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Damages awarded in Rudovsky v. West Publishing Company
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Monthly Archives: December 2010
Lord Owen Report on British Policy on Iran 1974-1978
The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has released the previously confidently Owen Report on British Policy on Iran 1974-1978.
This report covers the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/who-we-are/our-history/historical-publications/documents-british-policy/british-policy-on-iran-1974-1978
From the description:
The Islamic Revolution in Iran represented a seismic shift in the internal and geopolitical orientation of a formerly close ally of the United Kingdom.
This document, now released for the first time, was commissioned in 1979 by the then Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon David (now Lord) Owen, in order to enable a detailed examination of the context of the events leading to the Revolution, and for the FCO to identify any lessons that might be learned from the UK’s reactions to, and analysis of, the events concerned.
The intention, as mentioned by the then Permanent Under-Secretary in his foreword, was not to apportion blame for the fact that the FCO, in common with others, failed to predict the Islamic Revolution. Rather, the intention was to “examine where, if anywhere, we had gone wrong and how we could do better in the future”. In this context Chapter XI, “Conclusion: Lessons for the FCO”, is of particular interest.
As a whole, this document shows the value of analysis and historical perspective in formulating policy not just with regard to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but to other countries and regions which remain of vital interest to the UK.
It is important to bear in mind that this is a historical document and does not necessarily reflect the views of the current UK government. It has been released for publication on the web following the FCO’s standard clearance procedures.
Rudovsky v. West Publishing Goes to Trial
The Legal Intelligencer reports:
…a federal court jury began hearing testimony Monday in a defamation suit brought by two law professors against West Publishing.
Professors David Rudovsky of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Leonard Sosnov of Widener School of Law claim that West harmed their reputations when it falsely identified them as the authors of a poorly researched treatise update.
According to the complaint, the professors “were unable to reach agreement on the financial terms” for creating either a new edition of their treatise or an updated pocket part. And, “in December 2008, without providing any notice to the Plaintiffs,” West published a pocket part to the treatise with the professors listed as authors (and “in smaller print, also identified ‘The Publisher’s Staff’ as an author”).
Now at trial, “Rudovsky testified Monday that he was “shocked” when he learned that West went forward in December 2008 and published a pocket part that still carried his and Sosnov’s names as authors — even though they had done no work and received no pay.”
According to an ABA Journal article, West’s lawyer argued that, “the two profs weren’t damaged by the publication of the initial 2008 pocket part, because they can’t prove either that their reputation was harmed or that they suffered financially. However, the profs’ attorney, . . . argued that damage to their professional reputation is assumed and doesn’t need to be proven, because this is a defamation per se situation, and Senior U.S. District Judge John Fullam agreed.”
U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam issued a two-page order that provides more detail on the Judge’s take on the law of defamation per se. It also states:
“It is for the jury to determine whether the intended audience of the pocket part would conclude that plaintiffs authored an inaccurate and out-of-date supplement to the treatise. If they so conclude, then I hold this would tend to damage the plaintiffs as legal authors and authorities on Pennsylvania criminal law and constitute defamation per se.”
The trial continues. Get your popcorn ready, this should be interesting.
Earlier posts on the case available here:
http://legalresearchplus.com/2009/06/10/update-to-rudovsky-v-west-publishing-corp/
here,
and here:
Pushing Libraries and Archives to the Edge of the Law
“Pushing Libraries and Archives to the Edge of the Law”
BOBBY GLUSHKO, University of Michigan School of Information, University of California, Berkeley – School of Law
The ability to digitize hard copies, the proliferation of born digital content, and access to online distribution holds the promise of improved access to archival materials. Despite these advances, libraries and archives are increasingly hindered in providing this access by the legal issues surrounding their collections. However, this unfortunate problem can be resolved with a mixture of good policy, careful action, clarification of uncertain legal implications, and a reliance on the protections afforded to libraries and archives by the law.
This paper explores the legal issues faced by archivists and librarians in digitizing and distributing their materials. Through a discussion of current archiving practices, this paper walks readers though the relevant sections of the copyright act, as well as other implicated areas of the law. By showing potential sites of legal conflict, engaging difficulties with seeking permission to use library and archival content, and suggesting areas where archivists can push the boundaries of their rights more aggressively, this paper provides a glimpse of the legal landscape surrounding digital archiving, and offers suggestions on how to successfully navigate it. It is my sincere hope that this effort can empower librarians and archivists to make full use of their collections, to assert the full scope of their rights under the law, and to become advocates helping to shape the national discussion over the future of digital collections.
