BC Law IPTF Blog

I don’t think that, statistically speaking, I’m a complete idiot, but I’ve just spent the past 20 minutes trying to figure out how to put some text on a video displaying a Creative Commons license. This post doesn’t criticize the Creative Commons scheme at all, it just says, “I wish they made their web site easier to use for me–and maybe for other newbies.”

First of all, when you click on the easy-to-find “License Your Work” link, you are brought to a license wizard. But the “more info” links are confusing. For example, if you are choosing whether to allow commercial uses of your work, the “more info” is written for a “Noncommercial” license–which allows commercial uses, with the author’s permission. So does “Noncommercial” allow commercial use? I don’t know.

The same for the “Allow modifications of your work.” The default radio button selects “Yes,” but the “more info” link is about “No derivative works”–which is confusing.

OK, so I figure I want an Attribution-Noncommercial license for video. So I get a page that gives me some icons/buttons and some HTML to cut and paste. But how do you cut and paste an icon or HTML into a video? Isn’t there some text I can put on the first or last screen? No. I only have stuff I can put on a web site. But if I’m going to upload this up onto YouTube?

And on YouTube… There’s no clear link telling me about what my rights are when I upload a video to YouTube. As the creator, I have the copyright. But do I give it up to YouTube when I upload it there? They’re pretty clear about what happens if your copyright is violated by someone else uploading to YouTube, but they should be more helpful in letting me know how my rights are protected when I upload my stuff.

At this point, the only thing I definitely know how to do is to put the “(c) 2007″ on my video. I think that I can also put:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/; or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

But I’m not entirely clear about this. I think it should be clearer.

My first major idiot moment of the day is when I leave my keys and lock myself out of my apartment every morning. This morning, that will be the second major idiot moment of my day.

Update: A lot of my questions are answered in the FAQ. But I think that they’re fairly obvious questions, and I shouldn’t have to search so long for it.

Also, I decided to try the CC Publisher application to publish my video - but the link takes me to a 403 Forbidden page. (02/28/07 19:56 EST)

And, just for the record, here’s the video of Yei, South Sudan (with the copyright and the unfortunately illegible (because of resolution issues) CC statement).

I was thinking about this brilliant post of mine, where I pretty much said nothing of value, and wondered what virtulegal issues actually arise on Second Life, and whether other MMORPGs like World of Warcraft would have similar issues.

I mean, one major difference is that Second Life, well, has “people,” whereas WoW has, well, gnomes. In Second Life, people live in houses and have jobs and sit around and drink coffee and have sex. WoW–well, has gnomes. And they kill monsters. And go on quests for magic weapons.

So, where there is no specific object for “life” in Second Life–no quests, no XP, no magic weapons to find–maybe there’s more room and time for free minds to start thinking about their rights. (The “quest,” if any, in Second Life is to make money, buy cool things, and have lots of sex. Just like IRL, right?) It’s like Second Lifers are bourgeoisie, and the WoWers are serfs locked into meaningless toil, unable to afford the luxury to think about rights.

WoW is more of a game, where arbitrary rules are accepted. (Think if football was controlled by common law, and not by code.) You either follow the rules, or you don’t succeed in the game. What “rights” beyond that could you need?

I suppose there is the process, IRL, of “support”–bug fixes, code improvements, server uptime, game tweaks. And this is basically what the SLLA is asking for–an IRL improvement, external to the VR game life. This is what spawned the old-time protests on EverQuest and Ultima Online (though the Ultima Online protest about inflation was actually quite an interesting one, deserving a New Yorker article).

But last year, there was a WoW protest where a bunch of warriors gathered en masse to protest deficiencies in how the warrior classification was configured. By virtue of the numbers of characters on-line, in a single location, the servers had trouble handling the load. WoW ended up suspending the accounts of those who participated. Talk about protest and suppression!

I should really get back to reading Evidence… So I’ll finish this later, and try to wrap up my wandering thoughts.

(For full disclosure, I have a character on WoW, and, yes, he is a gnome. But a damn fine one. With lots of magic weapons.)

From the web site of the Second Life Liberation Army :

The Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA) was formed as the ‘in-world’ military wing of a national liberation movement within Second Life. The movement contends that univeral suffrage is a right that should be established within Second Life immediately. As Linden Labs is functioning as an authoritarian government the only appropriate response is to fight. To this end the political movement has dissolved itself and handed over interim power to the SLLA Army council headed by it Chief of Staff. When the SLLA succeeds in its aims it will disband and hand power back to the political wing of the movement. For the time being all military decisions will be taken by the SLLA Chief of Staff and implemented by SLLA fighters.

The SLLA has been exploding “push guns” or virtual bomb blasts that temporarily cloud over the screen so that you can’t see your avatars or anything around them.

From a story on this from the AFP, one of their major demands is for Second Life’s developer, Linden Labs, to go public and allow users to buy shares of stock–claiming this as a “basic right” of Second Lifers.

