Copyright law re-do; sanity prevails

I’ve mentioned before in my blog, the copyright law that was meant to come into force in my home country, and the relevance it had for international copyright protection efforts. Just as a brief reminder – the law was supposedly going to make it harder for people to breach copyright, but in the process it [...]

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Join the Black-out

This post is directly related to the one below it, but going a step further to try to raise awareness of the wider implications of this badly constructed law which effects New Zealander’s at this point in time, but could easily become a wider adopted policy that could hurt you directly too. Please help us. [...]

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Cutting off copy-right infringers at the ISP

I’ve only recently come across a blog entry about a law that is meant to come into force here very soon – one that makes ISPs cut off Internet access once a customer has infringed copyright more than once, via their Internet service. It’s seen as a highly controversial move, mostly turning on the issue [...]

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Popularity and Reputation

I’m going to come at this discussion from a legal philosophy point-of-view (because that’s how my mind works). One of the lines of debate about whether the suit of defamation (suing someone because they defame you / hurt your reputation) should exist or not, turns on the fact that you are trying to protect something [...]

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Technology and Regulation

When I was doing my law degree I unfortunately chose not to do the course on Law & Technology (it had too much internal assessment required and a lot of it had to be done online – I didn’t have regular Internet access so that was a no-goer). I did however inevitably get exposed to [...]

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Spam doesn’t pay..?

Not that long ago I was complaining about unsolicited spam via Second Life residents… well it seemed very topical and apt that I just came across this story about people receiving a hefty fine for email spamming, under New Zealand law: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0812/S00291.htm .
What I’d like to know is how much they actually made from the [...]

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Intellectual Property: Understanding Foundations

A while ago I said I would be posting about Intellectual Property as it applies to Second Life, drawing from both my Philosophical and Legal background, as well as my experiences. Numerous fun things like my Twilight Gallery showing and my wisdom teeth being yanked have managed to postpone the series, but it has been [...]

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Why should you listen to me about Intellectual Property..?

…was a question I was asked in a comment here on my blog tonight. So let’s just put it out there for why what I say on the topic might be worth listening to; specifically, what “credentials” I have in this area (which they asked for).
If you already know my background stop reading now cause [...]

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The Academic Mind, and Intellectual Property

A lot of people in SL don’t “get me” when it comes to my view on intellectual property (music, software, art, writing, design, etc). I’ve read posts that say it’s just the way of the future that these ideas of original creator will break down and become grass-roots and community based notions. Not if I [...]

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Sharing and Stealing Ideas

A problem I keep encountering with sharing the ideas I have, is the damn things keep getting stolen. When I have an idea it will take a while before I feel comfortable with the level of perfection it’s reached; before I’m ready to put it up in the public eye for scrutiny. This is as [...]

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