Today's New Blawg

The members of the MacLean Family Law Group in Vancouver, BC ("We can't protect your heart. But we can protect your rights.") are blogging prolifically about things like "Custody and Access, Spousal Support, Child Support, Division of Property, Common Law and Same Sex, [and] Court Process." [Via the Blawg Ring] Did you know Canada's highest court recently paved the way for the country to become the third in the world to recognize same-sex marriages?

Keep 'Em Coming

Thanks to all who have responded in email and comments to this weekend's open thread on blawging. There's still plenty of time to chime in if you haven't yet done so (my talk is not 'til Noon PST).

Happy Birthday Dear Howard

It's after midnight on the east coast, so unless my phone is lying this means it's already Howard Bashman's birthday in his part of the world.

Many Appealing Returns!

[Update] Oops, bad phone! I'm a day early, which just gives you more time to prepare, both for Howard and for Bill Gates.

Long Strange Trip

Tauzin, not Valenti, huh? Interesting. The L.A. Times was just commenting Friday how the recent ban on screener DVDs for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had become "a referendum on the 82-year-old Valenti's Hollywood power." ("New 'Screener' Policy Fails to Quiet Valenti's Critics")

Antitrust And The Broadcast Flag

Blogging in absentia, David Giacalone passes along some timely links:

1. The American Antitrust Institute, "A red flag for the broadcast flag:"
   

   
   

   The scope of the regulations the program producers are asking for is enormous. Their proposal requires detailed rules on the manufacture and design of DTV receivers and other devices. It requires that the outputs on such devices be strictly controlled and tamper-proof. And it would make illegal the importation into the U.S. or the possession of devices that do not comply with the regulations and provide penalties for consumers who attempt to circumvent them. [...]

   
   

   The problem is that the broadcast flag proposal aims at delegating to the private companies that own the copy protection technologies the power to make and re-make the rules for how DTV signals should be handled by consumer devices. Through their rules, these companies have already decided how consumers should be permitted to handle even non-broadcast video.

   
   

   
   


2. The joint statement of Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, and the American Antitrust Institute, opposing the Broadcast Flag scheme: "The attempt to try and fast-track this through an agency process, while it hasn't wholly silenced consumers, has diminished their voices in a manner that's ultimately going to affect the way that they enjoy TV and their consumer electronics devices, and even the ways they use their computers." (Those links again to speak your mind: EFF; Digital Consumer.)


3. The American Antitrust Institute's guide to Intellectual Property and the Antitrust Laws. We have David to thank for this excellent resource, as he is the volunteer editor.