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The eyes of all lawyers are on the Supreme Court right now as it ends its current session, and the days when those experts waited to feed their reactions to key cases through the mainstream media are over. Now they just post them to the Internet immediately.

The activity at SCOTUSblog, a product of the Washington-based law firm Goldstein & Howe, illustrates the trend perfectly. Guest posters at the site addressed the Supreme Court ruling on medical marijuana earlier this month, and now SCOTUSblog has recruited participants for similar discussions on just-released and pending decisions.

The first debate began Thursday, when the court ruled in a case regarding eminent domain. The decision to let governments buy private property at fair-market value for municipal development purposes started a chain reaction of criticism in the blogosphere, and SCOTUSblog quickly became a central portal for expert opinion.

SCOTUSblog also is planning similar "meta blogs" next week on cases that will determine whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed on government property and whether file-sharing companies can be held liable for the copyright infringement of their customers.

The Picker MobBlog, meanwhile, has a roster of experts ready to post reactions on MGM v. Grokster, the file-sharing case, and on Brand X Internet Services v. National Cable and Telecommunications Association. The latter dispute will determine whether high-speed Internet service over cable modems should be lightly regulated as an "information service" or more heavily regulated as a "telecommunications service."

Randy Picker, a law professor at the University of Chicago, explains his thinking behind the blog this way: "The idea is to bring together a group of interested people to blog on a particular topic, do so, and disband. I will post on the blog intermittently between mobs, but the mobs will be the heart of the blog. I think of this as an online reading group or an online workshop."

Sarah Lai Stirland, our intellectual property reporter at National Journal's Technology Daily, also reports that at least two other blogs are expected to address the Grokster case when it is released: Copyfight, one of the blogs at Corante.com; and Deep Links, the blog of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is defending Streamcast Networks in the dispute.

Posted by dglover at June 24, 2005 12:40 PM

Comments

First effects of Grokster

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring05/cos491/writing/ says:

'Heres the first change that Ive seen due to the Grokster decision. Bonpoo is a service that lets you send large files to other people. It used to be general-purpose; you could send anything to your friends. Now, post-Grokster, they only let you send photos:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: At bonpoo we are constantly testing file transfers services that help people send legal files across the Internet. Given the recent Supreme Court decision we have suspended our free file transfer services except for photos. We apologize for any incovience. Please check out our professional product HeavyMail for an alternative to our prior service.'

By the way, Bonpoo's website is http://www.bonpoo.com and HeavyMail's website is http://www.heavymail.com

Posted by: Lily at July 5, 2005 01:44 AM

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