Your Own Arguments and Opinions

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Rule of Law

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Reasoning of the Law

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The Questions

1.) Does my church have to pay if the choir sings "Spirit In The Sky"?

2.) Does Weird Al Yankovic need permission to do his parodies?

3.) What royalties do you have to pay for backing tracks (karaoke versions)?

4.) Is audio on surveillance legal?

5.) Is it legal to audio record doctor visits in a state with a one person consent law when it comes to audio recording? (doesn't apply to Nevada)

6.) My band wants to record "Hotel California" can we?

7.) Is secretly recording to prove harassment illegal?

8.) When does copyright start? Do I have to register the work with the government?

Early off one of the questions I asked him was, my band wants to record “Hotel California” can we? In which Thomas responded, “From what I believe songs are copyrighted for the time the author is alive and a bit after”. “Today, A copyright is valid until 70 years after the death of the works last living author or, in the case of works owned by a corporation, the copyright lasts 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter” (p. 507). One question that really started to get him talking is, “Is it legal to audio record visits in a state with a one person consent law when it comes to audio recording”? After talking with him I now know that the Federal Government makes all doctor files private, so in the end you simply cannot record audio when you are at a doctor’s office without their consent. One of the last of the questions really got his attention, “Is secretly recording to prove harassment illegal?” If the person didn't know they were being recorded then you generally can’t use it as evidence in court. He did mention a scenario with sexual harassment and how it might be an exception that would get pushed by the defendant in a law suite.

Legal Authority

“We depend upon laws for safe communities, functioning economies, and personal liberties. An easy way to gauge the importance of law is to glance through any newspaper and read about nations that lack a strong system of justice. Notice that these countries cannot ensure physical safety and personal liberties. They also fail to offer economic opportunity for most citizens. We may not always like the way our legal system works, but we depend on it to keep our society functioning.” (p. 4)

             I was able to take the time to sit down and talk with Attorney Thomas McGrath who has been in the industry for quite some time now.  He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1987, and later was awarded his Juris Doctor at UC Hastings College of Law in 1992. He works as the Regional Managing Attorney for American Family Insurance Company at the moment, this was a promotion he had just received.

At first he wasn't completely sure he would be best suited to answer my audio related questions and suggested I contacted his brother which is a Patent Attorney for Microsoft. Given Thomas is my mother’s Fiancee I decided to see if I could get some good information from him first. The whole process took me about thirty minutes which was a little longer than I expected but he was really able to answer my questions in a quick and understandable way.

They are right when they say attorneys like to talk a lot because he didn't want to seem to stop. One subject would somewhat steer off into another which actually made it very interesting. I felt the questions I had to ask relating to audio were actually quite significant and made him ponder a few different situations that could and have actually happened, making him come to a maybe conclusion to a few of my questions which was interesting. It seemed like he took the same approach as the book uses for the questions I asked, turning them into various law suits. 

WEEK 8 EOC: Ten Questions

Does my curch have to pay if the choir sings “Spirit in The Sky”?

Does Weird Al Yankovic need permission to do his parodies?

What royalties do you have to pay for backing tracks(Karaoke versions)?

Is audio on surveillance legal?

Is it legal to audio record doctor visits in a state with a one person consent law when it comes to audio recording? (doesn’t apply to Nevada)

My band wants to record “Hotel California” can we?

Is secretly recording to prove harassment illegal?

When does copyright start? Do I have to register the work with the government?

Who needs to give permission to “American Idol” for the songs the contestants sing?

Can I use that song?

WEEK 7 EOC: Progress Towards a Laywer

I am completely grateful for the fact my mothers fiancée Thomas McGrath has been a lawyer for quite some time now. There has been a couple of different times he has represented me, every situation being traffic related. He graduated first from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in English from 1985 through 1987. He then went on to receive his Juris Doctor at UC Hastings College of the Law from 1989 through 1992. As of right now he is the Regional Managing Attorney for American Family Insurance Company. My mother also works in the industry, currently working for a company called Litigation Services. So I was thinking about getting ahold of a few lawyers that she is in touch with and maybe compare different opinions they might have. I feel really confident if I cant talk with any of the lawyers from my mothers side I can get a lot of great information from Thomas. Should make for a really good final project.

