WWU, Seattle, Vancouver Visit 2008
Hi Friends,
Dan, Cicely and I flew over Oregon and headed up to LexBlog Country in the great Northwest. We were there to do some interviewing of computer folks... but we also had some fun (Seattle/As game, Vancouver and more :).
Dan and Cicely ran the booth at Western Washington University. We met a lot of great people.
Then it was off to Seattle to meet Kevin O'Keefe at the LexBlog offices to talk blogs and to see a baseball game.
Then off to beautiful Vancouver for fun...
... and a visit the UBC Computer Science Department.
more on copyright and codes later this week...
Peace,
Tim
:: Crystal River, Mudcrutch by Mudcrutch
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Cease, Desist & Resist - Oregon's Copyright Claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes
Hi Friends,
Last week, the State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee sent Justia a notice of copyright infringement and demand to cease and desist. In its letter, Dexter Johnson, the Legislative Counsel, asked us to remove a copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes stored on our servers (or pay a licensing fee) by April 30, 2008. The letter claimed copyright on many parts of the Oregon Revised Statutes:
[T]he Committee ... claim[s] a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables the index and annotations and such other incidents as are work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.
Now, the letter is more detailed than the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes website:
The Legislative Counsel Committee claims copyright protection in those parts of Oregon Revised Statutes that are legally subject to copyright protection.
My take after reading the above claim on their website was that the State of Oregon was claiming a copyright to the annotation section and not the code itself. Accordingly, our copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes did not include the annotations. Needless to say Oregon's copyright claim on the code itself was a surprise (understatement).
As requested in the letter, I called Oregon's Sean Brennan the same Friday and Sean explained their position, reinforced the copyright claims in Dexter Johnson's letter and said he would get us some licensing information (which is $30,000 for 2 years). He also said that Oregon had been talking with other states about how to raise licensing revenue for their codes. That was somewhat disturbing, as we want states to open up their public laws and regulations.
After the call with Sean, I talked with and sent a copy of the letter to Carl Malamud, who being a former Oregon fire fighter, has a special affection for the state of Oregon. Carl checked out the site, and wrote some letters to Dexter Johnson seeking clarification of their copyright claims.
Thursday, we (Carl Malamud, Nolo's Stephen Elias and I) had a pleasant and constructive conversation with Dexter Johnson and his team. The Oregon folks are going to think through some different options. If Oregon comes up with a solution that promotes free and open access to the laws, then we will likely avoid litigation. If not, then we will likely have to ask the courts to determine whether state governments can prohibit others from downloading, reproducing or distributing the laws. I hope that given Oregon's public interest focus, the State will adopt an approach that promotes open access to laws instead of one that maximizes licensing fees. We should know more next week.
Some prominent legal bloggers have commented on Oregon's copyright claims. See Professor Tim Armstrong's post "Can States Copyright Their Statutes?" on Info/Law and William Patry's post "Oregon goes wacka wacka huna kuna" on the The Patry Copyright Blog and Sam Bayard's post "Oregon Claims Copyright in Its Statutes -- Well, Sort Of" on the Citizen Media Law Project Blog. We agree that public policy demands that state laws remain in the public domain. To otherwise permit the State of Oregon or any other governmental body to restrict access to the laws that govern all of us would make a mockery of the legal doctrine that all persons have presumed knowledge of the law. Fortunately, many courts have rightfully declined to recognize such copyright claims asserted by states and municipalities.
Peace,
Tim
:: Sugaree, Grateful Dead Download Series, Vol. 10 by Grateful Dead
* For those interested, we are working with folks from Public.Resource.Org, Cornell's Legal Information Institute, AltLaw, EFF, Creative Commons, Stanford & Cal, FastCase, as well as many other law schools, commercial organizations, courts, and government agencies on compiling a large archive of law that will be continuously updated and freely shared. Part of that is just getting the raw law, which includes cases, codes, and regulations. As we (quickly) move forward though, we will also have shared annotations and shared publishing tools. We will then want to have copies of the law along with secondary materials on thousands of servers. In addition to providing free access to all at many online locations, we want to provide the opportunity for each government institution, court, law school, nonprofit, company, and blogger to have their very own copy of the full corpus, as well as an easy way to keep it updated. It won't be easy, but it is doable. And it helps that we are working with folks from the government. Hopefully, we will soon be able to work with and include the State of Oregon. :)
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Message from Ithaca
We are waiting... but will not wait too long.
