Hello Australian fangirls and fandom communities, I know I said I had no time for you but the funny thing about my work is how often fan culture and remix comes up. Like this time:

Attorney-General's speech at the 15th Biennial Copyright Conference last week:

Australian Law Reform Commission Reference
Earlier this year I said that I intended to ( Read more... )

So, being the complete internet/IP law nerd that I am, I decided to wander over and read the LiveJournal Terms & Conditions. And I have made a shocking discovery.

LJ's Terms of Service does not contain an explicit "users/authors grant this website a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, etc. licence to use your content and host/communicate it on ( Read more... )

The US Supreme Court is set to examine whether or not Congress is able to restore copyright protection for a creative work that is in the public domain, ie., works over which copyright has expired.

I ... I don't even know where to begin with how insane it would be if public domain works can be brought back under copyright O.o;;

So, the Youth Ordinance Bill that just passed in Japan - what do you think?

Me, I want to read the text of the bill as passed first before I draw any conclusions, so if anyone out there has a link to it please send over. Preferably properly translated English version, but I'll take the original Japanese (and badger tammaiya with her l337 Japanese plus ( Read more... )

Dear Julia Gillard,

Just for the record, I tried not to think much about it when you said that foreign affairs was not your thing, but now your foreign policy skills - or lack of them - are truly showing over Julian Assange and they are abysmal. Whatever crime he is being accused of you should, as a lawyer, know that he is entitled to the ( Read more... )

Reading American news media about big or interesting court cases there - in this case the Prop 8 appeal - there is one thing that never fails to get to me: the fact that no Judge can be named without the news article also telling you whether they were appointed by a Democrat or a Republican. It's annoying, it's frustrating, and while interesting ( Read more... )

Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back, has died. He's the whole reason Han Solo says "I know" in this scene instead of "I love you too":

Click to view

Thanks, Mr. Kershner, for giving us the best movie of the saga.

/end Star Wars nerd moment

For anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area, an artist friend of mine is having an exhibition next month that I'm hoping to catch myself when I fly there. If you're on Twitter you're already familiar with her work, and if you're a fan of Conan O'Brien you may have seen her latest piece. Check it out!


( Read more... )

Mandatory ISP filtering stalled until 2013Short summary: filter is not 'dead', it's merely delayed while the Classification Board looks into what "refused classification" means. No idea if the scope of that review includes looking at computer games, but the RC review may be yet another reason why "should there be an R rating for games" is also on ( Read more... )