Clinic News

Librarian of Congress James H.  read more »

In a letter to the CEN/ISSS DRM group, the Clinic stated that DRM technologies could undermine many of the users’ rights defined by copyright laws around the world. DRM systems, the clinic noted, could also introduce new computer security risks as well as threaten users’ ability to explore copyrighted works in private.  read more »

Building upon the Clinic’s expertise in location information/geographic privacy issues, we are exploring development of a privacy framework for ubiquitous computing environments. Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) applications present new challenges to privacy protection. Though the collection of data describing individuals’ activities and location at an extreme level of granularity is the exception today, in ubicomp environments it may well be the norm.  read more »

Students evaluated several leading consumer applications for controlling interactions with commercial copyrighted works (iTunes, Windows media etc.).  read more »

The East Bay Community Law Center HIV/AIDS Law Project, the International Human Rights Law Clinic, and the  read more »

Clinic students worked with the Center for Democracy and Technology on a proceeding before the Federal Communications Commission to limit government interception of packet switched data traffic under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The students worked on a filing at the FCC and also proposed alternative strategies for meeting the client’s goal.

This workshop explored the impact of digital rights management tools on “fair use” - a key public interest exception to a copyright holder’s right to control his or her intellectual property.

The Clinic, together with Boalt alumni, successfully negotiated a settlement agreement on behalf of the Recreational Vehicle Consumer Group (RVCG), a nonprofit consumer educational organization established to research the safety of recreational vehicles. As part of its mission to educate and inform the public in RV selection and safety, RVCG maintains a web site that contains, among other consumer information, a “court of public opinion” on which it posts selected consumer complaints and manufacturer responses.  read more »

Students work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and other institutions to collaboratively build and maintain a web-based clearinghouse of information related to online publishers’ rights and responsibilities.  read more »

The Clinic, in conjunction with attorney Megan Gray of Gray Matters, challenged threats made by a group of national retailers over the two weeks before and after Thanksgiving 2002. The retailers insisted that FatWallet.com remove day-after Thanksgiving sales information from its site. In letters sent to FatWallet, retailers claimed copyright in price data that were facts unprotected by the Copyright Act.  read more »