WEEK 6 EOC: Illicit Trade

Cheap knockoffs are found absolutely everywhere, the chances of the Loui Vuitton purse a lot of women wear these days is usually anything but authentic. These are the types of products that produce what I would tend to believe, millions of jobs. Situations like this can go on debate forever, as there as many different ways to go about how it effects the economy and people.

An interesting problem we see are the replica cars that come from China. The government tends to believe cars that look identical to the original, are nothing alike and tend to not care what the rest of the world thinks. You just have to understand why they would do this a lot of the time. For instance, a 458 Italia Ferrari in America costs around 250,000 dollars. The same car in China costs a whopping 600-700 thousand dollars. The whole situation is ethically and morally wrong, but can be an opportunity economically.

One of the worst dark illicit trades we are facing today involves the poaching of elephants. At the rate we are going the whole population can be wiped out entirely. "It's critical the ivory action plan honors the Prime Minister's commitment, and sets out the necessary legal reforms with a clear timeline to make it illegal to buy or sell ivory," said Janpai Ongsiriwittaya, of World Wildlife Fund-Thailand (Source). Examples like this show the power that money has over everyone. The one thing you will notice when dealing with illicit trade, is the fact that the whole idea is really two-faced. The second you truly think someone is good for somebody, there is always going to be a part that tells you they shouldn’t be getting away with something like this.

WEEK 5 EOC: Apple Vs Samsung patents

     As if Samsung hasn’t had a long enough already, they are about to add to their unsurprisingly bad luck with patents lately. They are now putting themselves in the path to losing yet another case, this one being the second one of the week. It came swiftly after a smart comment was made by Samsung in reply to Apples lawyer, William Lee who said “Apple spent five years and $5 billion dollars to make the iPhone" (Source) . Samsung’s response was they could copy easily within three months. Today it seems like everybody wants to get their hands on a patent, from something so simple and illogical. The fact that you can patent a multi touch function on a smart phone is just ridiculous. One of the biggest reasons the court keeps ruling in favor of apple, is the significant trend change. Before 2007 there was no such thing as a smart phone, now everything is trying to copy the iPhone.
     he recent case this week was said to be a huge one, “Apple will be granted a permanent injunction against Samsung over some if not all of the six patents and the trade dress a California jury found infringed almost a year ago” (Source)  Said a Patent law commentator Florian Mueller. I know a lot of these can be very complicated, but they have gone completely overboard. With the sheer amount of electronics coming from Samsung, it would have to be hard to keep track of absolutely everything each team does within the brand.

     People also believe a lot of this actually halted a bit of apples sales. “Apple had suffered lost sales, but what was missing was a casual nexus to those lost sales” (Source) . As long as they had evidence of this occurrence, then it would have been a substantially big factor in the courts decision, if not the only real reason why.

WEEK 4 EOC: Edward Snowden

          With everything that has happened as far as technology comes, it was only a matter of time before somebody leaked information about the ever going power hungry NSA. I don't think he had the intention of getting money or honestly even about the people. I just think he seen this as an opportunity to get his name out there because he could do so. It was a quick decision that is haunting his life right now. After shortly arriving back to Russia, Snowden reported that, "in the end the law is winning." (Source) This goes to show the efforts that the Obama administration is taking in order to make them feel better. This is also another reason why I believe Russia is giving him so much comfort.

          Now that so many eyes are set on Snowden, along with him being one of the most wanted people on the planet. Russia decided to give him one year of asylum. I'm not exactly clear as to why he chose Russia to begin with. "Several other countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia have offered asylum to Snowden." (source) I’m not sure why countries would be willing to take a man that is so wanted by the United States. I tend to believe this is just talking the talk, and realistically they probably would have given him up to America just to be on better terms. I would like to see some sort of trial happen, but something extraordinarily new, as this situation is something we have never really seen before. This would only happen because so many of us Americans think he is simply just a whistleblower. (Source) This is among another reason why the Obama administration is doing what ever they can to get ahold of Snowden and throw him in prison.