The facts are grisly:

A Pembroke Pines teenager told an Internet audience he wanted to kill himself by drug overdose — and then he followed through on his macabre threat while a live webcam captured it, according to the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Abraham Biggs Jr., 19, ingested a lethal mixture of three different drugs early Wednesday, then continued to blog about it while others watched online and egged him on.

The end of the video — which shows Pembroke Pines police busting into his bedroom and discovering his body — remained up on LiveVideo.com as of Friday morning.

Yes, I blame the people involved, not “the Internet”.

Florida has displaced the common-law rule against suicide with some statutory provisions. The most relevant one is aimed at assisted suicide (there’s also § 782.081, banning premeditated commercial exploitation of a suicide, but that seems to me not to apply to these facts). Here’s the relevant law:

782.08 Assisting self-murder.—Every person deliberately assisting another in the commission of self-murder shall be guilty of manslaughter, a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

1. Does ‘egging on’ amount to ‘deliberately assisting’?
2. If the statute does make ‘egging on’ manslaughter, does the First Amendment prevent its operation because it protects this sort of speech?

My gut instinct — and I’ll quickly admit this is not my field at all — is that ‘egging on’ does not amount to ‘deliberately assisting’ under this statute, which was pretty clearly aimed at physician assisted suicide, and cases where someone gives a depressed person guns or pills. I see the law as criminalizing the provision of tools in the main. Perhaps this could be extended to specialized knowledge, such as telling a depressed person how to make or find a gap in a protective fence at ‘Suicide Gulch’. But I don’t see it as extending to encouragement — even if a psychiatrist might testify (let us imagine) that the encouragement was a necessary element of the victim’s decision.

Good thing, too, because the second question is much harder…

(I’m partial to the less powerful but very useful Scrapbook myself, but that’s mostly habit.)

That said, it does seem to me that there is one interesting and potentially triable (i.e. not utterly out-to-lunch) issue in the case, and that is the extent to which a contract by a firm with a (state) university can bind its professors. Let’s say that the contract at issue does prohibit GMU from distributing software like Zotero (not obvious it does, but bear with me). Does that prohibition bind the GMU faculty? I’m not sure; but to the extent the acts were within the scope of employment, it might. But of course it doesn’t bind either James or me, since we’re not parties.

And, as James points out, even if it does there’s the little question of what sort of damages would be owing. Since the claim is contractual, there’s no scope for tort damages, just contract damages, and it’s hard to see how those would be measurable here — in which case the courts would usually count them as zero.

After 10 hours of listening to evidence and arguments, Miami’s code enforcement board ruled late Monday night that Phillip Bleicher’s Flava Works, an Internet porn production and distribution company, is illegally running an adult entertainment business out of a single-family home at 503 NE 27th St., zoned for residential use, and ordered that those operations cease.

“I think the city has met its burden of showing a link between the house on 27th Street and the website,” board member Oscar Rodriguez Fonts said before moving to deny a motion, made by Flava Works’ attorney James Benjamin, to dismiss citations posted by city code inspectors in May.

The residence of 2312 West Farwell Drive provides no “offer[ing] [of adult entertainment] to members of the public.” The offering occurs when the videotaped images are dispersed over the internet and into the public eye for consumption. The City Code cannot be applied to a location that does not, itself, offer adult entertainment to the public.

Miami took the view that its rules were materially different:

“Miami’s adult entertainment ordinance encompasses Internet activity in a way the Tampa ordinance did not,” Rodriguez Fonts said.

Not having the text of the Miami ordinance, I have to admit that’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that the same considerations the controlled in the Voyeur Dorm case might apply here.

Either way, unless it is blindingly obvious, it sounds like a possible student note topic to me.

It has always seemed to me that the critical part of this case was going to be the factual findings about filtering, and Judge Reed appears, on a quick read, to have crafted these very carefully, in a way that will make the government’s case on appeal difficult. Interestingly, he bases much of the facts on testimony by Ed Felton and Lorrie Cranor, who certainly would be anyone’s top choices for reliable experts in this area. It was also fascinating to see Ronald Mann’s testimony on payment cards — the court really had access to excellent experts here. (Smart lawyering by the ACLU!)

On the critical issue of whether filtering is a less restrictive means of achieving the statute’s objectives, the opinion puts the burden of proof on the government, and says it failed to meet it in light of the expert testimony about the improved effectiveness of filtering technology. There is of course no debate that filters are less restrictive than the blunderbuss liability approach in COPA; the tough issue is whether despite being less restrictive filters are also as effective. My gut tends to say “no”. It was interesting to read testimony tending to say “yes”, testimony which allowed the court to reach these conclusions of law:

32. Although filters are not perfect and are prone to some over and under blocking, the evidence shows that they are at least as effective, and in fact, are more effective than COPA in furthering Congress’ stated goal for a variety of reasons. For example, as shown by Findings of Fact 68, 78 through 80, 87 through 91, and 92 through 99, filters block sexually explicit foreign material on the Web, parents can customize filter settings depending on the ages of their children and what type of content they find objectionable, and filters are fairly easy to install and use. See also Findings of Fact 102-109.