Is rebellion the same as terrorism? How about on Second Life, where violence has been technologically curbed? In the absence of courts, in a virtual world controlled by a private company, how can virtual citizens demand their rights, especially if they’re in a minority?

Apparently, there was an attempt to establish courts–the Second Life Superior Court–but I haven’t been following this enough to see if there has been anything established.  The blog post linked above is over a year old, and it’s the only mention of it from a Google search, so maybe it’s defunct.

For everyone who’s preparing for the MPRE in two weeks, I found two links that were particularly helpful:

http://thnlnk.com/epinions/Advice.on.How.to.Pass.the.MPRE/143

http://thnlnk.com/jdjive/Advice.from.Those.Who.Failed/730

And so I’m going to take some of this advice, and get back to my studying…

Here’s another post that has nothing to do with IP or technology…

When I was in college, I had the chance to talk with an assistant district attorney (Dan Rather’s son–unfortunately, I can’t remember his name, nor will Google give it up to me). During our conversation, he mentioned that one of his more compelling arguments against the use of marijuana is based upon fact that by using marijuana one supports a drug trade that kills people.

I, personally, have not found a compelling medical reason that marijuana deserves the level of censure that the law provides. Practically speaking, should a kid picked up with a dime bag of pot be thrown in jail? You can walk around most colleges and universities in the US on any day of the week and find otherwise-law-abiding citizens smoking dope.

Yet, it’s illegal. And, on a related note, it’s mostly those who aren’t in US colleges who are being prosecuted for possession of marijuana.

I would wager that a good percentage of kids out there don’t think that pot is that bad a drug. And they use it in the face of the law, just as the plethora of underage drinkers–I mean, watch MTV at any hour, and you’ll see underage drinking plastered across so many frames.

But the fact is that when you buy pot, you very likely at least fuel an industry, a drug trade, that ends up abusing and killing people in other countries. Perhaps if you buy organic pot, grown domestically, then you may feel less morally obligated. But I’m not sure if most pot is grown domestically. At some point, it comes from a Central or South American country where a vicious drug trade exists, where people are forced to grow, under a gun and the threat of starvation, drugs at an extorted price to fuel an industry that illegally traffics the drug across international borders. If not, then at least you fuel a demand, no matter how fictional, that drives producers and processors and traffickers to use their various methods to supply this plant.

The fact is that our globalized world allows pot grown by subsistence farmers in Mexico to end up in the hands of US college students. And by purchasing this substance you fuel a market that ends up in the prosecution of potentially otherwise-innocent folk in other countries, and in the process of extortion and murder that global organizations participate in to produce these black market goods.

So while there may be perfectly good apologetic arguments for the softening of punishments for marijuana, an otherwise-honest and innocent baseline middle-class kid in college may think that they’re just smoking up a good time, but in the end their $20 is putting $10 in the pocket of some person who’s holding a gun to the head of someone you’ll never meet.

Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, has launched a pilot site to rival Wikipedia: Citizendium:

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a “citizens’ compendium of everything,” is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names.

Sounds look a good idea–but they’re late in the game, late on the meme. It just reminds me of so many examples in technology where “better” just doesn’t win. Mac lost to PC. Friendster lost to MySpace. Et cetera.

The beauty of Wikipedia is ease of participation–anyone can do it. But to use Citizendium, I *have* to register with my name and seek the approval of a “gentle” guide? I just don’t think they can achieve the growth that will drive it off the ground the same was as PCs and MySpace. Wikipedia wins because of its growth–I have a better chance of finding at least *something* there that I can’t find in an encyclopedia.

Maybe Citizendium should just grab all the Wikipedia content and use that as their base. It’s like using a public domain dictionary and adding all your new words to it or fixing the old definitions. That way, they have the size and content, and they can work at their slow growth rate to complete their content in quality.

I remember that Nupedia (the Wikipedia predecessor) had an editorial process involved–but they were just trying to streamline articles for releases. And they ditched this for the anti-editor process involved with Wikipedia.

I’m not a total nay-sayer. I think that CZ could become a valid rival. But it serves a different purpose than Wikipedia. Wikipedia is like having access to the “crowd”–like being able to talk to friends, friends of friends, etc.–whereas CZ will be more like being able to e-mail a professor who may have a response. With the former, I will probably get an answer, but I don’t know how correct, but if I ask enough I’ll probably get something close enough to correct. For the latter, I might not get a response, but I know the response will be right. This makes a great opportunity for a meta engine that searches CZ first and fills the gaps with Wikipedia.

See CZ’s thoughts on this Big Question on their blog.

Our humble blog made Inter Alia’s Blawg of the Day!

This week, Inter Alia’s covering wikis and law, which I’m pretty excited to hear about. Check out the ABA’s article on Wikis for the Legal Profession.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that anyone should feature the BC IPTF Wiki. I’m not even linking to it, it’s so crappy.

Also, ZiefBrief of the USF Law Library mentions this blog, even describing our posts as “thoughtful and fun.” Who woulda thunk it?

