Supreme Court Case

A peer-to-peer company was selling software that enabled file sharing between users on the internet claiming that it could be done as the internet was a free enterprise. MGM and other major production companies felt that the free trade of copyrighted material was illegal and they should be compensated for it. Because it’s on the internet, the company’s “GROKSTER LTD.” and “StreamCast Networks, Inc.” felt they had no legal obligation to upholding copyrighted law as it was a trade between peers on the internet with no legal contracts being held, sort of like if I was give a friend a burned CD of music I purchased, but on a much grander scale. The case was presented on March 29, 2005 and the Decision was given on June 27, 2005. The companies were upheld for copyright infringement.
Cornwell University Law School: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-480.ZO.html
European Digital Rights: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.13/p2p

3

3 names I have been called: Jordy, Shorty and Spaceman. The first is an old family nickname of mine, the second is what my friends from high school called and still call me on account of the height, and Spaceman is from when I was a little kid id space out sometimes and just think about completely random things so I was always said to be in “space”.

3 jobs I have had in my life: Electrical Architectural Engineer, Website Administrator, and Clerk.
I worked for my friends dad when I was younger and did electrical drafting for him and got paid a menial fee but when you’re 15 it was big money. As a website administrator all you do really is make sure nothing breaks and people are following the rules. I’m still a clerk for a family business.

3 places I have lived: To be honest I’ve only ever lived here in Las Vegas. The longest I spent anywhere else was a month in California when I was younger going down the coast with my grandparents.

3 TV shows that I watch: Family guy, Robot Chicken and Venture Bros. They’re all adult humor cartoon shows but I can’t get enough of any of them, they’re just too damn funny.

3 places I have been: Dumont Sand Dunes, The Bahamas, and Maui. The sand dunes are sublime in my opinion as long as you have a functioning quad and some friends to go out with to just race around. My parents won a family trip to the Bahamas when I was younger so we went there for a week and the same with Maui when I was in 8th grade. 2 weeks in paradise.

3 people that email me regularly: Under Armour, Amazon and the Art Institute. I buy some clothing from under armour because it breathes really good and is extremely good racing clothing. Every once in a while I buy something and they email me for a month afterwards. And the school is kind of self explanatory… I don’t really get emails from my friends, its either a call or a text from them.

3 of my favorite foods: Tacos, Pizza and Teriyaki. They’re sooooo good! Who doesn’t like tacos, pizza and teriyaki? Communists, that’s who.

3 cars I have driven: 1999 Chevy Silverado, 2004 Chevy Avalanche, and 1998 Chevy Duramax. My family’s really big on Chevy’s, and that’s kind of all we own.

3 things I am looking forward to: Graduating with a degree, doing good on this game project I’m working on and getting a well paying job. It’s all kind of self explanatory but I really am looking forward to getting out of school and working in the field with a well earned degree, and the first step is doing good on this gaming project I’ve been offered a spot on.

18 billion dollars in bonuses.

“Wall Street” is a movie set in 1985 about the greed and corruption involved in the market required to make so much money you cannot possibly spend it. A famous quote from the movie is “Greed is good” referring to how greed is what built our country and greed is how we can make it stronger ten-fold. Today we have our own crisis about greed in the market in the form of bonuses being given out to companies in an accumulative 18 billion dollars. It was a recently disclosed to me that Nevada is the leading state in foreclosures, leaving 1 in 10 students in Clark County alone functionally homeless. The fact that 18 billion dollars in tax money if not personal money would be given away to workers with enough of a salary to live off of, while people in Nevada are helpless because their jobs were terminated and there literally are no jobs left to take, is a disgusting fact to me. One billion dollars by itself could do so much good in this state let alone this county that it could truly make a heavy impact, but is given out as incentive to those who should have enough of an incentive already being in such a high profit industry. You don’t see professors asking for bonuses year by year just as an incentive to continue teaching; you don’t see waitresses and waiters asking for an extra 100,000 a year just so they can continue to properly serve those who they should be already. It’s a gross understatement to state that you should be paid an extra accumulative 18 BILLION dollars just so you can continue to properly do your job and earn your own money. There should be an addition to the Madoff smash doll in the form of the executives of AIG who decided it would be a good plan to imploy RIT's to banks left and right until the path was lost and the financial system folded into itself.

The Underlying Truth

There is an underlying theme within our society of a need and want for justice, but a lack of courage and trust in those charged with upholding the law. “I for one am ever amazed at the ability of our legal system to be the foundation for all laws that have subsequently been passed along the years without caving in and falling apart outright.” – Zappia, Rocco M http://zapmanroc.blogspot.com/ “I understand that we have to have laws for everything but it seems that every law has an exception to everything so if you have a good attorney those exceptions will come in handy.” - Polo, Dianne http://vidaddesign.blogspot.com/ “There are times when I think of the law and it seems to be nothing but a hindrance to the way most of us live our lives.” - Thomas, David M. http://afrobirdproductions.blogspot.com/ We as a Society would love to embellish the idea of having a corrupt free Government, with politics that work simply for the good of the people and laws that are upheld to the umpteenth degree. But we are also a realistic people, we know this isn’t the case, and we know this will never be the case. We deal with what we are given knowing that we have one of the greatest judicial systems to have ever graced this fine earth and we’re grateful knowing that more often than not we are saved from an injustice. But it is simply that, more often than not. An estimated 10,000 persons imprisoned are innocent of the crime they were convicted of committing every year! In a country of 300,000,000 plus, that may not seem like a lot but it is a gross injustice to our lives and our Government. There is the “look over your shoulder” mentality with the police and court system for a reason.

