Walking from the law school to the engineering precinct, my mind made a similar transition from right to left. During the reshuffle, I happened upon the following:

In a unanimous decision, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia yesterday overruled its previous verdict that video game console copy-protection schemes comprised a "technological protection measure" as defined in subs 10(1) of the Copyright Act. The result is to prevent the sale of so-called "mod chip" devices which circumvent said protection, and to draw uncertainty about the legality of similar software circumvention methods which are widespread in personal computing.  Read more »

Internet giant Yahoo has been the latest victim in a series of patent infringement cases filed by NCR, a United States based manufacturer of ATMs and holder of some 1500 patents. Its 15 recent claims are brought against key electronic commerce players, claiming infringement of several of their patents governing electronic transactions. Significantly, the patents involve fundamental aspects of e-commerce, and (were a verdict reached) may have spurned thousands of further claims against leading electronic stores.  Read more »

I stumbled upon an interesting idea in one of my law lectures today: substantive equality is impossible. I say substantive (as opposed to formal) equality in the sense that measures are taken to reduce pre-existing negative social offset by actively promoting disadvantaged persons or sectors of the community. It is not possible because we cannot construct a society of clones.  Read more »

In what promises to be a landmark case for internet publishers, Gutnick v Dow Jones will be heard in Melbourne on 3 October, 2003.  Read more »

The second day back has not proved nearly as tiresome. The repetitive drudgery of attending classes and travelling to and fro is beginning to impress itself upon me, and already the memories of entire days spent frollicking in the meadows are fading into oblivion; to be replaced by due dates, timetable clashes, and the insistent pressure of having to be in a particular place at a particular time.  Read more »

Here's something that's been keeping me amused for the past couple of days. The voice acting is above par, the flash animation is of a high calibre, and the antics of this Mexican boxing mask may (or may not) have you in stiches:

Read post. Click on link. Hilarity ensues!

I was insouciant as I walked through the university gates, this morning. I hadn't even opened my books since the last class of the previous semester, let alone done any study - not out of laziness or disinterest, but purely due to difficult reprioritisation necessitated by a multitude of tasks all requiring my attention. Nor had I paid any attention to my timetable or textbooks, so I found myself staring blankly at maps all morning and asking dumb questions.  Read more »

1.25am and it's first day of second semester here in blustery Melbourne. As bleary-eyed university students across the nation sleep soundly in their beds (or procrastinate, like I am, well into the night), the refuse bins in university grounds everywhere are, no doubt, being emptied in preparation for the hordes of first-week students that will arrive blundering through the cafeterias and parlaying across the campus later this morning.  Read more »

As far as test posts go, this one should hopefully rank among the more interesting ones. A majority of first posts will wax lyrical about what may or may not be later viewed as an historic occasion for the creation of yet another new discourse about the life and times of Bob's Cat. Others will make undue self-reference to their coetaneousness, paving the way for an aggravatingly self-conscious undertone that is difficult to shake.  Read more »