An Ars interview with Oren Sreebny, “director of emerging technology for the central IT and networking unit at the University of Washington,” reveals an interesting confluence between law, technology, and education. Q: [Regarding the] legal headaches that higher ed IT departments have to deal with. He said something like “We spend more time being lawyers …
I use OS X’s colored labels and smart folders to keep track of articles to read and things to do. Using the menus can be kind of a pain, and surprisingly, Quicksilver doesn’t have the ability to label built in. These Applescripts can be used to quickly label an item in the Finder. Simply select …
Another response to my assertion that FERPA has some scared tells me deserves a bit of clarification. The trouble (and in some respects, benefit) of laws like copyright and privacy, which only become certain after long and expensive litigation, is that they are not completely explicit. Borderline cases leave small providers wondering whether they might …
What does one need to prove that a business is built on infringement? A judge who ordered Google to hand over detailed viewing data to Viacom states: They need the data to compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing videos with that of non-infringing videos. A markedly higher proportion of infringing-video watching may bear on plaintiffs’ …
John is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He studies the social impact of media technology law and policy, with a special emphasis on copyright. He also is an instructional technology consultant for DoIT-Academic Technology.
John doesn't update his blog often, and many of the thoughts are probably half-baked. While the web has sort of an eternal memory, the current and future reader is urged not to take all of this too seriously.
Think of this blog as "John thinking out loud."
(For more on this idea and why I blog, please see this category.)