Source: LSN Intellectual Property: Copyright Law eJournal Vol. 1 No. 11, 12/15/2010
FT Supplement: Future of Islamic Finance
Tuesday’s Financial Times includes a seven page special report on Islamic finance involving various parts o f the globe, not just the Middle East.
The Future of Islamic Finance
Financial Times
Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010
http://www.ft.com/reports/islamic-finance-dec-2010
Table of Contents
Growth Survives the Storms: safe investments and sizeable potential markets continue to buoy the sector.
North Africa: A Region Abounding with Potential. Egypt leads among nations seen as ripe for expansion.
Malaysia Seeks End to Slide in Issuance: tax breaks and other initiatives are aimed at bolstering the sector’s leading market.
UAE: Shadow of $26bn Upset Strats to Fade: borrowers are back after Dubai World’s successful restructuring.
Investment Banks: Nascent Sector looks for New Model: crisis-savaged organizatiosn need to diversify.
Europe: London and Paris Battle for Business: The City looks unlikely to be ousted from its position of strength.
US: Presence and Role of Market Remain marginal. Activity has been subdued since the Nakheel crisis.
FBI, BJS Launch Online Tool For Analyzing Crime Data
Welcome to a new way to access UCR statistics
The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI have launched an online data tool, aimed at making it easier to research and analyze crime data. The data tool lets users perform queries on custom variables like year, agency, and type of offense. Until now, making comparisons of Uniform Crime Report data required searching annual reports and manually crunching the numbers. The new tool aims to make it easier for users to make use of the raw numbers, the FBI says.
BJS developed the UCR data tool for the FBI as part of a collaboration between the agencies to improve crime data accessibility. The ucrdatatool.gov replaces a long-standing data BJS online tool that presented crime trends from the FBI’s UCR. More information about the methodology and best practices for using the new tool are available on the site.
New Legal Bug Tracker Tool: Call for Debugging Help
Our friend — and technologist, author, public domain advocate, currently known for his foundation public.resource.org and as a leader in the Law.gov effort to bring online all primary legal source materials (cases, constitutions, ordinances, regulations, rules, statutes) for open public access — Carl Malamud is calling for help to debug the new Law.gov open source NILM (National Inventory of Legal Materials) Legal Bug Tracker tool:
New Web Resource: SCOCAL: The Supreme Court of California, Annotated
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Supreme Court of California website, SCOCAL (http://scocal.stanford.edu).
SCOCAL is a joint project between the Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford Law School, and Justia, Inc.
The site provides free access to the full text California Supreme Court opinions from 1934 to the present, along with detailed annotations of selected cases written and edited by students in our Advanced Legal Research class here at Stanford. For selected cases related California Supreme Court briefs, other documents and news items are also available, all free of charge. Users may subscribe to separate RSS feeds of new opinions, annotations, Court news and follow the site on Twitter.
Special thanks to FastCase for providing a large number of the California Supreme Court opinions available on the site.
Laws of Utah Digitized
RulesNews, the newsletter of the Utah State Division of Administrative Rules, has posted as follows:
Laws of Utah Digitized
[Posted] On December 6, 2010, In Other News, By Ken Hansen
The Utah State Law Library reports that the Laws of Utah have been scanned and are now available online through the Utah State Library’s Pioneer service. The session laws, from 1851 through 2009, are available thanks to the efforts of the Utah State Library in cooperation with W.S. Hein & Co., Inc. Read more here.
Congratulations on this signal accomplishment by the State of Utah in open access!
Afghanistan: U.S. Rule of Law and Justice Sector Assistance
Following up on and related to an earlier post as to the Afghanistan Legal Education Project, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a 48-page report:
Afghanistan: U.S. Rule of Law and Justice Sector Assistance (Nov. 9, 2010)
The purpose and scope of the report are stated as “to provide background and analysis for Congress on U.S. rule of law (ROL) and justice sector assistance programs in Afghanistan … by defining ROL and the justice sector, describing the scope of the ROL problem in Afghanistan, including the role of corruption, and surveying the range of Afghan justice sector institutions.”
Hat tip to Docuticker.com.
