Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Could This Be the Best Argument for Taking Drugs?

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I don’t know exactly what the Great Grimmelmann’s “inner stoner” has been smoking, but I think we could all do with a hit of it.

Here are two cute ideas for law reform:

Stoner Law Reform: Fee-Shifting. I think it’s interesting. Because the marginal utility of money is not linear, I’m still not sure about it, but it’s still interesting.

Stoner Law Reform: Trial by DVD. I really like this one.

He promises more to come. (I hope he has a prescription for that stuff. It does seem to be what the doctor ordered.)

Posted in Law: Practice | 1 Comment

Obama Tix in High Demand

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I would imagine that if you are only now thinking about getting in line to get an Obama ticket, your odds are lousy, as students began lining up last night:

Students began lining up around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and by early Wednesday, police estimated there were around 850 in line hoping to get tickets to see Obama’s speech at UM’s BankUnited Center Fieldhouse Thursday.

Students brought lawn chairs, tents and air mattresses to make their wait more comfortable. Many spent their time watching movies, sleeping and even studying.

The university wouldn’t say how many tickets were available, at the request of the White House, but most students said just the chance to see Obama was worth the wait.

…

The tickets will be distributed at 8:30 a.m. Officials said students who were in line by 6:30 a.m.

Still nothing about faculty tickets. I suppose the students have more money. They certainly will make a more attractive backdrop on TV.

Previously: Obama Visit: No Faculty Wanted?.

Posted in 2012 Election, U.Miami | Comments Off on Obama Tix in High Demand

What He Said (Copyright Dept.)

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Randy Picker has it exactly right in Politics, Copyright and the First-Amendment Commons.

When I saw NBC’s mendacious moaning about the Romney campaign’s use of archival NBC footage from 1997 of Tom Brokaw reporting on Newt Gingrich’s ethics problems, I immediately thought it to be about as fair use as fair use can be. But Picker also sees a bigger picture:

[T]he trump card that NBC and Brokaw sought to play would seem to mean that professional video representations of historical facts would simply be taken off of the table for political campaigns. It is hard to see how NBC and similar organizations could ever consent to use, given that consent itself would seem to be inconsistent with the neutral role of news organizations. Far better to have the fair use regime, where there is no consent and no sense of endorsement by a news organiation of one campaign over another.

Then we get to the bigger picture on this. I have this sense, with more frequency than I would like, that major media organizations think of the First Amendment as something that runs in their favor but never against them. A First Amendment for me but not for thee. It would have been nice if NBC and Mr. Brokaw had seen this as an opportunity to invest in the First Amendment ecosystem. That would have meant acknowledging the legitimacy of the use of the video clip by the Romney campaign and the need for such use in a vibrant democracy. Instead, NBC saw its interest in the narrowest terms possible and threw away a great opportunity to demonstrate how the First Amendment should work in a robust democracy.

(PS. For those with a poor memory of ancient history as regarding second-rate political figures, Newt Gingrich was briefly considered a serious challenger to Rick Santorum in the 2012 GOP Presidential contest.)

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | Comments Off on What He Said (Copyright Dept.)

Obama Visit: No Faculty Wanted?

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

President Obama to Visit University of Miami on Thursday:

As he becomes increasingly active in his campaign for re-election, President Barack Obama plans to visit the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus on Thursday to deliver a speech at the BankUnited Center Fieldhouse.

The event is free but requires a ticket, and students will be able to get one if they line up fast enough. Tickets for undergraduate, law, and graduate students on the Coral Gables campus will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday at the University Center Ticketmaster window.

Only one ticket will be given to each student, who must present his or her own valid ‘Cane Card for swiping. Holding spaces in line for others will not be permitted, and students must remain in line until they receive their tickets, which will be non-transferable.

…

Doors to the Fieldhouse will open at 11:45 a.m. There will be very limited seating, so it will be primarily a standing-only event. All attendees must go through airport-like security and should bring as few personal items as possible. Students must also present their ‘Cane Cards upon entry to the Fieldhouse. Since it will take time to clear security, please plan on getting there early. Late arrivals will not be guaranteed entry.

No large bags, purses exceeding 8.5 by 11 inches, backpacks, sharp objects, umbrellas, food or drinks, video cameras, signs or banners will be allowed into the Fieldhouse. Still cameras and cell phones will be permitted, however. Students are encouraged to wear orange and green to show their ‘Cane Spirit.

Because of the high volume of vehicular traffic and parking expected around the Fieldhouse, students are encouraged to walk there from other points on campus, having parked in their assigned permit zones. The Yellow zone may be affected by extra traffic, so please plan accordingly.

The event will be streamed live at http://whitehouse.gov/live

If there was info about faculty tickets, I sure didn’t get the memo…

Posted in 2012 Election, U.Miami | 1 Comment

Public Libraries as Ombudsmen and Democratic Incubators

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Kevin Drum sends us to this compelling posting about why we need public libraries more than ever in the digital age, and how libraries need to revise themselves to become civic centers:

We need to do something which I’ll admit is ill defined and perhaps impossible: we need to become the center of civic engagement in our communities. We’re one of the few places left in our society where a great cross-section of people regularly interact, and also one of the few places that is free and non-commercial. … We have amazing potential power, but without concerted effort I’m afraid it will be wasted. It will look better to save 10 dollars a year per person in taxes instead of funding community computer workshops, and childhood literacy programs, and community gardens. All the while we play desperate catch-up, trying to get a hold on ebooks, and liscensing out endless sub-quality software for meeting room reservations and computer sign-ups and all this other rentier software capitalism instead of developing free and open source solutions and providing small systems with the expertise to use them. Our amazing power is squandered as we cut our staff, fail to attract skilled and diverse talent, and act as a band aid to the mounting social ills caused by slash and burn governance in the name of low taxes and some nebulous idea of freedom that seems to equate with living in a good society but not paying your share for it.

Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive. Forget trying to form grass roots political activism by creating a society of computer users, forget trying to be the ‘people’s university’ and create a body of well informed citizens. Instead I helped people navigate through the degrading hoops of modern online society, fighting for scraps from the plate, and then kicking back afterwards by pretending to have a farm on Facebook (well, that is if they had any of their 2 hours left when they were done). What were we doing during the nineties? What were we doing during the boom that we’ve been left so ill served during the bust? No one seems to know. They come in to our classes and ask us if we have any ideas, and I do, but those ideas take money, and political will, and guts, and the closer I get to graduation the less and less I suspect that any of those things exist.

All this resonates with me: Strong pubic libraries can be a foundation stone of a stronger civil society and an improved public sphere. They could be a big part of what I was looking for when I wrote Building the Bottom Up From the Top Down.

Posted in Politics: US | Comments Off on Public Libraries as Ombudsmen and Democratic Incubators

Dear Verizon Wireless

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

There was nothing in the documentation to suggest that 4000 or so Google contacts and 196 apps (including all the cruft you pre-loaded on my phone and I cannot remove), would bork the Droid Incredible 2.

Anyway, I don’t have 4000 contacts. The phone, or the phone-Google connection, seems to have systematically put in multiple entries for the ones I do have due to some weird effect of matching contacts.

And most of the apps are very small.

Oh, and did I mention that the DINC2 startup screen (pictured) always makes me think of the Eye of Sauron?

Posted in Android, Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 2 Comments