Wow, it's my last day of class! I would be sad if I didn't have a Trademark final wasn't 6 days from now. I'll tell you, though, I'm not going to miss this 9-hours-of-class Tuesday schedule.

I just spent an hour and a half writing a memo summarizing all the projects I've done this semester for Cyberlaw Clinic. I've done nine, including six to seven pretty substantive projects, all on the BT case. Some of that stuff I had already forgotten about, it's been so long. I can't believe that over three whole months have passed, and that so much has happened.

I seem to have this sentiment every time a school semester ends. Why is that?

I just got back from spending 5 hours at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco, at a concert featuring Thomas Dolby and BT. The lawyers at CIS and Kirkland Ellis, who are representing him in the Vargas v. Pfizer litigation I've been working on in the Cyberlaw Clinic, got me and fellow clinic student Shireen on BT's personal guest list. It was amazing.

The performance opened with Thomas Dolby, one the pioneers of the electronic genre. I don't know much about him, except his most famous hit was in the U.K. in the 80s, called "She Blinded Me With Science." Despite a few technical hiccups, his set was quite good.

Left: Dolby doing his thing -- doesn't he look like friggin' Hellboy with the bald head and the placement of the glasses? Right: BT applying a violin bow, of all things, to his awesome custom-made electric guitar (note the BT logo) during his performance of Inner Locus.

This was BT's first live performance of his new Binary Universe album -- kicking off his nationwide tour. I was not ten feet from the man, and it was truly an experience. Though one might imagine techno music as being dry, boring, or abstract, BT put such emotion into his performance, such variety (he must've picked up at least six different instruments, including an electric guitar, electric violin, acoustic guitar, xylophone, keyboard, and a couple others I can't name), such layering, that he made the Binary Universe really come to life.

But it got better. First off, I approached him after the show and asked him to sign my copy of Binary Universe -- he quite willingly obliged. And then David and Julie got us all back stage, where we chilled for another half an hour. It was a scene from beyond my wildest dreams..

BT is really a great guy -- modest, down to earth, friendly to all the fans who approached him, and not above packing up his own studio equipment after the show. All that, plus being one of the most creative and groundbreaking minds in techno..



Yes, I know I look maybe a little too happy in this picture.

Where to start? My mind has been going off in a hundred different directions in these past few weeks. It's now the fourth week of school, but it doesn't feel like it's been nearly that long.

So far, I've been heavily preoccupied with the Cyberlaw Clinic. This is a seven unit "course" in which students work with Center for Internet & Society lawyers on various public interest-related cases that deal with law and technology, and it's fascinating. The past two weeks, I have had the good fortune to help out on a copyright infringement case as CIS has prepared for their motion for Summary Judgment, due today. Our client is BT, one of my favorite electronic artists of all time, and he is a defendant in a frivolous copyright infringement suit in New York.

Basically, the kind of legal writing and research I'm doing now is the same as what I was doing this summer at O'Melveny and Quinn. I've even been working the same kinds of hours -- between 15 and 25 hours a week. I'm more well-versed in the law of copyright infringement right now than I've ever been. And it's sort of fun.

My only complaint is that this Clinic stuff is totally throwing my schedule out of whack. I have Trademark class, as well as a Negotiations seminar that requires 4 hours of activity a week, as well as ample preparation. More on that in another post.

Finally, just in case you're curious, "This Binary Universe" is BT's latest album, which strikes off in a new and creative direction. Each audio track was apparently developed by BT in complete synchrony with a global cast of visual artists, who created accompanying video shorts that are on a DVD that comes with the album.. pretty unique. Though I haven't been able to find the album in stores, I've been able to listen to it because BT gave one of our Clinic lawyers a copy when he came over for his deposition back in August. Nifty..