33. Reliable studies also show that filters are very effective at blocking potentially harmful sexually explicit materials. Findings of Fact 110-116.

34. Even defendant’s own study shows that all but the worst performing filters are far more effective than COPA would be at protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Web, garnering percentages as high as nearly 99 percent in successfully blocking such material. Findings of Fact 117-121. As a result of Conclusions of law 28 through 34, it is clear that defendant has failed to establish that COPA is the least restrictive means of protecting children from harmful sexually explicit materials on the Web.

This is not the only grounds on which the court invalidates COPA — there is discussion of vagueness and overbreadth for example — but I think it’s the key, and because it is so fact-based will be much tougher to overturn than the purely legal conclusions. So I predict this outcome survives.

If I’m right about that, then Congress’s next move is to mandate or subsidize filtering. Oh joy.

Sealand claims to be a country based on its fixation to the continental shelf in what were then but are not now international waters. Although this claim is not recognized by anyone that matters, the claim is somewhat less ludicrous than that of any other man-made micro-nation, e.g. that of the Dominion of Melchizedek.

Final exam fodder for that e-commerce course?

(spotted via The Trademark Blog)

Respondent maintains that it is a cat, that is, a well-known carnivorous quadruped which has long been domesticated. However, it is equally well-known that the common cat, whose scientific name is Felis domesticus, cannot speak or read or write. Thus, a common cat could not have submitted the Response (or even have registered the disputed domain name). Therefore, either Respondent is a different species of cat, such as the one that stars in the motion picture "Cat From Outer Space," or Respondent's assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect.

If Respondent is in fact a cat from outer space, then it should have so indicated in its reply, in order to avoid unnecessary perplexity by the Panel. Further, it should have explained why a cat from outer space would allow Mr. Woods to use the disputed domain name. In the absence of such an explanation, the Panel must conclude that, if Respondent is a cat from outer space, then it may have something to hide, and this is indicative of bad faith behavior.

On the other hand, if Respondent's assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect, then Respondent has undoubtedly attempted to mislead this Panel and has provided incorrect WHOIS information. Such behavior is indicative of bad faith. See Video Direct Distribs. Inc. v. Video Direct, Inc., FA 94724 (Nat. Arb. Forum June 5, 2000) (finding that the respondent acted in bad faith by providing incorrect information to the registrar regarding the owner of the registered name). ...

The Panel finds that Respondent's assertions that it is a cat provide sufficient evidence to conclude that the Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain name in bad faith. And this despite the fact that the Panel, unlike Queen Victoria, is amused.

Police blotter: Judge orders Gmail disclosure: The subpoena asks for not only current e-mail but also deleted e-mail: "All documents concerning all Gmail accounts of Baker...for the period from Jan. 1, 2003, to present, including but not limited to all e-mails and messages stored in all mailboxes, folders, in-boxes, sent items and deleted items, and all links to related Web pages contained in such e-mail messages."

Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages "may remain in our offline backup systems" in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. Baker estimated he may have tens of thousands of e-mail messages in his Gmail account.

[yes, yes, I'm not speaking to the .00001% of you who know how to route things through anonymizing proxies and actually do so on a routine basis, ok?]

Following a trail blazed by AOL and Tiscali, supposed good-guy ISPs Wanadoo.fr and Free have been found guilty of violating French consumer protection law. Wandoo now becomes the holder of a special booby prize (Le Monde calls it a gold medal for abusive clauses), having been ordered to revise no less than 32 clauses in its standard form contract that were found to be "abusive or illicit".

Among the clauses ruled illegal by the court were those which:

• disclaimed of any liability for interruptions of service due to equipment breakdowns or poor maintenance
• disclaimed all liability in case of damage
• disclaimed any risk of transport in the case of distance selling
• claimed the right to modify unilaterally the conditions of service offered at any time
• reserved the right to to terminate in certain cases consumer contracts without notice or warning
• made automatic e-payment the only accepted means of payment
• asserted that terms and conditions published online would trump the terms and conditions agreed to by the consumer a the time of subscription

I'm sure almost every reader of this blog in the US is party to one or more contracts with clauses like these. But good luck getting anyone to declare them illegal (although conceivably a state court might refuse to enforce one or two of them if push came to shove).