HUMAN LAW MEDIATION

Net Neutrality -The US Senate votes to support the corporate giants who misunderstood the internet

As the Times reports, the US Senate voted last night to pass telecoms legislation that could lead to phone and cable charging more money for faster access to websites.

The Times writes  "The telecoms companies hope that they can charge big companies that need to use a lot of bandwidth, such as Apple Computer’s i-Tunes or Skype’s internet telephone business, which will buy the faster access routes so that customers will get a faster service.

The telecoms companies also aim to gain a stronger foothold in the cable television business using DSL telephone lines to connect users to such services as video-on-demand. "

As the Times concludes  "The US Senate Commerce Committee yesterday echoed the views of the House(of Representatives) and rejected an amendment to the pending telecoms Bill that would have required that all internet traffic be treated identically regardless of its “source” or “destination”.

After a three-day hearing, the committee rejected an amendment from Republican senator Olympia Snowe and a Democrat, Byron Dorgan, which aimed to prohibit phone and cable companies from limiting access to their high-speed internet networks.

“What’s at stake is the internet in the 21st century,” said Ms Snowe. “This is the preservation of digital democracy.”

There is still a small chance that the Bill will falter, however, as Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate, has threatened a filibuster to prevent the Bill passing through the Senate."

One of the things that is quite illuminating about the conduct of the telecoms is that they totally misinterpreted the significance of the internet due to their failure to anticipate how the internet would lead to an era of participatory media.

As the Economist wrote in a survey earlier this year on participatory media "Almost everywhere, download speeds (from the internet to the user) are many times faster than upload speeds (from user to network). This is because the corporate giants that built these pipes assumed that the internet would simply be another distribution pipe for themselves or their partners in the media industry. Even today, they can barely conceive of a scenario in which users might put as much into the network as they take out."

That is whom the United States Senate has put its trust in.

The next move to accelerate the online revolution

Nick Holmes of Binary Law has managed to do a piece for the Law Society Gazette dealing with the prospective explosion of growth of online syndication due to Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 offering integral support for this.

As Nick writes "Online syndication generally means making data "feeds" available from a Web site automatically every time content is updated....Until recently, Web feeds could be read only with a dedicated desktop reader(often called an aggregator), via an e-mail or browser add-ons or using certain Web site pages that pulled together. ...This has been too much trouble for most. Firefox and IE7 will popularise syndication and an explosion of ever more useful feeds will ensue."         

The net result leads us to the elimination of What's New pages and with luck, unwanted e-mail newsletters and announcements. 

At last - some more English law blogs

Despite the best efforts of the English legal profession to resist the technological revolution, some more (quality) legal blogs have emerged, including:

Law Brief Update Blog - This is one prepared by the barristers who author the Law Brief Update. I am aware of individual barristers who blog but is this the first team of barristers to blog?

Nearly Legal - The quest by a would be lawyer trying to enter the legal profession. This is written by an independent writer with flair who possesses some impressive legal knowledge.

The Orange Rag - This is written by Charles Christian who is a former practicing barrister turned writer, commentator and legal analyst. Intriguingly(for me) the blog is powered by BlogHabor. Maybe another blogging software to consider?

Sources of post - Binary Law & Information Overlord

Net Neutrality - Who do you believe - Sir Tim Berners-Lee or the telecoms?

Kevin O'Keefe makes a renewed call on the issue of Net Neutrality asking lawyers to contact their Senator or Congressman. As he points out, the telecoms are winning.

From my perspective, United States lawyers must make up their own minds but at the very least, they should consider the issues and then, if they think they are important should contact their representatives. 

Perhaps the most elegant way of putting it was made by Robert J. Ambrogi on Legal Blog Watch.

"Simply asking the question suggests its absurdity, yet the issue of whether everyone should have equal access to the Internet is up for grabs."

My question is simply this - Who do you believe - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the web or the telecoms industry?

From Stephen Covey to The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers

Dan Hull of What About Clients? gives us some scintillating guidance for how corporate lawyers should manage their clients:

"1. Be risk-averse at all times. Clients have come to expect this from their lawyers. It's tradition. Honor it.

2. Tell the client only what it can't do. Business clients are run by business people who take risks. They need to be managed, guided, stopped. Don't encourage them.

3. Whatever you do, don't take a stand, and don't make a recommendation. (You don't want to be wrong, do you?)

4. Treat the client as a potential adversary at all times. Keep a distance.

5. Cover yourself. Write a lot to the client. Craft lots of confirming letters which use clauses like "it is our understanding", "our analysis is limited to..." and "we do not express an opinion as to whether..."

6. Churn up extra fees with extra letters and memoranda and tasks. Milk the engagement. (If you are going to be a weenie anyway, you might as well be a sneaky weenie.)

7. As out-house counsel, you are American royalty. Never forget that."

Does anyone think that there is any truth in this?

