May 2005 Archives

Today I learned that my new legal assistant once worked part-time for my old firm, some five years ago. That firm only has maybe seven employees in Denver at a time. How's that for coincidence?

On Monday, I'll begin orientation as an associate attorney in the real estate practice group at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in Denver. I've written here even less frequently than usual recently because I received the offer only this past Monday, and I've been scrambling to get life in order and prepare for the transition.

I'm excited. The people of the real estate practice group (and others from the firm whom I've occasionally encountered) have all given very good first impressions. The firm has a strong professional reputation, and seems also to have a good reputation as a firm to work for. And for me, it's an opportunity finally to focus on transactional work instead of litigation, working on sophisticated projects with people who have a lot of experience with the kinds of work that they do.

I will probably continue to write here, but only very lightly at first. I expect to have a very busy summer. When I do write, I intend to avoid writing about anything having to do with my law practice. In particular, I don't plan to write about any specific working experiences. I do not plan to write about real estate law at least for a long while. (I haven't written about it before, so that's no big change.) I'm making these decisions entirely on my own initiative.

I used to use my time on bus rides to free-write short essays about what I saw on the bus and other stories of living in the area. I never posted them here. If I find myself doing the same sort of thing once I'm a regular bus rider again, maybe you'll see some of those sorts of things on this weblog.

But for now, I'd better get back to work on all of the tasks I've got lined up for this weekend!

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the Federal Communication's Commission's "broadcast flag" rule yesterday. [Opinion here.] Ernie Miller is tracking the online press reports.

The "broadcast flag" is a copy protection mechanism for digital TV broadcasts. The FCC's regulations required manufacturers of digital TV receivers to design their products to recognize when a digital TV transmitter had set the "broadcast flag" on a digital TV signal. If the digital TV receiver detected the "broadcast flag," it was required to send the content only to certain digital outputs that would recognize the broadcast flag or to an analog output. It permitted receivers to record the TV broadcast only if they could do so in a way that would make it impossible for another device to copy the recording.

In other words, the rule is designed to prevent people from recording a digital TV transmission on a computer and then sharing it with anyone else or taking clips from it. The rule works by requiring manufacturers to make equipment in a way that honors the demands of TV producers.

The Court of Appeals held that the FCC lacked authority to regulate what equipment does to recordings of transmissions after receiving them. The FCC's job is to regulate how transmissions work, not how people use recordings.

The FCC may continue to press the case, and the intervening Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will most likely request en banc review or petition the Supreme Court for certiorari even if the FCC does not. If the courts deny further review or decide against the MPAA and FCC, the MPAA will lobby Congress to extend the FCC's authority. MPAA could ask Congress to codify the broadcast flag regulations in a statute, but it might prefer to have the FCC continue oversight of the rules and retain the ability to change them.

I oppose the notion that the MPAA should dictate how computer equipment is built and how it treats data, and I don't like what I perceive to be a general atmosphere of overreaching at the FCC, so I like the D.C. Circuit's ruling. I also think it's founded on good legal analysis and reached the right conclusion as a matter of law.

The "broadcast flag" regulations appear in the Code of Federal Regulations at 47 C.F.R. 73.9000-73.9009 and 47 C.F.R. 76.1901-76.1909.

See also Susan Crawford's discussion of the ruling and FCC jurisdiction, with a link to her article on the topic.

Three years ago this weekend, on a dismal, chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon, I graduated from law school.

Congratulations to all the people who are graduating this weekend.

I took a walk today through the open space near my apartment. I saw prairie dog pups for the first time.

Flickr photo set here.

A programmer named Daniel Wallace has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana claiming that the General Public License violates U.S. antitrust law. Wallace is, for now, acting as his own attorney. My knowledge of antitrust law is a little rusty, but my initial hunch is that Eric Goldman is right that this case is not going to be around for long.

Correction: The post on Eric Goldman's blog is by John Ottaviani, a guest blogger. Sorry, John!

Lately I've had oil on my mind. As in petroleum. As oil prices have increased in the United States over the last six months or so, I've heard more on the radio and encountered more online about the notion of "peak oil" (Google for "peak oil").

Late last week, I encountered Tom Evslin's weblog post that suggests that nuclear power will probably be necessary to provide power for electrolysis so that there can be a non-petroleum-based fuel source for hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Then, Gary Becker and Richard Posner posted their entries on the topic of nuclear power. [Becker.] [Posner.] Prof. Becker proposes that the time has come to permit new construction of nuclear power plants; Judge Posner says he doesn't think that a complete case has yet been made to support such a change in policy.

"Peak oil," as I understand it, means that point in time at which oil production ceases to keep up with demand regardless of technological advances. The result would be steadily increasing prices, as demand for oil is increasing but inelastic. (In other words, our demand for oil is generally increasing, but we're bad at restraining that demand for oil because we can't easily make tradeoffs to other sources, nor can we easily give up transportation and electricity.)

I'm not in a position to evaluate the economic realities of petroleum supply and demand, though I do know that I pay more for gasoline, electricity, and heating gas than I paid in the past. I know that at some point petroleum supply will not keep up with demand, and I wonder whether we will then be ready to transition to other power sources. I suspect that we won't quite be ready when the time comes, that it will come in my lifetime, and that for a while, it will hurt. I don't yet think it'll be the disaster that some predict, in which the entire economy fails overnight for want of gasoline and electricity. But I expect it will hurt, probably badly.

Do you ever have dreams like this? I had one almost exactly like it the other day.