Where to Find Everything You Need
December 01, 2003
The increasing distribution of forms, procedures, rules, laws, and opinions in electronic format suggests that for certain legal materials it has become appropriate to look for a Web site early in the research process. A selected list of Web sites useful to attorneys engaged in litigating land use issues or drafting land use plans appears below. All sites should be viewed critically for accuracy and reliability of the information. It is important to remember that materials that are even a few years old may be excluded; the scope of coverage may be limited; and often a citation, name, or date is needed as an access point because the Web site content is not searchable.
Index
December 01, 2003
Where to find everything in this issue.
Trademark Exploitation on the Internet
December 01, 2003
While the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C.S. '1051, adequately addresses the legal difficulties associated with bad faith registration of trademarked names by non-trademark holders, e-exploitation of trademarks is still a problem for trademark holders.
Music Industry Faces Dual Setbacks
December 01, 2003
Just as the reinvigorated Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed its third wave of lawsuits to thwart the trading of copyrighted music…
Remote Access: What It Can Do for You
December 01, 2003
Most people have heard of remote access and wireless Internet, two terms that could be, but aren't always, interchangeable. But from a practical standpoint, how do they apply to the common practitioner?
Spam Gets Canned Federal Anti-Spam Law to Take Effect January 1
December 01, 2003
More than 35 states have enacted laws regulating spam in some form or fashion. Legitimate marketers and businesses adapted to these various state laws, gravitating toward a fairly uniform best practices model, which stopped short of the sort of true "opt-in only" model strongly preferred by consumer and anti-spam groups. Mailers could be fairly confident that they would avoid liability under state spam laws and not overly alienate Internet service providers (ISPs) or their own customers by simply including valid contact information, honoring "opt-out" requests, providing accurate headers and routing information, using nondeceptive subject lines and (in a few states) labeling the messages as advertisements. This widely followed compliance strategy became unworkable in September 2003, however, when California instead enacted a true "opt-in" approach to commercial e-mail marketing. Marketers were faced with a January 2004 compliance deadline and sweeping new prohibitions on marketing to or from any California e-mail address unless the sender had the recipient's "direct consent" or had a "pre-existing business relationship" with the recipient (and the recipient had not "opted out" of such mailings). In response, legitimate marketers aggressively lobbied Congress to accelerate final passage of federal legislation to pre-empt at least the more disruptive aspects of California's new law prior to its effective date. Congress responded to the call, and the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Dec. 16, 2003.
Federal Law Allows Employer Search of Stored Worker e-Mail, Court Says
December 01, 2003
An employer does not violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act by digging through an employee's e-mails in computer storage, since the law bans an "interception" only if it occurs at the time of transmission, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
On The Job: Personal Career Planning
December 01, 2003
Good personal career planning is incomplete without a regular assessment of where your skills need improving. Here are a few techniques that make sense.
