file sharing on campus

Some serious firepower was leveled against college students this past week by the recording industry. Law suits were initiated against 4 students who had songs available to share with others. The music was stored on computers connected to the college networks. The plaintiff record companies stated that they would drop the suits if the file sharing services were shut down.

online music agreement

It appears that a new agreement has been reached between web casters and the record industry regarding royalties rates for songs online. This new meeting of the minds was focused more upon rates for some of the larger web music groups, who seemed to have been left out of the last agreement.

port of wilmington to go high tech

Security is coming to longshoremen and stevedores along the Port of Wilmington this summer. That's big time, high tech, super large budget security. The Transportation Security Administration is going wild on Delaware's secured positions.

in defense of squatters

Larry's post about domain name squatting had me thinking about actual squatters of the off-line variety. I came across a compelling piece of literature called Squatting: the real story. With very readable chapters like The erosion of squatters rights, it's some interesting material that explains as much about society as it does about those who move into abandoned buildings. While its focus is upon squatting in the UK, it's worth looking over regardless. The book is brought to us by the Advisory Service for Squatters.

squatters must get off the pot

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower Court interpretation of the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1129 (2002), in Schmidheiny v. Weber, (3d Cir. Feb. 11, 2003) Nygaard, J.. Score one for the good guys!

The lower court had said that the statute prohibited "registering" a domain name that was someone else's name, for profit, but that it didn't prohibit "re-registering" it. The Circuit Court said, phooey, a skunk is a skunk is a skunk.

Denise Howell Rocks!

Thank you, Denise. :-)

Law Clerk's Notes

U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson has ruled, in an order made public March 31, 2003, that prison mattresses on the floor is not cruel and unusual punishment. Due to overcrowding at Delaware's Gander Hill prison, some inmates were forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor. The U.S. District Court has ruled that forcing an inmate to sleep on a mattress on the floor does not violate inmates' constitutional protection to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

By Kevin Mann