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Add BlawgSearch.com Search Results to your Website or Blog
Hi Friends,
We have added the ability for you to have BlawgSearch search results on your Website or Blog with your own look and feel.
The html code for adding the Blawg Search results to your Website or legal Blog is given here: http://blawgsearch.justia.com/friendsearch.aspx
We provide a small amount of html and Javascript code that uses AJAX to pull just the BlawgSearch results to your Web page. You just need to paste the code we provide where you would like the results to appear. You can return 5, 10 or 20 results at a time.
You can view a generic search page here.
BLAWG CATEGORY SEARCHES
You can also limit search results to any of the categories of the BlawgSearch directory. You just select the category you would like to search and the code will be generated for you (with an option to search all of the legal blogs as well).
For example one could search Civil Rights or all of the Legal Blogs with a generic header and footer.
Of course you can choose your own category to focus on, for example Law Librarian Blogs, Law Practice Blogs, California Legal Blogs, or even a particular law school, such as Stanford Law School Blogs (our puppy, Little Sheba the Hug Pug, has a Dog Law Website with the Animal Law blogs category).
ADD SEARCH TO BLOG OR WEBSITE SIDEBAR
The search and search results can also fit in the side bar of a blog, like we have just added to our legal marketing blog on the left hand side of this page). We are returning 5 results at a time for the sidebar legal blog search.
Again, here is where you go to add Blawg Search search results to your Web site or Blog or even an Intranet Web page: http://blawgsearch.justia.com/friendsearch.aspx
Feel free to try it out, and if you have any feedback, that will be greatly appreciated (feedback from the first version got us to switch from iframes to AJAX :)
Peace,
Tim
:: The Core, Slowhand by Eric Clapton
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BlawgSearch.com Current & Historical Blawg Rankings
Hi Friends,
We have added historical snapshots of the most popular blawgs on a monthly basis since we released BlawgSearch in October of 2006. For each month we have listed the 200 most popular blawgs overall, as well as the top 20 blawgs in each category.
While we have been showing the most popular blawgs on BlawgSearch on the BlawgSearch home page, the historical rankings seemed interesting (and are likely to be more interesting in a few years :).
You can check out the monthly historical snapshots here and the overall leaders since the beginning of (BlawgSearch) time here. And note: the Justia BlawgSearch legal blog directory allows you to sort blawgs by popularity on a daily, weekly, monthly or all time basis as well as alphabetically or by last post date.
We rank the blawgs based on the number of visits or podcast plays the blawg receives from the BlawgSearch.com and Blawgs.FM sites. We also include any visits that comes from the AJAX or iframe search results being used by others on their sites (more on that tomorrow :). We have some protections in place to guard against rankings click fraud and we have slightly discounted our own Blawgs (no Justia team clicks :). There are different weights depending on where the clicks occur, but basically if people see your blawg on BlawgSearch and decide to visit your Blawg, your blawg is ranked higher.
You might want to compare the category rankings we have with those on Blawg.com (the highly respected and well known directory and search engine of legal blawgs).
And the most "popular"? Above the Law. AtL has been leading now for a number of months and seems to be at or near the top everyday.
In this blog's category... the most popular legal marketing blawg of "all time"? a blog by some guy named Kevin who works at LexBlog but Professor Eric Goldman is starting to catch up. Check out the current and past leaders in any of the hundred plus categories from law professors to technology.
Finally I am not sure how meaningful the rankings are, they do not indicate what is a good blawg or bad blawg (I second everything Bill wrote in his post), but people love law blog metrics.
Peace,
Tim
:: Popular, High/Low by Nada Surf
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Gino Wins!!!
Stacy, Dana and I went to the Contra Costa Bodybuilding, Figure & Fitness Championships on Saturday to cheer our friend Gino Eagle Johnson on in the Ultra Grand Masters category.
The Ultra Grand Masters is the division for those over 60. Gino is 70 years young and he won his class! Gino is a personal trainer at Gold's Gym in Mountain View (where we work out :), and he plans to compete in the Nationals in Pittsburgh this July. What an inspiration!
Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler performed as the guest poser. He put on a great show posing and also talking individually to fans. Mr. Olympia shared the inspiring story of how he won the Olympia after being told he would never win it or compete professionally for that matter. Through hard work and determination he achieved his life dream.
Other Mountain View Gold's folks also competed. Doug placed 2nd in the Grand Masters division. And Saraya placed 4th in her very first bodybuilding competition with a salsa-inspired posing routine.
There are more pictures in the extended entry.
Congratulations to all!