Tennis players are blogging

If you do not think that blogging is entering mainstream, well read this.

The Times has an article today highlighting how tennis players are starting to blog. As the newspaper states about yesterday's first day at Wimbledon.

"Less than an hour’s play was possible, which meant that all 33,500 fans, plus corporate ticket holders, had to be offered their money back.

But for many of the players, the weather meant the chance for many to turn to their favourite pastime — blogging.

This is the first Wimbledon where players are complementing their performances on the baseline with a diary online.

While they struggle to raise their rankings in the grandslam tournament, many are turning to the web to improve their brand online — denying newspaper reports and updating fans on their movements. "

Scotland's Andrew Murray has his own blogsite but apparently the most rated one is Dmitry Tursunov who is seeded No 28 at Wimbledon.

The Times refers to some of his content in detail:

“I would like to summarise my entire singles match into one sentence: ‘Clay is for girls!’ ” he writes before going on to gossip entertainingly about affairs between players and his “blogging war” with female player Bryanne Stewart — whom he claims seldom takes to the court without her laptop. On tennis fan sites there have been calls for him to take up blogging full-time."

Is the United States run by the misguided short-term interests of large corporations?

As fellow bloggers Kevin O'Keefe and Diane Levin highlight, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has now entered the fray regarding the issue of net neutrality.

Briefly, let us give some background about some of the players involved here.

Berners-Lee is the British scientist who developed the web in 1989 as an academic tool to allow scientists to share data.

Network neutrality is the concept where everyone has the same level of access to the web and that all data moving around the web is treated equally.

This view is supported by companies like Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to be introduced to guarantee net neutrality.

Unsurprisingly, telecoms companies in the US disagree. They would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot.

The issue of net neutrality was recently debated in the House of Representatives and the issue now moves to the US Senate where the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on its version of the act in late June.

Tim Berners-Lee writes and posts on video " Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.

Let's see whether the United States is capable as acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interested of large corporations. "

My view is that this is potentially scary. As Craigslist co-founder Craig Newmark wrote for CNN.com: "Let's say you call Joe's Pizza, and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza."

Do you really think that the telecoms industry is going to run this in a way which does not threatens the open model of the internet? Broadband providers will become gatekeepers to the web's content and it appears it will not be open as before.

For other sources of information, please click on Wikipedia, Information Week and Amanda Congdon who has done an excellent video post on this.

To hear a different point of view, please click here to listen to Scott Cleland speak on behalf the telecoms companies.

To support the campaign, please click here at savetheinternet.com

The lawyers are under attack

Diane Levin, the leading mediator and author of the excellent blog, The Online Guide To Mediation, is now telling us about what the public really think about lawyers "Many of the people I speak to who come to mediation do so because they see themselves as refugees fleeing from a tyrannical legal system. Often they arrive with stories of attorneys more concerned with racking up billable hours than helping clients conserve assets and maximise gains. Attorneys who insisted that they should "go for the jugular" when really all they wanted to do was to remain on friendly terms with a business partner, neighbour, or soon-to-be-former spouse. Attorneys who didn’t listen or railroaded them into decisions that they couldn’t live with later. Attorneys whose combative styles cost clients money and relationships."

Diane - Do not worry. It is not just your country where lawyers are not flavour of the month. What you have said reminded me of what a party said in a recent landmark family law case which was heard at the House of Lords.

Mr. Miller who was part of the significant of Miller v Miller judgement commented regarding the legal process to the Jewish Chronicle  "The interests of the parties become subservient to the massive egos of the solicitors and barristers involved, vitriolic and highly personal letters flow back and forth, and barristers take their wonderful legal points seemingly out of interest in changing the law rather than what is in the best interests of the divorcing couple."

Is it any surprise that the Governor of the Bank of England is joining the fray with a devasatating attack on the legal system?

Justin Patten teams up with MBL Seminars to provide blogging event

I am pleased to let you know that I have linked with MBL Seminars to provide an event on blogging. The event is called "Blogging &Podcasting - What is it all about?" and it will take place on Thursday 19th October in Central London. To view more about the event, please click here.    

More evidence highlighting the superiority of librarian law bloggers

WisBlawg is a library law blog based in Wisconsin written by Bonnie Shucha- There is an article based on a talk given about blogs by Ms. Shucha at the Association of Legal Administrators Annual Meeting in Montreal last month.

Upon the request of the editor of the Risk Management Memo, she turned that presentation into the article entitled, Blogs: The Hot New Technology for Communication and Information.

It discusses how legal professionals can use blogs in their practice including:

- What is a Blog?
- Establishing a Blogging Policy
- Reading Blogs
- Creating a Blog (for internal and external communication)
- Is Blogging Right for You?

It is a impressively presented article with some useful content. On Wednesday 21st June, I ran my workshop on blogging in Green Park, London prior to reading the article and was pleased that there was some duplication in content.