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Guess what Professor Sam Ricketson just put on my desk? The two volumes of Ricketson and Ginsburg’s new tome, International Copyright and Neighbouring Rights: The Berne Convention and Beyond. This book updates Ricketson’s seminal earlier work on The Berne Convention 1886 – 1986. The new edition not only adds Professor Jane Ginsburg’s expertise, but is quite comprehensively updated, including commentary on such treaties as the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and even developments in relation to Bilateral Free Trade Agreements, and Private International Law aspects of international copyright. It even has a companion website. While I’ve not yet dipped into these pages of wisdom and scholarship, I have a feeling this is bound to end up as important, frequently cited and influential as Professor Ricketson’s earlier work. Can’t wait to read it!

The Age has reprinted a copy of a letter written by Groucho Marx in response to a letter of demand from Warner Brothers studio. Old, but good.

Speaking of Groucho, Andrew Denton last year had a great interview with Alice Cooper, who knew Groucho well and had some amusing anecdotes.

The other day I blogged about what was coming up in Australian IP. Not really predictions – these were more statements about the stuff I knew should be coming.

For a bunch of predictions – focused on the US but of course with more general relevance – see Freedom to Tinker’s list of 23.

An interesting press release from IBM yesterday, reported in today’s Australian here. and in the New York Times here (there’s a story in WSJ, too, but it’s subscriber only). In essence, IBM has announced 3 ways it is working with the USPTO, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), members of the open source software community and academia to improve patent quality. Fascinating projects that put ‘peer development’ of knowledge and tools into practice.

[update: in addition to the above sources, it’s worth dropping by Groklaw for more on these initiatives]

More over the fold. (more…)

Pretty cool: the inventor of the web finally has his own blog. The first post contains this fascinating snippet:

“The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.”

In other words, that web was a wiki. (You can see a screenshot of it.)

Following a previous posting on downloadable TV episodes, the New York Times is reporting that NBC is getting in on the act of selling TV Shows for viewing on iPods. (more…)

Two short stories that illustrate two of my pet theories about the net: MMORPG economies and RSS. The first, in the New York Times reports on Chinese ‘gold farmers’ — people who sit and play MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) all day, to build up virtual gold which they then sell for real money to time-poor players. (more…)

I previously posted about how Harvey Danger released their new album for free on P2P. Well, I have finally had time to listen to it, and I really like it. Enough, in fact, that I’m going to go and purchase the CD to support them in their decision, in the hope they (and others) will do it in future. (more…)

I’ve added Raymond Nimmer’s Contemporary IP Licensing and Information Law blog to our list of links.

Ray tends to post only every other week or so, but his entries are insightful and well argued. Those interested in the Google Print debate might be interested in reading his post on the subject, in which he argues that Google’s controversial scanning project is unlikely to fall under the fair use exception to copyright infringement.

In another post, Ray argues that shrinkwrap and clickwrap licences are enforceable contracts.

Interesting news indeed this morning, with a consortium of IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell and Red Hat announcing the formation of a company the Open Invention Network, a company for sharing Linux-related patents, for free. (more…)

I think it is worth noting that Australians didn’t only do well in the Nobel Prizes this year. All praise, of course, to Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease”.

Australians also did well in the Ig Nobels this year (more…)

I’ve added two links to the blogroll as part of a general clean up of the Weatherall’s Law blogroll. (more…)

A little while ago I noted that the University of Chicago Law Faculty had a Faculty Blog. Interesting, I thought.

I think this new Yale Law Journal experiment (also via Jack Balkin) is even more interesting: (more…)

You can find here, in this special edition of First Monday. Cool!

Have a look at http://www.google.com/ig — this looks like the first step in allowing you to turn your google search page into a Yahoo-style portal. Currently no ads. Neat.