Ambivalent Index

With thanks to the Harper's Index, here's my semester, by the numbers:

• Average number of pages of a casebook I read per hour: 10
• Average number of pages of reading assigned per hour of class: 30
• Number of class hours I'm taking this semester: 13
• Average number of pages I should read per week: 390
• Number of hours per week I should therefore devote to reading: 39
• Total number of hours already dedicated to work, clinic, and journal: 20
• Number of hours available to blog, work on my “note,” or cover any extra assignments that might pop up: 0
• One adjective to describe me this semester: Screwed.

Posted 10:25 PM | Comments (6) | 2L

Bloglines As Copyright Infringement

Monica at Buzzwords recently pointed me to an interesting article entitled Bloglines and the Perils of Syndication about the author of The Trademark Blog who asked Bloglines to remove his blog feed from its service because he didn't want Bloglines making money off of his content. I noted this briefly before, but as the Trademark Blog explained:

Right now, among the million bloggers, there are bird watching blogs, and anti-Michael Moore blogs, and Linux blogs. Those bloggers do or do not view their blogs as part of a commercial pursuit, and do or do not wish to run advertising, and do or do not wish make use of information about their readership. As far as I can tell, based on its stated intentions, the leading web-based aggregator is reserving the right to, for example, place Windows-based software ads on Linux blogs, and Anne Coulter ads on pro-Michael Moore sites, and to sell everybody's subscription list to anyone. All without notification or authorization by the blogger.

(Note that this critic is more worried that his blog content will be surrounded by ads for legal services than he is about his content being surrounded by porn or online gambling. Interesting hierarchy of evils.) I generally don't like the idea that Bloglines (or other services) could soon do what the Trademark Blog describes, which is essentially making money from content you and I generate, without our permission and w/out giving us anything in return. I suppose if you use Bloglines, you might feel this is ok—you enjoy the service, so you get “paid” via the convenience it provides you. I'll be curious to see whether Bloglines runs into any significant resistance if it does start selling ads and making money in this way.

Posted 08:21 AM | Comments (3) | meta-blogging