Terrible Idea (.net)

Reading through my daily dose of blogs this morning, I came across two interesting and related items.  First, at Ask Philosophers, an intriguing question and answer involving step-children being raised by fundamentalist parents.  Then, The Legal Satyricon links to a post equating religious upbringing to child abuse.

These issues are… touchy.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all religious upbringing is child abuse.  This implies that the government can prevent children from instilling particular religious views in their children.  And as much as I and others may disagree with a particular religious viewpoint, banning its teaching to one’s own children is not a good idea.

However, the scope of the indoctrination presented in the Ask Philosophers question is also worrisome.  Is it really child abuse?  I’d be inclined to say that it is, but I see no easy or effective way to prevent it from happening without also limiting fundamental rights.

Thoughts?

I’m on a vacation of sorts until Monday.  I may post something tomorrow, but probably not.  Meanwhile, here’s a great post by Scott Greenfield, succinctly summing up my (and most of my classmates’) views on the Bluebook.  It’s called “Once There Was a Bluebook.”

I like the turn at the end, where he sticks one to the law profs and accuses them of desiring arcane knowledge to raise the barrier of entry to law journals.  I don’t know how true that is on an individual level, but the incentives are there on an institutional level to make it a plausible scenario.

This points to a larger problem: the tension between a strictly controlled, “peer review” system of academic publishing, and a free for all, wikipedia-style publishing.  Peer review ensures quality (and correct citation formats), but a more free publication would make it so, as Mr. Greenfield says, “anybody could do it,” providing an venue for ideas challenging the accepted paradigms in whatever field.  I think this is important, especially outside of the hard sciences.  Hard science relies more on empirical data to disprove its accepted theories far more than non-hard science fields, which means that a small journal committee doesn’t have as much room to wiggle around and prevent non-accepted research or conclusions into their academic publications.

Anyway, I’m already running late, more when I get back.

At Concurring Opinions, Professor James Grimmelmann writes a post called “DRMbarassment for Us Law Professors?“  The title is derived from the specific technology about which he writes in the post, but I want to talk briefly about the larger points he brings up at the end of his post.  He writes:

We law professors who regularly opine on high technology are often dangerously blasé about the details of the technology we’re opining on. We get caught up in the minutiae of 1201(a)(1) versus 1201(a)(2) versus 1201(b), and we don’t pay anywhere near as much attention to the surrounding web of other kinds of IP, business arrangements, and especially technical specifications as we ought to. Consider these posts another plea for better interdisciplinarity. Our students are doing a better job of it than we are.

I think these problems are true on a broader scale.  Over at Simple Justice, in a post called “Hitting the Internet Wall,” Scott Greenfield touches on the same problem from a different side.  He writes:

[Cross-examining a witness with material from a website] made me competent to talk about [technology] back then. In retrospect, the idea of an old codger like me (meaning anyone over 30) talking about technology is laughable. Today, if you haven’t tried any of the tech ideas that appeared online in the past 30 minutes, you’re out of date. I am, regretfully, out of date.

The technical expertise required to understand what is going on with something even as simple as visiting searching for something on Google is substantial, and the details of what happens behind the scenes can be legally significant.  For those of us who have grown up with computers and the internet, certain things come naturally.  For the old codgers, new technology must be imperfectly analogized to old concepts.  Spyware as trespass to chattels comes immediately to mind.  And in the legal world, where precise definitions are needed, imperfect analogies can lead to mistakes.

These sorts of problems aren’t going to go away.  The nominal students know more than the teachers when it comes to many aspects of modern technology, and I don’t know of any easy way to fix the problem, other than waiting until the old guard retires and the youngsters move into the roles of power.  Of course, if the pace of innovation continues, we will be just as clueless as our former teachers.  At least we don’t live in boring times.

This story has been making the rounds through the legal blogs today.  Monster Cable sent Blue Jeans Cable a cease and desist order for Blue Jeans’s “Tartan” brand of HDMI cable connectors.  Blue Jeans’s president, a former lawyer, replied thoroughly and in force.  While I have no real idea about the actual legal merit of most of the assertions or implications of the letter (I haven’t taken Trademarks or Patents yet), it does sound good, and it takes Monster to task.

Here are my favorite parts:

Honorable Mention:  “…it is easier today for your competitors to use collateral estoppel offensively than it ever has been before.“  This is just for my own amusement — “offensive non-mutual collateral estoppel” is the most obfuscated legal term I’ve been able to find in law school.  (And I’ve been looking, believe me.)  So I get a kick seeing it (or its variation) used in real life.  Bonus points for pointing out the modern trend of abandoning the mutuality requirement — this will help me remember it for my civ pro exam in two weeks.

Bronze:  “If you expect to persuade me, you had better start making full, open and honest disclosures; I will find out the facts sooner or later in any event, but the impact upon your credibility will not be repaired.“  Blam!  Don’t beat around the bush — not only will it be worthless from a legal standpoint, it will be bad from a credibility standpoint.  It must sting, being given friendly PR advice by the party you’re threatening with a lawsuit.

Silver:  “Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.“  What’s the matter, McFly?  Are you… chicken?

Gold: All of paragraph 17 (beginning “I must also point out…”).  Not only has he studied the patents Monster sent him, but he also looked through their back catalog of patents.  And guess what?  He found an expired patent that is closer to Blue Jeans’s cable than any of the current ones that Monster sent him.  So, even if, through the grace of God (and a hefty bribe?), Monster is able to convince the court that these patents cover Blue Jeans’s cable, then this expired one must, by the same argument, constitute prior art, and there’s no infringement.  Booyah.

Whatever comes of this exchange, I can’t imagine it being good for Monster, especially in light of Mr. Denke’s promise to seek a final judgment rather than to settle.  Having worked at a major electronics retailer, where we were expected to push Monster’s terrible, overpriced products on the unsuspecting masses, I must confess that I hope it turns out very bad for them.