Posts under ‘internet’

Location schmocation.
A couple of items in the news. First, a provocative piece from the talented David Hudson of the First Amendment Center, entitled “Obscenity online: Do we need a national standard?”
Second, the Iowa Court of Appeals delivered this decision yesterday. Iowa charged Clarence Judy, owner of a strip club in Hamburg, Iowa, with three counts of public indecent [...]

… arrives courtesy of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
In this case the plaintiffs, who are described as “oenophiles who want easier access to wine from small vineyards in other states,” challenged two provisions of Indiana law. These provisions state that wineries inside and outside Indiana may ship to customers, if (a) there is one [...]

Maybe. Or maybe not.
“What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer” appears in tomorrow’s edition of The New York Times. The question is whether Internet data — specifically, Google search results — may be used at trial to gauge “community standards,” whatever that means. The article quotes two talented attorneys (disclaimer: I consider them friends), [...]

Georgia winemakers want your home address and (unexpired) MasterCard number.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports here that, “[s]tarting July 1, Georgia residents can have any winery ship to them up to 12 cases a year as long as someone 21 or older signs for the shipment.” Awesome! Because shipments to the front door were previously off-limits, [...]

An interesting decision concerning Wine.com which you can access here (eVineyard Retail Sales-Massachusetts, Inc. vs. Alcoholic Bev. Control Comm’n, SJC-09948 March 18, 2008).
One of the vinous Internet giant’s wholly owned subsidiaries, eVineyard Retails Sales-Massachusetts, Inc. (eVineyard), got snagged for delivering — errr … selling — wine to an underage person. The facts are simple. For [...]

An interesting article, Obscene Losses, by Claire Hoffman appears in this November’s online edition of Conde Nast Portfolio. It begins:

DVD sales are in free fall. Audiences are flocking to pornographic knockoffs of YouTube, especially a secretive site called YouPorn. And the amateurs are taking over. What’s happening to the adult-entertainment industry is exactly what’s happening [...]

In Edgewater, Florida there’s this house. Somewhere, maybe in Edgewater, there’s this Web Site, “CocoDorm.com, where visitors can, for a fee, watch live video streams from the Edgewater house, where chiseled young males are paid $1,200, plus room, board and meals, to live in the two-story home for a month and have sex with each [...]

This week’s issue of The New Yorker includes this article, entitled “Damn Spam.” Written by Michael Spector, the article explores the federal government’s attempt to rid — or at least curb — that most-annoying affliction suffered by e-mailers across the globe: spam. Mr. Spector notes some interesting facts:

Spam’s growth has been metastatic, both in [...]

If you’re the sensitive-type, put on your blinders …
“Take a guess what they sell at http://www.fuckingmachines.com/. Or just go to the site,” begins this article by Jeffrey C. Billman of the Orlando Weekly. The article features an Orlando attorney, Marc Randazza (who also happens to be a good friend) and his client’s plight to trademark [...]

“Anheuser-Busch said it would launch a broadband video site, Bud.TV, the latest advertiser to try its hand at branded entertainment online,” reports AdWeek here. It’s no revelation that TV is brought to you by sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. What’ll be interesting is how, if at all, the government attempts to regulate the Net.
A funny Budweiser [...]