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.