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The Economist has an issue on IP. Unfortunately, we’re all going to have to go out and buy it, because most of the articles are for subscribers only on the website. But I’ll certainly be buying one. (more…)

Ah, the government submission process. Having finally completed my submission on the inquiry into TPM exceptions being run by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, now I can’t publish it until they decide to publish it. Shame really. I’ll put up a link as soon as it happens…

Oh well, in the meantime, if you’re starved for my views (as if!) there is the submission I made on the Attorney-General’s review of the availability of Safe Harbours under Part V Div 2AA of the Copyright Act. (more…)

(Update (8 November): the paper is available at no charge via Fiona’s website.)

Writing in a recent issue of the journal Science (Vol. 310, 14 October 2005, pages 239-240), Fiona Murray and Kyle Jensen have reported the results of their research into ownership of patents in the human genome. Their findings are very interesting, providing needed empirical data on the extent to which the human genome has been patented, and by whom. (more…)

This week has had some mixed results for Google Print. The good news: Google Print has rolled out additional efforts to serve European users. The bad news: the Google Print Library Project has attracted another lawsuit in the United States, this time from the Association of American Publishers, objecting to the company’s “opt out” approach for scanning copyright works. (more…)

In the third quarter of the 2005 financial year (July-September), Google earned US$381 million (US$1.32 per share). (At the close of business on 21 October, Google was selling at over US$339 a share—that’s a record high.) That’s seven times more than Google’s earnings of US$52 million (19 cents a share), during the same period in 2004, although last year’s results reflected the cost of settling a patent dispute with Yahoo. (more…)

RIM ruling risks US Blackberry shutdown; 419 scams; and How ATM fraud nearly brought down British banking – see full post for details (more…)

As the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee hunkers down to think about DRM, they might like to take note of a column just published in the Wall Street Journal, on DRM: (more…)

LawGeek has a post about Fox’s Lawyers sending cease & desist letters to shut down a Buffy Fan Musical.

A San Fran non-profit theatre group called CounterPULSE was sponsoring a fan re-enactment of that most excellent Buffy episode, “Once More With Feeling”. (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…)

iTunes? In Australia? I just can’t get my hopes up again…I couldn’t stand the disappointment…

The First Amendment Center has a nice analysis piece on international libel laws and publishing on the internet.

There are a couple of quibbles: the piece notes a number of cases brought against US publishers in a number of jurisdictions, including Australia, and says “In all of these cases, the foreign courts ignored the protections of U.S. libel law and instead applied local law to determine the publishers’ liability.” (more…)

I’m probably behind the times on this, but I just found at Groklaw a nice short history of the net, Unix, Linux and all things related — The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin, by Peter H. Salus. I haven’t had time to read it all yet (and it still appears to be a work in progress), but so far it’s an informative read.

Interested in why/how the High Court refused special leave in The Panel case? Read Starkoff’s post.

UPDATE: Warwick Rothnie has also commented at some length on the issue. (true confessions: not sure I agree with Rothnie’s basic point here, which is that, in the end, substantial part is just a matter of fact/judgment. But while I think our law on ‘substantial part’ is now problematic for Part IV works, that’s not the Full Federal Court’s fault. That’s the High Court’s fault, for saying that ‘quality’ is relevant for Part IV subject matters. How do you judge ‘quality’ of non-original works, if not by the ‘highlights’ method used by the Full Court?).

The Wall Street Journal has a perceptive piece on how ABC affiliates view TV Downloads. It reports that the president of the association representing ABC’s affiliates “expressed misgivings” about Apple having the right to sell episodes of “Lost” to viewers the day after they are broadcast on ABC. (more…)

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, this past year the High Court of Australia has upheld a record number of appeals from the New South Wales Court of Appeals:

Herald research shows that of 52 cases, 40 decisions of lower courts have been reversed – a success rate of almost 80 per cent.

Last year it upheld only 34 of 55, and in 2003 it was 33 of 56. Last year only 12 of 20 appeals against NSW decisions succeeded.

This means, of course, that in many cases the High Court has found that the trial judge decided the case correctly in the first instance — as was the case in Sony v Stephens, where the High Court agreed with Justice Sackville’s original finding that Eddy Stephens was not liable for having circumvented a technological protection measure.