Peace,
Tim
:: Eye of the Tiger, Ultimate Survivor by Survivor
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Pacific Northwest Meeting with LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe
Hi Friends,
No trip to the great Northwest can take place without a meeting with the blog man himself, Lexblog CEO Kevin O'Keefe. Well this time we met up in Bellingham right in the middle of Dirty Dan Days in Fairhaven.
KOK found a parking space and then walked the walk to the Bellingham Fairhaven Boardwalk. And here are a few more pictures.
Kevin and me ...
... Kevin and Cicely ... and ...
A guy we met who makes frogs and birds out of shells he finds on the beach. Some of his frogs were in the movie "The Ring".
We had Coffee & Diet Pepsi at Village Books and then headed out to dinner at a nice restaurant. We talked a lot of blogging and little free case law. It will be a great future :) Next time I hope to check out LexBlog's new Seattle Offices!
Peace,
Tim
:: Even Flow, Ten by Pearl Jam
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Linuxfest Northwest
Hi Friends,
As part of our Bellingham recruitment trip we went to Linuxfest Northwest... to find Bellingham linux people and perl/python programmers.
Me with The Bird.
Google recruitment table :)
Second Life & Silicon Mechanics - the sponsors of... The Party.
The organizers table... While we were at the table some guy asked for a s-load of raffle tickets and then bought a 100. I wonder if he won... We got an EFF Fair Use bumper sticker.
Chuck Robinson, owner of Village Books, with Linux and Programming Books (Bellingham traveling note: Village Books is a great bookstore, stop by, you can have coffee on the second floor and look out over the bay like Kevin O'Keefe and I did later that day).
Cicely and her Mom and The Bird.
Peace,
Tim
:: Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones
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Fun in the Sun at the Western Washington University Career Fair
Hi Friends,
Cicely and I went to Bellingham and the Western Washington University Career Fair, and met a lot of great students and people who wanted to put up free case law :).
Cicely and Ocean View
We are also going to be hanging out this weekend at the Linuxfest Northwest and meet with LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe. And the northwest weather is pretty good, not too cold, not too wet, and a little sun now and then :)
Peace,
Tim
More Photos on the extended entry.
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SF Giants Opening Day
Hi Friends,
I "skipped" work today and went to the SF Giants opener with Acendi Software CEO Charlie Moore (who took us all -- thanks!!!!), one of my many attorneys Ruben Sundeen, bike photographer Kent Williams and Acendi team members (others were also going to home openers :). Charlie used to work with my previous attorneys at Venture Law Group (now part of Heller Erhman) and worked with Yahoo! and others when they were just starting out. The Giants lost by a touchdown, but it was nice day to talk code and Acendi's new online forms service RocketLawyer.com, which allows users to create legal documents online. And I took a lot of Barry and Barry pictures (in the extended entry :)
Peace,
Tim
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Justia Regulation Tracker Beta - Tracking Federal Regulations, Rules, Proposed Rules and Notices
Federal regulations affect the practices of a broad spectrum of lawyers. For corporate counsel, federal regulations may directly touch on their company's core business, or they may impose additional general compliance requirements, such as in human resources, as an example. Attorneys in both private practice and public interest law face a similar impact whether they practice labor and employment, immigration, criminal law or in a completely different area.
Here are some federal regulations that attorneys in the corresponding practice areas or industries may find of interest:
| Regulatory Agency | Practice Areas / Industry |
| US Citizenship and Immigration Services | Immigration, Employment |
| Internal Revenue Service | Estate Planning, Tax |
| Patent and Trademark Office | Intellectual Property |
| Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | Energy, Government Relations |
| Food and Drug Administration | Personal Injury, Pharmaceutical, Government Relations |
| Department of State | International Law, Immigration |
| Thrift Supervision Office | Financial Services |
| Securities and Exchange Commission | Financial Services, Securities, Consumer Law |
| Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation | Labor and Employment, Employee Benefits |
| DOJ Antitrust Division | Antitrust, Business, Consumer Law |
If you practice in an area affected by federal regulations, you probably already recognize that keeping abreast of new regulatory developments is essential. To assist you, Justia has released the free Justia Regulations Tracker, found at http://regulations.justia.com/ (currently in beta). Justia Regulations Tracker allows a user to focus on regulations originating from a specific federal agency and subscribe to an RSS feed of those regulations.
Better yet, you can further refine the RSS feed by specifying the type of regulation or stage in the regulation making process (i.e., rules, administrative orders, notices, proposed rules, executive orders, and proclamations) or even defining certain search terms, such as all regulations that mention bovine spongiform encephalitis.
