Law & Society Blog

Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it’ll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.Lock-in effects provide critical competitive advantages to digital products. Some of the most successful companies selling digital products achieve and maintain lock-ins with a combination of technology (DRM, proprietary interfaces), laws protecting protective technologies (DMCA), and multiple layers of IP protection (patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, license agreements).

There is an interesting article in the NY Times this morning (registration required) about yesterday’s decision by the New York Supreme Judicial Court to deny that a right to gay marriage exists under the New York state constitution.
Here is a taste:
Opponents of gay marriage immediately hailed the New York decision as a sign that the […]

Here are some of the proposed changes:Expansion of rules to cover computer and Internet-based advertising and solicitation, including restrictions on websites and e-mail, and bans on “pop-up” ads and chat-room solicitation.Ban on using nicknames, mottos or trade names that suggest an ability to obtain results.Ban on depicting the use of a courtroom or courthouse.Requirements to file all advertisements for legal services, including radio and television ads, with the attorney disciplinary committees for review, and to translate all foreign-language ads into English before filing.These proposals are ill considered…. Some have pointed out, sensibly, that the proposed rule really means:Section 1200.1(k) “Advertisement” means any public communication made by or on behalf of a lawyer or law firm about the same lawyer or law firm, or about the same lawyer’s or law firm’s services.”That takes care of my example.

/// What follows is a peice which presents a series of examinations of utilitarianism from Harwood’s seminal essay, “Eleven Objections to Utilitarianism”, along with my demonstrations of how these objections are unsound. It is continued from here. ///
2. The hero objection. The second objection is that utilitarianism removes the possibility of supererogation — that is, […]