After weeks of hunting, I am pleased to present to you the complete elec­tronic version of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, as supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor as ASCII files on 34 floppy disks. This elec­tronic version contains data published in the following print volumes: Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol. I Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, Vol II Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Revised Dictionary of Occupational Titles Data published in these volumes are in the public domain and may be repro­duced and distributed without source credit. This version also includes [ . . . ]

Read the Rest...

TLDR: This changes nothing. Today the Librarian of Congress announced new rules promul­gated pursuant to the Librarian’s rule­making authority under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to exempt certain actions from the prohi­bition against circum­vention of copyright protection systems found in 17 U.S.C. §1201. The “anti-​​​​circumvention provision” states: No person shall circumvent a tech­no­logical measure that effec­tively controls access to a work protected under this title. The Librarian is required by §1201 to make a deter­mi­nation every three years as to whether any exemp­tions from this prohi­bition are necessary in order to preserve access to copy­righted works. In the words of the Librarian, his task [ . . . ]

Read the Rest...

The Supreme Court decided McDonald v. Chicago, the sequel to D.C. v. Heller, this morning. A majority held that the Second Amendment applies to state and local govern­ments and threw out Chicago’s ban on handguns. A plurality of four Justices (Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy) held that the Second Amendment is incor­po­rated by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, and avoided addressing the question of whether the Slaughterhouse Cases, which long ago castrated the other half of the 14th Amendment, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, should be recon­sidered. One Justice, Justice Thomas, wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, but asserting [ . . . ]

Read the Rest...

Via Paul Hsieh at Geekpress, “16 Things Your Lawyer Won’t Tell You”, a piece purporting to arm consumers of legal services the better to keep tabs on their lawyers, but which ulti­mately severely misrep­re­sents the profession. The overall problem with the article is that it assumes that it is immoral for a lawyer to make money off his clients’ legal woes. Here are the most misleading points from the article, and my expla­nation of why they are misleading. 1. I use forms but charge you as if I did it from scratch. Lawyers who create and sell operative legal documents (wills, contracts, trusts, &c.) [ . . . ]

Read the Rest...