If you aren't already on the RSS bandwagon, now is a great time hop aboard. RSS feeds allow you to take a particular set of data and view it using your RSS reader. So, instead of opening a print newspaper and reading the articles that the editors have selected for you, and RSS reader allows you create your own custom news and information source from data sources that you select. For lawyers, this means reading the federal regulations, court filings, legal commentary and other resources that you decide are worth tracking. Enjoy!
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Dockets.Justia.com -- beta 2 - More Updates & Faster
Hi Friends,
As I noted in a previous post (Federal Court Case Filings - Dockets.Justia.com).... we put up a "beta" free Website of new civil case filings. Well it has been a few weeks, and "beta 2" is here :)
Here is what we have fixed up.
1. We are now updating the dockets database continuously --- multiple updates each day.
2. We are checking for updates of previous dockets to pick up changes and corrections.
3. Faster. We have moved dockets to a very fast machine and have optimized the database for faster search results.
4. We have added additional docket information, including
a. the cause of action
b. the presiding judge (and referring judge if given)
c. whether a jury trial was demanded, and if so by which party.
5. We have put in additional links from each listing into relevant online databases, some specific to the type of case, such as patent searches for patent cases.
6. Additional interface changes. They are small, such as replacing the case number with the cause of action in the result listing pages, but they should make things more intuitive.
Anyway, we thought we had enough changes to announce a Dockets.Justia.com Beta 2. We have a lot of additional free features we are working on... but you will have to wait a bit longer for beta 3 :)
Peace,
Tim
Peace - Tim
:: Peaceful Easy Feeling, Eagles by the Eagles
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Federal Court Case Filings - Dockets.Justia.com
Hi Friends,
We put up a Website with the new civil case filings in the US District Courts with links into Pacer for the full docket and filing information and News, Finance, Web and Blog Internet resources. The URL is: http://dockets.justia.com
It allows you to search and track when new cases are filed by State, Court, Lawsuit Type (eg Patent Law) or Party name... or any combination. We are updating this daily (but note the courts often post the filings a day or two after they are received).
RSS FEEDS
One feature we like is the RSS feeds. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of all of the new cases for a State, Court or Lawsuit Type, or you can do a search and subscribe to an RSS feed of the search results (which you can add to your MyGoogle or MyYahoo! page). The RSS feed is nice because you can track the new cases without redoing your search everyday.
For example you could track all of the Federal Court Patent cases or all of the Federal Court cases filed against Microsoft with an RSS feed, or just those Microsoft cases that are filed in Washington State. Whatever the search criteria, you can track new cases with an RSS feed.
LINKS TO PACER, BLOG, NEWS, FINANCE & WEB INFO
Each case has an individual page with a link to the Pacer info page (you do need a subscription to access these documents at 8 cents per page - easily worth the costs for a case you care about) as well as Blog, News, Finance and Web searches on the party names. Depending on the particular case, you can often get some good background information on the parties. For example the page on Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Apple Inc. iPhone trademark dispute.
LAW FIRM MARKETING VALUE - CLIENTS/COMPANY TRACKING
The value of the database could be seen as a tracking mechanism for:
- tracking client - you may know when they get sued before they do,
- tracking companies - eg Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!
- finding new clients/cases - eg if you were a Palo Alto patent lawyer, you could track Patent cases filed in California Northern District Federal Court or all of California or the entire USA.
DAILY UPDATES
There are over 300,000 case titles since January 1, 2006, and we are updating it daily.
We are still making some user interface changes, and just added subscribe buttons for MyGoogle, MyYahoo!, Bloglines etc... yesterday, and we are going to add more functionality and editorial groupings of parties in the future. We are always looking for ideas, so if you want any additions or changes, feel free to let us know.
You can check the Justia Federal Court Filings Site out at http://dockets.justia.com/, and Happy Valentines Day.
Peace,
Tim
Peace - Tim
:: Wish You Were Here, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
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New Justia Law Review Blog covering Legal Research and News
Hi Friends,
We have just started the Justia Law Review Blog, a new blog which will be focused on legal research, information and news. It will allow Ken, me and the Justia Team to provide information and commentary on a broad range of legal issues. The new Justia Law Review Blog will be a nice editorial addition to the Justia legal portal site. We look forward to posting our non-marketing ideas on the blog... and hopefully it will be pretty good. Now back to work while listening to the Colts - Patriots game :)
Peace - Tim
:: Scarlet Begonias, Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel by the Grateful