Decision of the Court

In the case of MGM v Grokster the court unanimously decided that Grokster was liable for copyright infringement. Grokster was ordered to pay 50 million dollars.Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
"The question is under what circumstances the distributor
of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is
liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties
using the product. We hold that one who distributes a
device with the object of promoting its use to infringe
copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative
steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the
resulting acts of infringement by third parties."

Issues of the Case

The main issue of this case is that people are getting copyrighted works such as software and music without paying for them. There is no doubt that these people have stolen the files, but the company that made the software has no control of what people share on the peer-to-peer network. The main factor that decided the case is did the company that provided the software advertise it for the use of copyright infringement. The Court held that “one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” http://www.copyright.gov/docs/mgm/index.html. if the company advertised that you can get music or software for free than they are liable for anything that their users do, if they did not advertise in any way then they might not be held responsible for infringing on the copyright act.
Another issue is that when people had problems opening copyrighted files they would email the provider and they would help them to make use of the file.“Respondents have sometimes learned about the infringement directly when users have e-mailed questions regarding copyrighted
works, and respondents have replied with guidance.” http://www.copyright.gov/docs/mgm/syllabus.pdf. This does not look too good for the company because it shows that they knew what was going on and they didn’t do anything to stop it, in fact they made it worse.

Eoc Week7

MGM v. Grokster,
Argued 3/29/2005, Decided 6/27/2005
Grokster is a free software that you can download off of the web, it allows people to “share” digital files between computers. MGM sued Grokster for copyright infringement because the users of the software were using it to infringe on the Copyright Act and MGM was accusing that Grokster intentionally developed the software for that purpose . The software was allowing billions of files each month to be shared between peer to peer networks.

EOC Week 6

I think that everyone has a different view of what they consider greed. Some people might think that a person that makes a six figure salary and doesn’t give back to the community a greedy person, but others might say that the person earned that money and they should use it to buy what they want, no matter how ridiculous or unnecessary it is. In the movie Wall Street greed is taken to an extreme, A company is taken over by a new CEO and he liquidates all of the assets within the first month of owning it and takes like 75 million dollars and destroys the company within the month. That means that he put all of the employees of the company out of work just for his own personal gain. That is taking it way too far.

The movie Wall Street has some similarities in today’s banking industry when it comes to greed, the COEs of the banks gave themselves huge bonuses while the banks were going under, people were losing their homes, and the economy was in a recession. In these cases greed is not good, because greed is what helped destroy these banks and the economy, if these people weren’t so greedy than the state of their businesses and the economy might be in better shape, Greed is not good.

Smath up doll George Bush

EOC Week 5

After reading a few blogs written by other students I found that everyone wrote what they thought about lawyers based on their experience with them. If they had a pleasant experience than they were more sympathetic towards lawyers and wrote positive things about them, for example in Michael’s blog he had a DUI and the lawyer that he got cut him a deal and reduced his ticket from $3000 to $600. If they had a negative experience with the law they tended to write bad things about lawyers for example; “they charge to much money and they don’t do what there suppose to or what you hire them for.” http://vidaddesign.blogspot.com/.

In Michael’s and Dianne’s blogs it seems when they wrote their blogs they wrote from experience, I also read Stacia’s blog and she wrote from a very different perspective because it doesn’t seem like she has had any experiences with lawyers. She didn’t really take a side, she pointed out the good and the bad things that lawyers do. One line she writes ““…lawyers are really hard-working and know their stuff. They will go the distance for you to get your case solved…” then the next "They give into bribery and condone anything that is immoral or unethical to get the monetary gain they seek.” http://enviousdesigns.blogspot.com/. I agree with Stacia more than the other blogs because she doesn’t have any biased and I think that’s the best way to approach something.

EOC Week 4

Gustavo Ibarra, William Cross, Matt Gonzales

Smoking in non-smoking area- torte
False advertising-torte
Battery in bar-crime
Tampering with video- torte
Gambling on football game- crime
Destruction of property- torte
Bribing government official- crime
No seatbelts- torte
Bribing witness- crime
Perjury at the stand- crime
Threatening the defendant- crime
Jaywalking- torte
Sexual harassment- crime
Assaulted driver Ed teacher - torte
Unlicensed driver- torte
Uninsured cars on the road- torte
Riding in the back of trucks- torte
Littering as car parts fell- torte
Dog in the front seat of car- torte
Speeding 77 in a 50- crime
Unsafe lane changing- torte
Hit and run cop car- crime
Betting on toy race cars- crime
Drinking on the job at the car dealership- torte
Speeding through construction zone- crime
Driving off road- torte
Failure to pull over- crime
Assault with deadly weapon (gun) - crime
Running a police roadblock- crime
Car surfing- torte
Dog in public with no leash-torte
Cars crashing in dealership-torte
Running a railroad sign- crime
Punching guy through glass (battery)-crime

EOC Week 3

I do not believe that the United States legal system is effective as it should be. The system is much more sensible than a lot of other countries, but it still needs some work in my opinion. In order to defend yourself in a court of law you have to know all of the ins and outs and loopholes there are or get a good lawyer. If you are arrested for a crime you didn’t commit in this country and you don’t have good representation you will most likely be found guilty.

“Some of our laws came from sources that were not originally concerned with human freedom.” (Essentials of Business Law, Liuzzo, pg. 8). In order to make a majority of people somewhat happy with the legal system there must be compromise. For example in the case of Roe vs. Wade there was a compromise, that case made some people upset, but others were pleased with the decision. I think that the quote is saying that people can’t have complete freedom, and there has to be compromise, because complete freedom would be anarchy.

I also think there should some more amendments to the constitution, it needs to be updated because things are different than they were back in 1776 and the U.S. constitution has only been amended 27 times. Overall I am grateful for the system we have but, I think it needs a little reforming and changes.

EOc Week 2

Most of the time articles in the newspaper don’t accuse people of committing a crime, they just insinuate because if they flat out accuse someone of something the paper can be sued. In a recent case a woman and her daughter set up a MySpace account pretending to be a young man named josh, and they made the girl next door fall in love with this fake boy and they had the boy break up with her. Shortly after the break up message was sent the thirteen year old girl killed herself. This case is a great example of why kids should not be able to go online without supervision, because the person that they are chatting with could be anyone. It is also completely outrageous that the mother was in on the hoax and wanted to humiliate a 13 year old girl.

EOC Week 1

I think that most lawyers are money oriented rather than morally oriented. There are a few exceptions though, for example; public defenders don’t have much to gain financially because their clients can’t afford to hire an attorney, but they try to help these people and I admire that, the problem with public defenders is that they usually are not the greatest attorneys and take on more cases than they can handle. In my opinion if these public defenders had a chance to work at a big firm and make a lot of money they would take the job even if they did not agree morally with the practices of the law firm.

If you want to be a lawyer and make a lot of money you cannot have any morals or at least pretend you don’t, because in some cases you need to defend the person that is guilty or someone that you don’t agree with morally. Most of the time the judicial system favors the side that has the best lawyer and the most money, which goes hand in hand. A good lawyer can make a guilty man look innocent and an innocent man look guilty and the lawyer will take whatever side offers the most money to them.

The only way to get decent representation in a court case is to have enough money to hire a good lawyer, there are not a lot of “fair” trials for that reason because you can pretty much buy a case and that is how the court system works. So basically what I am trying to say is that most lawyers out there are sleazy bastards that just want your money, and it doesn’t matter if your guilty or innocent, they will defend you if you offer them enough money.