Copying own CDs ’should be legal’

Go here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6095612.stm

 Interesting. Suggestions that copying music files should be legalised for personal use. Would this actually solve any problems? Would more people copy files or does it happen anyway? How do you define ‘personal use’? Does this include ‘lending’ someone else a copy?

 Please discuss…

Putting Court Documents on the Internet

Making court documents accessible on the internet might seem all nice and good, since it will be accessible 24/7 and anywhere in the world. However safeguards need to be implemented to prevent abuse, such as:

• People hacking on the webpage and amending the existing files, then users will believe that the file was indeed authorised and approved by the courts.
• From the documents available on the internet, forge copies of similar documents can be easily made.

Web Browser Rivalry

On the release of Firefox 2, IE sent them a ‘congratulations’ cake. Some suspect the border of the cake to be morse code with a ‘evil’ hidden message.

‘A computer cannot be better than a lawyer’

This quote was one of the criticisms against Richard Susskind’s paper about technology and its applicability in providing legal services to clients. Clearly, Richard does not expect, nor perhaps want computers to render lawyers obsolete. As he saids, legal advice from a knowledge-based system is for those who cannot obtain legal advice from a legal practitioner do to the urgency and time or they may have monetary issues.

Fifth Lecture

• IT and Law Firm – client communication, client data, case management, document repository, billing/expense management.
• IT and Public Service – searching through legislations, providing standard legal forms, general free legal advice.
• IT and Courts – posting court lists, electronic discovery and filing (similar to the document repository), video conferencing in courts (like in bail hearings), online courts.