Articles For Week 9
Purveyors of Marilyn Monroe Memorabilia Get Favorable Ruling
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/03/31/purveyors-of-marilyn-monroe-memorabilia-get-favorable-ruling/?mod=WSJBlog
Dan Slater writes for The Wall Street Journal about Marilyn Monroe's right of publicity which has finally fallen into the public domain. Judge Margaret Morrow in Los Angeles ruled that since Monroe was from New York and paid New York taxes where celebritys have no right of publicity past their death, neither does she. Marilyn Monroe LLC plans to appeal the ruling saying that the evidence that California was her home was ignored.
Although from our lecture we have learned that 50 states adhere to the usual right of publicity laws not all of them do. This creates an unusual discrepancy when people move between states.
Can an Eavesdropper Protect Your Privacy?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/can-an-eavesdropper-protect-your-privacy/?ref=technology
Saul Hansell writes for The New York Times about what he calls "the mother of all privacy battles." Two companies, NebuAd and Phorm plan to place devices on the main data centers of ISPs to look at every website that the ISP's customers look at. While it seems obvious that privacy buffs would be strongly against the recording of their browsing history, the two companies say that this method of collecting information for advertising purposes is actually designed to be more private than most of the other methods out there. The system functions by collecting keywords and the like and making a general and broad record of the subjects the user is interested in and then throwing out all the information they collected besides the main topics. At the same time, the Federal Trade Commission has developed the guidelines for behavioral targeting which if passed may further change the way that people's privacy is protected.
The desire to have private information kept private is fairly universal world over as we have leaned. People's private information has value just like a celebrity's image. The issues raised are the same, though the idea of protecting a celebrity's face is more tangible than the idea of protecting a regular person's browsing history.
New privacy rules benefit student health and safety
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/2008/04/04/editorial__new_privacy_rules_benefit_student_health_and_safety
The Collegiate Times Editorial Board writes about the Department of Education and the new student privacy rules being proposed in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy. This update to the policy would allow schools to release pertinant information about students in the event of an emergency, or if the student presents a danger to themselves or others.
The value of private information can be outweighed by the value of one's life in an emergency. CT reports that because of fears about student privacy, information did not flow as easily as it should have during the event at Virginia Tech resulting in greater loss of life. This takes a slightly different angle on our discussions on privacy since we never really talked about safety.