<b>Basics Revisited:</b> Investing Your Lump Sum Without Taking Your Lumps
October 03, 2005
Many of our specialist readers are so involved in financial intricacies that it may be difficult for them to answer questions on investment basics from non-initiates. Jim Berliner's clear explanations should be useful not only in advising professionals who earn a large fee but also for any firm member or client who is faced with a major investment decision.
Control Of The Internet
October 03, 2005
If the Internet is nongovernmental, then it may generate terms-of-use agreements to prohibit political speech. But if the Internet is governmentally controlled, then Internet users have a First Amendment right to use the Internet for public speech. <br>The give-and-take of who has the ability and vested authority to control constitutional matters is one in frequent debate, but the principle commonly known as the state action doctrine clearly sets forth the concept that only government actors are subject to certain constitutional limitations. Most important, the state action doctrine is a preliminary test for determining which cases are worthy to proceed on their merits with respect to whether constitutional rules apply.
Two Rulings Toss Internet Stings
October 03, 2005
Two courts in the last 8 weeks have overturned the convictions of people accused of using the Internet to solicit sex from minors because the victims were actually law enforcement agents ' not true minors.
Australian Court Finds For Music Company
October 03, 2005
Justice Murray Rutledge Wilcox of the Federal Court held that certain defendants associated with Sharman Networks were liable for "authorization" of copyright infringement as a result of having distributed the Kazaa file-sharing software. <br>Notwithstanding substantial differences between the legal systems and copyright jurisprudence in Australia and the United States, <i>Grokster</i> and <i>Sharman</i> demonstrate remarkable similarities in analysis.
Digital Dictation Is Simplifying How Lawyers Work
October 03, 2005
With the advent of e-discovery, it's impossible to combine today's state of the art e-discovery solutions with yesterday's analog-dictation technology. Having a foot in both worlds is at best inefficient, and at worst can lead to misplaced data or work. <br>But the dawn of digital dictation has eliminated lawyers' worst frustrations of dictating to tape cassettes. With this new technology, lawyers can treat spoken words like any other digital data, inputting it to a desktop or other computer via a microphone and manipulating it in a digital voice-software file. Lawyers can then move spoken text around, and insert spoken or printed text as well as charts, spreadsheets, photographs and videos and, when they're done, transmit their work to a typist or save it to an audio file for clear and accurate translation into a printed document, or an e-document to be shared digitally or projected for viewing in the appropriate settings.
Utah and Michigan 'Do-Not E-Mail' Programs Take Effect
October 03, 2005
It is of concern to and important for e-commerce ventures to note that two states ' Michigan and Utah ' now prohibit the sending of certain kinds of e-mail messages to destinations listed on state-maintained registries. The new laws are directly at variance with the policy of the federal government, which so far has declined to adopt a do-not e-mail list. <br>But unless, and until, the Michigan and Utah registries are declared to be pre-empted by federal law, affected businesses should obtain and comply with those states' registries.
A Word from the Editor: Privacy and Data Protection Issues Are Here to Stay
September 20, 2005
Privacy has been described as <i>"the right to be let alone,"</i> a phrase popularized in an 1890 <i>Harvard Law Review</i> article by the future U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis in which he expressed concerns about the threat posed by technology to an individual's control over his own personal information. At the close of the 19th century, the perceived technological threat to privacy was the spread of cheap photography and high-speed printing. Imagine what Justice Brandeis would think of today's camera phones, global positioning systems, employer surveillance of e-mail, and customer relationship management systems, not to mention the myriad other technological developments of the last 115 years.
