May 05, 2006
We are the world/We are the children?
An NBC reporter thinks blogs are coming into their own. This spare but thoughtful article by NBC correspondent Dawn Fratangelo bloomed last night. It's a very upbeat piece. She says blogs are increasing in number, power and influence. They are the "new age opinion pages" by names, no-names and Everyman. Shucks.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 21, 2006
The Guardian: Blogging in Europe is Already Driving Ideas and Markets.
Justin Patten of the London-based blog Human Law - Law, Technology and People reports an interesting Manchester Guardian article on the growing power of blogs on public opinion. Bloggers and internet commentators are still a new and small sliver of the European on-line public--yet already have a "disproportionately large influence" on business trends, according to a study by Jupiter Research. The article is entitled "Ignore Bloggers At Your Peril, Say Researchers".
Posted by JD Hull at 02:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 06, 2006
Del Bianco: AT&T - BellSouth Merger May Not Be a Done Deal.
Two days ago, Mark Del Bianco, a colleague, friend and a DC-based telecom lawyer who once labored in DOJ's Antitrust Division, wrote "Bumps in the Road for the AT&T-BellSouth Merger?" It's here reprinted from News.com. As usual, Mark's sober writing has triggered interesting arguments amongst the article's wonky readers plus a bonus gratuitous lawyer-bashing, free marketeer-mocking and my favorite, a reader-to-reader final comment: "To clarify matters further, you're a moron."
Posted by JD Hull at 11:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 04, 2006
Washington Post: Blogging is now a major player in Internet growth.
According to this morning's Washington Post, blogging is one of the the 3 biggest factors in driving Internet growth, along with local information retrieval and social networking. And traditional websites for now are taking a dive. Just see "New Trends In Online Traffic, reported by Leslie Walker and reprinted at MSNBC.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2006
Del Bianco: Net Neutrality - "The Next Broadband Battleground"
Shouldn't we all be able to to access all internet content without having to pay extra to attach adapting devices? And what about the IP rights of the providers? From DC-based telecom lawyer-consultant Mark Del Bianco, the article is here, reprinted from News.com--News of Change. "Network neutrality" has fast become a big tech issue worldwide, with a focus in the U.S. and Europe alike (see also WAC?'s post last week "The French Get Hissy About IP - Part 2"). Note also that Mark's article was published at News.com just 5 days ago and has sparked constant comment from the first hour it was on-line. Broadband giants like telephone companies are responding. Nerves have been hit in regulatory communities and legislatures. Stay tune.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 21, 2006
The French Get Hissy About IP--Part 2
Here, from an AP news story. Ironically, the draft on-line copyright bill, which passed the French National Assembly but still needs to pass the French Senate, would force the sharing of proprietary anti-copying technologies of companies like Apple and Sony so that their rivals can compete, as well as punish music pirates. Increasingly, our clients focus on IP issues. This follows up our March 8 post.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2006
IP Piracy: China Gets Religion, French Rockers Get Hissy.
Because it involves our clients and practice, I've posted about this overall issue before. And yesterday both the WSJ Law Blog and China Law Blog discussed efforts by the Chinese government to take patent enforcement "more seriously". A mainland Chinese company just sued an American company for patent infringement in the US. This is a first. The notion is that China--with its infamously "whatever" attitude about protecting non-Chinese inventions and marks--might have to start taking it all more seriously if Chinese firms want justice here in the US. One step toward the solution, per China Law Blog and yours truly: Dude, register your IP in China.
Meanwhile, the French legislature, the National Assembly, consistently earnest if nothing else, is still struggling with file sharing on the Internet. French rock n' roll artists in particular are not happy with efforts both to eliminate a user's downloading fee passed late last year and to reduce punishments for illegal downloaders.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 01, 2006
Addictive "Del Bianco" Brand: Telecom Law.
Brands. Some lawyers become brands. In my litigation and environmental practices, I'm still working on it--but some lawyers of ours already are. Especially in telecom and tax. I was even thinking of starting a series showcasing lawyers in our firm called "It's Official: I'm the Least Well-Known and Likely the Least-Credentialed Lawyer in My Law Firm" but Tom Welshonce, the pluperfect associate in Pittsburgh who helps me with this blog, talked me out of it, mostly. Listen, Tom: telecom legal issues lurk in every deal these days. In straight-on telecom deals, obviously. But mainly in non-telecom deals. Mark Del Bianco figured this out long before it happened. See, as many clients and firms sans telecom lawyers are seeing, this link and/or this one and learn about Del Bianco, a telecom wunderkind, DC native, Yale Law grad and long-time friend who is of counsel to us, and you can see why I partially vetoed Tom on the showcasing thing. Del Bianco's so busy we can't even get him to raise his rates. Three months ago, Mark and I penned for The Pennsylvania Lawyer an article entitled "The Law of Telecom: Identifying and Resolving Telecom Issues in Acqusitions and Transactions". Judging from e-mails and inquiries, it's the most popular article we ever published in our 14 years. Enough said. Congratulations, Mark. Sorry, Tom.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 20, 2005
Do Technology and Outsourcing Have Limits For Changing Our Markets?
The Greatest American Lawyer has two thoughtful back-to-back posts (here and here) on the extent to which technology and outsourcing can actually "flatten" (as in Thomas Friedman's book The World Is Flat) our profession and and change the dymanic of demand for legal services. There's enough in these posts for a great dialogue which could go on for weeks.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack