A little of everything professional. This site contains the largest online collection of electronic signature laws and research, my views on Time Management & GTD life hacks for improving productivity, and my After Thoughts on bad decisions and business improvements. Personal thoughts and casual comments are pushed to my SEO project, The World's Greatest Guy.
Law
Electronic Signature Compliance
Posted December 24th, 2007 by isaacThe ESIGN Act
Although every state has at least a law pertaining to electronic signatures, it is the federal law that lays out the guidelines for interstate commerce. The general intent of the ESIGN Act is spelled out in the very first section(101.a), that a contract or signature “may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form”. This simple statement provides that electronic signatures and records are just as good as their paper equivalent, and therefore subject to the same legal scrutiny of authenticity that applies to paper documents.
The History of Electronic Signature Laws
Posted September 20th, 2007 by isaacOn June 30, 2000 President Clinton signed the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" (ESIGN) using his electronic signature ID, and thereby established the validity of electronic signatures for interstate and international commerce.
In the four years prior to this Act’s passage a dozen states had passed similar laws and guidance for state specific business purposes, and in the five years since the Act’s passing every other state has passed similar laws and legislation. What does it all mean, and in the end how can it benefit businesses, individuals and the nation or world as a whole?
The best way to answer a question like this is to take a look at the origins of the law, and understand the reasoning behind its passage and the passage of federal and state laws.
ESIGN Laws Submission
I have just completed the entry of all of my ESIGN law research that I conducted while working on the PrivaSign startup project. While the venture was not successful, I hope that the legal research presented here is useful to others trying to seek electronic signature solutions for their own organizations. Originally I was surprised by the depth of laws and regulations concerning electronic signatures. What surprised me even more though was that this information was not consolidated by any one organization - federal or private.
ESIGN Laws Research and Whitepapers
Posted September 20th, 2007 by isaacESIGN Laws The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA)
Posted September 20th, 2007 by isaaceSign Laws and Regulations
Posted September 19th, 2007 by isaacIntroduction to Electronic Signature Laws and Regulations
Sony DRM Sends Fair Use with Betamax
DVDs, and many other forms of digital content, use a technology called Digital Rights Management that allow producers to control when and where you watch their protected content.
If a president of over-protection is set, then what at first is just DVD movies and commercial music, could soon become any form of digital information. While it may not happen over night, locking down all content could result in a environment where commercialized content is placed ahead of innovation and open thought.
Virginia Proposal Seeks to Control Webusers
The Washington Post just ran an article that Virgina has a proposed law that would require sex offenders to register their email and IM screen names in an attempt to monitor and control their presence on social networking sites like MySpace.com
Google's new Government Search Tool versus the FirstGov site
Google just released a Goverment specific search portal. This is basically a competitor to the government's own site FirstGov, which is powered by MSN but looks an awful lot like Google.
So let's run the paces on Google and FirstGov to see what we get. I tried searching for a rather obscure federal regulation 34 CFR 99.30. It is from the Department of Education and governs the practice and procedure of record keeping.
MPAA losses $6.1 billion to piracy... shuts down The Pirate Bay for a day
It was announced today by WiredFire that Thepiratebay.org website was shutdown by the Swedish authorities....
Earlier this month a study by the MPAA announced that the movie industry lost $6.1 billion in revenues in 2005 to illegal videos, DVDs and Internet downloads. So there is no denying the effect of stolen material and I do not wish to promote this type of behavior.
But I do wish to analyze business practices and inefficiencies. According to the Motion Picture Association of America....