Virtual Worlds, Real Profits has a blog entry on the rush of older players on MMORPGs and their impact on their virtual “economies.”

Older players, who have less time than younger ones, “power level” or buy time from services who will play their characters to increase their character levels:

The process typically involves two players from the power-leveling service working together, with one player using an existing high-level character while the other one uses the client account. As the C/Net story notes, power-leveling is controversial because it violates the terms of service of many games (which prohibit the sharing of account logins) and is frowned upon by many gamers.

These type of violations usually are ferreted out by other players–some of them dedicated vigilantes on personal quests to find these “farmers.” (”Farmers” also refers to players who only play to find special items and gold, which they then sell for real dollars IRL (”in the real world.”)

There are no rules on these behaviors. The rule that power-levelers are violating is that they give their usernames and passwords to third-parties for them to level their characters.

So there is no law governing this behavior, but there is community and culture which derides it. Where there is no written law, this sounds like law to me. And with a statutory mechanism (violation by giving away a username and a password) of prosecuting this behavior, users and their characters can be “deported” by their credit card numbers, names, and addresses.

NPR reports on the dangers of mercury in compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs):

Wal-Mart wants to sell 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs this year. The Environmental Protection Agency has almost the same goal. The bulbs save energy and reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

But there’s a hitch: Each bulb contains about 5 milligrams of mercury, a toxic heavy metal.

The bulbs last a long time, but eventually they burn out. The EPA says that people should recycle them, but most people don’t know they should.

This blog talked about this issue before, and back then I also remarked on my experience in Uganda and the  near ubiquity of CFLs.

If the US doesn’t have the capabilities to safely dispose of mercury in CFLs, and the US population isn’t informed about this or is able to do anything about it, what are the people in Uganda to do? I’m sure people are just throwing these into the trash, sending the mercury straight into the soil and ground water, and back into the people. Bad stuff.

One of the problems with mass recycling is that the bulbs inevitably break and leak, so you can’t just put out bins for people to drop them off or for services to come by and pick them up. Technology may be able to reduce the amount of mercury, but right now there’s no way to avoid it. Maybe in the scheme of things, this isn’t as bad as other solid waste problems–sewage treatment, electronics and circuit boards–and the energy savings are worth it. With rolling black-outs, more people have light more of the time because of the significant reduction in energy consumption. Maybe this is something the world will have to live with for now.

So I’m re-writing some subpoenas duces tecum (or “subpoena duces tecums”?), and I’m abhorred at the inconsistency in addressing formats. I learned that there were proper ways to write postal addresses–and now I’m learning how no one follows them.

Straight from the USPS:

Addresses should be typewritten or machine printed in dark ink on a light background using uppercase letters. Except for the hyphen in the primary or secondary street number (if needed) or the ZIP+4 code, all punctuation may be omitted. All lines of the address should be formatted with a uniform left margin. When using a foreign address, always place the country name by itself on the last line. (See sample address types in section A2.)

Address characters must not touch and should be equally spaced. All lines of the address should be parallel to the bottom of the envelope. Be sure to include all pertinent information such as the directional code, apartment, floor, and suite number.

The entire address should be contained in an imaginary rectangle known as the OCR read area (see illustration in section A1) that extends from 5/8″ to 2 3/4″ from the bottom of the mailpiece, with 1/2″ margins on each side.

The barcode clear area, 5/8″ from the bottom, and 4 3/4″ from the right edge of the mailpiece (see illustration in section A1), is the area where a POSTNET barcode is preapplied or printed by an OCR.

Extraneous (nonaddress) printing that appears in the OCR read area should be positioned above the delivery address line and as far away from the address block as possible.

So you may ask, “Paul, what does this have to do with intellectual property, or law and technology?” It has nothing to do with IP, but it does have to do with lawyerly anal-ness and technology.

The reason for proper US postal address formatting is for the OCR, or optical character recognition, that sorts and sends mail. When mail fails OCR for one reason or another, then its sent to human readers who sort the mail. (My mom used to do this.) That’s the tech reason.

The lawyerly anal-ness reason is that before we resort to the common law (or “tradition”) of addressing mail, we should first look to the rule.

NC State has a helpful–though egregiously spelled and punctuated–image, referring to the USPS’s “Addressing for Success” document:

The question that spurned this little rant, though, is the question of where to put a floor designation on an address. As above, the postal service wants the floor designation when applicable, but nowhere does it say where.

The consensus amongst my colleagues is that it should go after the location, e.g., “street.” But if you were to put an office or building name, it would go above the location. A floor is somewhere inbetween an office/building and a suite.

I am thus paralyzed and can do no more.

Update: I “asked” the postal service (thanks to my friend, Fipi Lele!) on their online address checking service. I entered:

256 FREEPORT ST
2ND FL
DORCHESTER MA 02122-2845

It removed the “2ND FL” and tried to replace it with a “STE.” So no help from them on this. Maybe “floor” is not a valid designation. If not, then it should properly go above the location, I believe.