A brief side trip ...

Ok, this isn't going to be a homework assignment. I am going to point y'all to an interesting project. It is called "Openlaw".

In the mold of "opensource" it is (or was?) an attempt to get lawyers, lawmakers, technical folk (and anyone else who was interested) talking together to deal with legal issues raised by technology.

When I was involved with it, it was an email discussion list called "dvd-discuss" (the archives are here) created to deal with the DeCSS cases that were going on at the time as a result of the recently passed DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). The act was being used to (among other things) prevent fair use access to materials (such as DVDs). More importantly it was being used as a club to stifle free speech.

As with any email discussion list, there are a number of digressions, and not everything is on subject ... but it was fascinating experience and something in which I am proud to have participated.

After the email discussion list phase, they went all-web. Apparently using a Wiki (among other techniques) to keep the ball rolling. Unfortunately I do not think that it is still active -- the only dates I can find are more than five years in the past.

The Openlaw project has provided aid to defense council in some important cases, and filed amicus briefs in others. You can find out more about these cases on their main page, here. It is written as if things are still active, but to be honest I do not see any recent activity there. It is nonetheless worth exploring both for the background it provides on a number of cases involved with copyright in conflict with technology, and as an interesting little bit of history in it's own right.