Buzz Bruggeman
30 yrs practiving law
litigation
bg with technology
built activewords
Denise – appellete and IP law
programmers of the legal field
Buzz – huge friend of mind manager
lead the discussion and your things
law is static – wrong – very dynamic
lots of people blog about the law
Howard bashman – aappelete law blogger who keeps up to date on all the app courts in the US
broad readership w/ lawyers but even broader with judges
blog has been cited in a SCOTUS opinion
notion of participatory law
thinking about the audience – we have to confront issues in daily life
comparing the notion of locked silos of info (westlaw, lex-nex)
Jason C
weblogs inc
106 paid bloggers
use the soapbox you have to impact the pragmatic and practical
things to discuss:
1. rss
2. fair use for bloggers
3. attribution – blogs and apple and suing
4. picking your fights – what to do when MS, motorola, and lawsuits
5. blogger contracts
patent mojo – rss enabled sit ewhere you can sub to patents that are being granted to ms, apple, ibm etc.
MS internal policy – we dont want you lookign at other peoples patents
all the guys who came up with patent mojo are bloggers
inc availability of information – pr people dont go to tech or lawyers
law firms wising up
delicious tag – at lawnow
JC – more serious bloggers inc. for protection
legal letters – yell out
extend the discussion – take it down or else
good technique
quote of the week – “what do you guys think, am I stupid?”
if the lawyers letters are wrong, they look stoopid when you put them online
stuck to their guns and the truth came out
go thru the ed process withthe bloggers
EFF pubbed valuable legal guide for bloggers
another ex of the kind of detailed qual info you cant get 5 yrs ago
would you hire a lawyer b/c he is a blogger
need to have a bloggin policy
if you are gonna write aboutit, blog first
take a balanced approach
Havent seen lawyers who worked for pub traded companies blogging – SOX? SEC?
Denise Howell – scary smart, gets it
one of the many people who ran for gov, hamidi – intel sued him
sent 40000 emails tointel employees – trying to get them to rally around org/union
faceintel.com – accused of tresspassing on intel servers
JC – inc as a level of protection for their personal assets?
BB – inc doesnt reduce the risk of litigation
BB the more you write the better you write – dont get fired for being stupid (google guy and delta guy) – violate code of conduct, “there are no first amendment rights protcting stupidity.
ex of Davezilla (toho – people who own godzilla tradmenark) sent him a leter – community provided all the legal support and info he was able to resopond
JC
relatioship with people who do the segway, do we need to piss these people off? do what you think is right? Non competes with bloggers, trying to stop them,
know when it is unneccessaryt to go all the way
alot of time to see what happens – dont get scared when you see the letters – talk to them
BB – morganstanley-pearlstein lawsuit – document retention – last line says dont throw anythign away – play it stragihtl tell the truth
MorgS played cute – couldnt find email or docs, then found some – midway thru the drama – this is bullshit, default judgement – trial will be about damages.
pearlstein 1.4billion – booyah!
JC – do a project or biz and believe enought in it – document it – leave the lawyers out or let them negotiate – go direct – work out the ‘prenup’ conv early… before i go thru legal contract with you lets do bullet by bullet in email – bring it all up in the fresh air – send a letter of agreement – ‘what we are discussing doing legal doc – not gonna debate going forward – fax back intitial items – fax back – go thru the motions and dont do deals w/o everyhting in writing, oral agreements – do it right or dont do it
DH
how participatory law has a relationship to part-journo and part-media – rewrite copywrite law for compulsary licenses to make it more streamlines, do away with comp license – link at top of delicious list
anything that streamlines is a good thing – this media is bubbling up out there
pushing the issues bmi and ascap are interested –
if the ? is you have a ? to the guys who are blogging about it it will be a great conv.
even if you are within fair use – respect it
talk and communicate – talk about whats fair – solve both problems
where are the boundaries with fair use? See wikipedia – too long a q to answer here