Law X.0

The Child Online Protection Act Ruled Unconstitutional

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [opinion] upheld a lower court ruling striking down the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) which required Web operators to restrict access to large amounts of constitutionally protected speech. In its ruling the court said COPA "cannot withstand a strict scrutiny, vagueness, or overbreadth analysis and thus is unconstitutional." Hat tip to Mark Giangrande (DePaul), Tech Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Are You Using Blogger?

Security research firm Sophos has released its cybercrime report for the first half of 2008 [download here, free registration required]. One finding is pretty scary. According to the report, Google's Blogger is a substantial distributer of malware today because (1) Google's dated code allows free and anonymous creation of a site hosting malicious code and (2) the commenting system can be spammed with links to infected sites. Because of its relative ease of "infection", Sophos says that nearly 2 percent of all malware is hosted by Google, amounting to roughly 400 new instances a day. Hat tip to BetaNews.

You get what you pay for ... so if you are using Blogger, it might be time to consider switching to a subscription-based service. My recommendation is TypePad, which hosts this blog. Six Apart has a very reasonable tiered pricing structure. [JH]

New Practitioner Law Blogs

Maryland Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog
http://marylandmedicalpracticelawyerblog.com
http://marylandmedicalpracticelawyerblog.com/index.xml

The Maryland medical malpractice lawyers at the legal firm of Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin, and White represent clients in cases involving malpractice including birth injuries, plastic surgery errors, and hospital negligence.

The Art of Advocacy
http://attorneyadvocacy.com
http://attorneyadvocacy.com/index.xml

Published by Paul Mark Sandler, a Baltimore, Maryland Trial Attorney who represents clients in cases involving trial and appellate courts. Sandler is a partner of the legal firm Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler.

New York Federal Criminal Practice
http://www.nyfederalcriminalpractice.com/
http://www.nyfederalcriminalpractice.com/rss.xml

JaneAnne Murray, a criminal defense attorney, posts her observations on notable court decisions, news and developments affecting federal criminal practice in New York.

The MySpace Effect

News Corp. COO, Peter Chernin, discusses how MySpace has influenced its parent company's business model, and vice-versa in this brief Fortune video. The video is part of Fortune's series of stories and videos covering Brainstorm Tech 2008. [JH]

Crowdsourcing the Next Big Thing Using Edopter

Edopter is social trendcasting, combining user insight and worldwide buzz to tap into the next big thing. Calley Nye describes how it works in Edopter Attempts “Social Trendcasting” Through Crowdsourcing And Internet Buzz:

The way it works, is by allowing users to generate “trends” according to what they think will catch on. Some trends are “cewebrities” (pictured below), “Batman: The Dark Knight,” and “tap water.” The user who makes the trend writes a “pitch” - the reason they think it will catch on. Then the Edopter system scans the web to measure current internet “buzz.” Users can join a trend, and give their pitch, upload photos and videos related to the trend, and discuss the trend with the other users in that trend. The more discussion and content you add, the more likely more people will join, thus increasing the value of the trend.

[JH]

Is Podcasting Failing?

Check out what The Industry Standard's Ian Lamont has to say in:

• Why podcasting is failing
• Why podcasting is failing, part II: Lessons from PodTech

And Mashable's Mark Hopkins's retort, Why Does The Industry Standard Think Podcasting is Failing?

[JH]

Voting Underway for Computer Weekly's IT Blog Awards

Cast your vote for the best IT blogs in the UK for Computer Weekly's 2008 blog awards contest. Blog categories are listed below. Voting will run until July 31st. The winners will be announced in August. [JH]

• CIO / IT director blogs
• Company blogs
• IT law and governance
• IT lifestyle
• IT project management
• IT security
• Programming and technical
• Public sector IT
• Web 2.0 and business
• Wireless and mobile

Coming to a Textbook Near You, the Big Screen Kindle

Once upon a time I wrote that the e-book development model in legal publishing will not follow along the lines of Kindle because the digital text-study aid functionality law schools students want is not gizmo-dependent and products are or can be expected to integrate their computer-based apps with online research services. That may change if the forthcoming big screen Kindle catches on because the sheer market presence of Amazon may prove once again that bad technology will trump consumer needs. Read more about it on Law Librarian Blog: Big Screen Kindle Aiming for $5.5 Billion Textbook Market. [JH]

Do Female Law Profs Blog?

Bennett Capers (Hofsta) asked the question on PrawfsBlawg recently. For the 53 blogs published by the Law Professor Blogs Network, 30% (30/100) of the editors are female law professors. If we added female law school administrators editing blogs for the Network, the figure would increase to 34% (34/100) and this demographic does not include law professors, academic law librarians and law school administrators who blog occassionally on Network blogs. See also Capers' follow-up post: Is Blogging Just Another Boys' Club? [JH]

Nonprofits Use of Social Media

Following their Web 2.0 & Social Networking Nonprofit Survey (pdf), Citizen Schools and the Public Learning Media Laboratory have launched a survey to gather information about specific Web 2.0 and social networking technologies that nonprofits are using. Hat tip to LibGig. [JH]