tags. (Quoth the fellow at the smog check station helpfully when I finally visited: "Y'know, at six months, they impound." This was in month eight.) Tyler's first visit (though he seemed disturbingly at home). Treated to an Apocalypse Now moment when the big blue chopper took off from the roof and buzzed our car as we were leaving. Not even Cheesy Poofs can compete with that.

10:36 a.m.

Arrive Newport Beach City Hall with sheaf of passport documentation for Tyler: application, photos (a mug shot we may as well have had taken at our last stop), and a notarized affidavit from Dad. After greeting the Passport Lady, Tyler discovers he can open the push/pull glass door and is off to explore the inner workings of our fair municipality. Retrieval, recovery, repositioning — rejection. Little matter of "proof of citizenship." Homeward bound.

11:09 a.m.

Quick pitstop at the house for Tyler's birth certificate. No need to remove him from his car seat for the fourth time this a.m. Yet. Thank you, yogurt covered raisins.

11:15 a.m.

Tyler seizes iPod control: The Lion Sleeps Tonight; Splish Splash.

11:22 a.m.

Passport Lady again, check papers, write check. Cashier's window, check papers, write more check. Just two more weeks, and as a family we can go just about anywhere but East Timor. Reassuring.

11:52 a.m.

Visit Starbucks near City Hall. Tyler applies his own aesthetic sensibility to the various displays of coffee beans, travel mugs, and beverages. (Consider this: to our children, who have gone there from birth, Starbucks — do you doubt its staying power? — will be even more familiar than it is to us. It's difficult, and a little frightening, to imagine.)

12:13 p.m.

Though sense and reason say it is now time to walk back across the street to the car and go home for lunch, the pull of the grocery store right there is irresistible. We're out of everything, there's no telling when I'll get the chance again, and — only a few Cheesy Poofs made the ultimate sacrifice at the altar of the Passport Lady. One shopping cart corralled (though I keep plunking him in these, Tyler's feet are going to start dragging the ground from that position any day now) and away we go.

12:17 p.m.

There are only two kinds of grocery stores — Those With Balloons, and Those Without. This is the former. In spades. However, a subspecies of the former is: Those With Balloons, And A Florist. Bingo — because these have the little balloons-on-a-stick designed primarily for bouquets but secondarily (certainly) for shopping cart entertainment. Who cares if they say, "Congratulations, Grad!"? Eventually Tyler and I will graduate from this morning (I don't care what the clock says, it's morning until we get home), so it fits. Who knew they made fully pre-prepared taco meat? It's a breathtaking world.

12:39 p.m.

Checkout line: hey, they had their kid.

12:53 p.m.

Caution having been thrown to the wind sixty-two minutes ago, we visit the pizza parlor next door for a couple of slices, the plan being the courtyard fountain will distract Tyler sufficiently that he'll sit in a big-boy chair and have lunch. He's distracted by the fountain — enough to want to swim in it for several hours. Lunch as performance art, me as pizza proffering sheepdog. The eggs, milk, and other perishables in our cart get a thermonuclear dose of Southern California sun.

1:22 p.m.

Eight minutes to nap time, we're outa here.

Car seats? We don' need no steenking car seats.