Crimes and Torts in "Used Cars"

Jordan, Angel, Tristan, Adrian
Crime1 Assault with a deadly weapon
Crime 2 Illegal distribution of stolen goods
Crime 3 Bribery
Crime 4 Perjury
Crime 5 Solicitation of drugs
Tort 6 Vandalism
Crime 7 Battery
Crime 8 Speeding
Crime 9 Hit n run
Crime 10 Not yielding to a construction worker
Crime 11 Obstruction of justice
Tort 12 Contempt
Tort 13 False accusation
Crime 14 Driving in a non designated area
Crime 15 No seatbelts
Crime 16 False advertising
Tort 17 Judge is incompetent to run court
tort 18 Destruction of property
tort 19 Illegal tampering with private property
Crime 20 Sexual harassment
Tort 21 Trespassing
Crime 22 Stopping on a freeway
Crime 23 Selling goods without a license
Crime 24 Not safely secured in the vehicles cab
Crime 25 not yielding for a cop
Crime 26 disorderly conduct in a courtroom
Crime 27 driving on the wrong side of the road
Crime 28 driving without insurance
Crime 29 False Documentation
Crime 30 Attempt at monopoly
Tort 31 Selling under a false pretense
Tort 32 defamation of character
Crime 33 under aged driving
Crime 34 assault
Crime 35 illegal gambling
Tort 36 slander
Crime 37 trade libel
Crime 38 Holding a hostage
Tort 39 Negligence

Myspace Hoax Week 2

Have you ever gone to a URL linking in any site and seen crude or threatening behavior? Have you ever gone to a site and wondered why it was still operating and the government hadn’t simply come in and shut it down? The U.S. government has no authority over the public and free domain of the internet. It has been this way since conception and although there are plans in action to attain some sort of balance of power from the site surfing, trojan implanting, spyware inducing misguided sleuth and the powers that form and maintain our way of society so we can at least attain some sort of control over certain sites. The Myspace Hoax in November of 2007 involved a parent helping her 13 year old daughter create fictitious account to bait another 14 year old girl into a relationship with no true person, following it up by defaulting on the relationship and telling her that the world was better off without her. Even though it was known by the mother helping her daughter that the other girl had several serious mental issues, she followed through and was an accomplice throughout the entire forming, hooking, relationship and break-up. Thereafter the subsequent actions resulted in the 14 year old girl committing suicide by hanging. Should the mother be prosecuted? Should she be let free? Without a true grasp on certain sites like Myspace or Facebook she was only help with fraudulent character in falsifying someone who wasn’t real and breaking the user terms of service agreement. This case is extremely relevant to the 1981 movie Absence of Malice, wherein a reporter uses illegally obtained information to post a discrediting news article about an upstanding citizen who is under federal investigation without previous knowledge. This movie well states that in a time before internet and the free realm illegally and hidden information could be used (if proper precautions were taken) in a discrediting way simply to sell newspapers. Simply trying to contact and receive indignation of the information and not being able to contact the subject would abstain you from libel, therefore allowing you to print anything of any nature about said subject on said topic. Was the informant giving the information at wrong? Was the newspaper company wrong by not properly trying to attain truth from the subject? Where do we draw a line and give case by case exceptions to libel, slander and discrediting information or intent and put the foot down? When do we say, “You intentionally aided in causing more mental distress on an otherwise extremely mentally distressed person leading to their suicide. You are hereby charged for 1 count of manslaughter”. Or when do say, “You purposefully printed information that would ruin this mans life without trying to get the story from his point of view. You are hereby charged with 1 count of libel”. The sad truth is that our court system is to hung up on petty details to try and correctly prosecute each case because it’s held up by its our stipulations.

Lawyers

The Lawyer. A noun used to describe someone who has attended a law school (online or otherwise) that is supposed to uphold the law moral or otherwise to the tee in a court of justice. A real lawyer is someone hired by a plaintiff, defendant or the State to give the rational and legal opinions on behalf of the hirer. They may make underhanded or unethical calls and deals with the other lawyer or judge in order to make their case possibly not the best it could be but in order to keep costs to a minimum, or they may try to uphold justice to its fullest potential in order to carry out a moral and ethical standing in the courts. Unfortunately seeing as how not only Daniel Webster but John Adams are dead, we don’t as a society have much of a chance or receiving such wonderful lawyer ship. The public opinion of lawyers is that they are backstabbing slime sucking dirt bags that would do anything to get paid and move onto their next case to make the next bundle of cash. I personally don’t think of lawyers in such undeserving terms or ways but I don’t believe all lawyers have a sense of justice equal to that which I would consider prime. There are also many types of lawyers in our society; Civil, Marital, State, Appellate, District attorneys and so on and so forth. The ones that are most spoken of are the District attorneys. Upholders of the law against the ravages of primal barbarians, scum of the Earth who deserve nothing better than a cold dank death. The opinion of these “DA’s” greatly vary depending on what side of the court you happen to be on when you see them, or which episode of Law and Order you happened to watch the night before. The lawyer is an enigmatic and cloudy character with skewed senses of right and wrong on certain scales, but they generally always start with a high chin and a correct sense of duty, only to be faltered and corrupted by the practices of firms across America, and firms across the entire civilized world.