Copyright case before supreme court

There is a case before the supreme court about whether it is ok to take works out of the public domain and place them back into copyright.

http://chronicle.com/article/Equal-Protection-for/129287/

Size of the law

I found this an interesting followup to our discussion Friday.  About 6:45 into the video he describes a law that makes it illegal to violate an aspect (fish possession) of any other country's law.

http://volokh.com/2011/09/30/prof-duane-dont-talk-to-the-cops/

There is a followup/response video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE

Tragedy of the Commons

We were talking about this Wednesday.  In the following what is the commons and what is the tragedy?

http://xkcd.com/958/

copyright in science

Is this morally positive, negative or indifferent?
http://theconversation.edu.au/princeton-goes-open-access-to-stop-staff-handing-all-copyright-to-journals-unless-waiver-granted-3596

Screen saver mode and searches

This is an interesting followup to the privacy discussion that we were having.

http://volokh.com/2011/09/27/taking-a-computer-out-of-screensaver-mode-to-see-suspects-facebook-wall-as-a-fourth-amendment-search/

Speeding

Remember how we used speeding as an example of the difference between what is moral and what is legal.  The following article reinforces the distinction

http://blog.motorists.org/warning-pay-no-attention-to-this-message/#more-2709

Sep 19 followup

Followup from today's discussion:
The options for this week's essay about the youtube video are:
1. Was it moral to destroy the original?
2. Was it moral not to disclose how the machine worked?

The book I mentioned on limited time clones was  Kiln People

The experiment http://www.prisonexp.org/ while not directly related to technology is very interesting result in ethics.  In some ways it reminds me of the book The Gulag Archipelago A thought provoking book, but not light reading.