Copyright infringement: Dealing with copyright violators

Copyright infringement is the act of violating works protected by the copyright law, which constitutes a person’s exclusive ownership in a particular work of art. When a copyrighted work is used without permission, the copyright owner may have the legal recourse to collect damages and receive share of any revenue generated from the infringed material.

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Copyright infringement lawsuits may involve an extremely expensive and lengthy process. Hence, it is crucial to hire an experienced copyright lawyer or a civil litigator to back one’s case. Having a lawyer may also help determine one’s chances of winning and decide whether the case is worth fighting for.

When dealing with copyright infringement, it is also important to have a good evaluation of one’s claim. Reviewing the elements of the Copyright Act, which defines the type of work that is infringed by the violator, ensures that the claim is valid before it reaches the court.

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In addition, one should also review whether the infringement meets a copyright exception. There are some laws, such as fair use, which allow the usage of copyrighted works for certain purposes in certain situations.

Most importantly, one has to determine the goal for instituting the lawsuit. Is it for money? Has it caused the owner damage? Does the owner want the infringer to stop using his or her materials? Asking these questions will help determine the potential success of the copyright infringement.

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Evan Granowitz is an experienced litigator based in Los Angeles, Calif. Get more insights on copyright infringement and other civil cases by visiting this blog.

What is a class action?

You may have been in a situation of feeling hopeless in winning a court case due to how big you were up against. If this was the case and there were several others with claims similar to yours, your case would have made a dent if you were part of a class action.

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Lawsuits might make you a bit uncomfortable or simply confused, and the most natural course of action is to ask someone who knows something about legal turns or Google about it. Class action is used in civil litigations to allow multiple parties to file a case based on the same legal grounds.

This type of litigation is normally applied when a person is going against big conglomerates or private entities which are assumed to employ the best legal services. A class action gives all claimants better chances of receiving compensation, and as part of this legal recourse, you can figure out the next steps legal procedures more easily than if you were doing it alone.

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One of the biggest benefits of class action is the distribution of legal costs. Lawsuits are expensive and you simply wouldn't want to go through judicial hoops if your claim for damages is relatively small. If you are involved with a class, you can get a justified claim depending on the rule of the courts.

Another is that individual suits are done on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have several complainants ahead of you and their claims are much larger than yours, you might end up facing a bankrupt company by the time you get your turn. With class action, the damages are justifiably spread to all members.

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You can try to fight alone at any given time, but if you can find other people to help your case, it will always be the best solution to take.

Evan Granowitz is a versatile lawyer who specializes in class action and other types of civil litigation. Get to know more about the law by visiting this website.

REPOST: Colorado lawmakers working to close loopholes in legal marijuana law

This article from FoxNews.com talks about the efforts of Colorado lawmakers in resolving the issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana consumption in the State.

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Months after the launch of legalized retail marijuana in Colorado, the state is still trying to better regulate the drug and close the loopholes. 

Gov. John Hickenlooper, as part of that effort, just signed a new law calling for uniform packaging of edible marijuana. In an effort to make those products less attractive or accessible to kids, they will have to be sold in opaque, childproof packaging. 

State Rep. Daniel Kagan, who co-sponsored the legislative fixes, explained: "We identified these problems and we sought to tighten it up, to make sure that marijuana is really kept for adult use and kept away from under-aged persons and especially from toddlers." 

Kagan added, "We do it differently in Colorado. Everybody came together on this."

Children's Hospital, based in Aurora, has weighed in on the legislative efforts -- reporting an increase in emergency room visits and patient admissions from accidental exposure.  

Dr. Sam Wang, pediatric emergency physician, said symptoms range from basic sleepiness to more severe cases, where children have not been able to breathe properly and required breathing tubes. "As recreational marijuana goes forward, it's obviously going to increase availability and potentially increase unintentional exposures as well," Wang said. 

Other fixes signed by the governor on Monday include giving authority to pot shops to confiscate forms of identification, if they have reason to believe someone underaged is using a fake ID.  Another measure calls for local jurisdictions to submit fingerprints to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the purpose of conducting fingerprint-based criminal record checks on people working in marijuana businesses.

State Sen. Linda Newell, a Democratic co-sponsor, acknowledged their work is not done. "We will probably find these clean-up bills as we go through the years after marijuana, both medical marijuana as well as recreational marijuana, has become a norm in Colorado," she said. 

The issue of stoned drivers is another trouble spot for state lawmakers. At a laboratory certified to test blood samples for marijuana, the director told Fox News there is not a roadside test, such as a breathalyzer, in the foreseeable future for determining if a driver is under the influence of cannabis. 

"One person may have a very high THC concentration in their blood, particularly medical marijuana users, and they're not affected. Where someone who has never smoked marijuana before, will have a much lower concentration and be very affected," said Dr. Robert Lantz, of Rocky Mountain Instrumental Laboratories.

According to state Marijuana Enforcement Division Public Information Officer Julie Postlethwait, Colorado has issued licenses to hundreds of vendors, including:

-- 183 retail stores

-- 238 retail cultivation facilities

-- 44 product manufacturers (i.e., edibles)

-- 4 testing facilities (for product potency and contaminants)

Dozens more are pending with the state in these categories. For those with state licenses in hand, they may not be open yet because they have to obtain paperwork at the local level, too.

Local permission can be thorny because Amendment 64, the state constitutional amendment which legalized recreational pot, left it up to municipalities in the Centennial State to decide whether to allow marijuana businesses within their borders.  

Dale Dyke and Chastity Osborn, a husband-and-wife team who converted their home into a bed and breakfast, complained that the "laws are very gray." Their business Get High Getaways was catering to marijuana tourists until the City of Lakewood ordered them to shut down the overnight stays. One complication is that while Colorado legalized recreational pot, the state left it illegal to use the drug outside in public or in traditional hotel rooms. For now, the couple is maintaining their location as a car service while working with investors to purchase a new location.

Recently, a marijuana job fair in Denver drew thousands of people with lines stretching a few blocks long. It has been referred to in local media reports as a "green rush."  

Visitors told Fox News they're moving to the state in hopes of finding jobs in the marijuana business. Shane Wylie and Matthew Bean are among them. They drove 1,300 miles from Louisiana, just in time for the fair.  

"This is our life-changing experience, this is our big step and career change," Wylie explained. Bean added, "I want to start from the bottom, so I can learn everything."

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This Evan Granowitz blog site contains news and updates in and out of the legal arena.

REPOST: Pitt, Duquesne Law schools rise in U.S. News rankings

U.S. News and World Report released its latest list of the best law school across America, with University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University moving up the list, as compared to last year's rankings. Read more from this article:

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Both the University of Pittsburgh Law School and Duquesne University School of Law moved up significantly in the annual ranking by U.S. News and World Report, released Tuesday.

Pitt, which dropped in last year's ranking from 69th to 91st, moved up 10 spots in the latest survey to No. 81, tied with nine other law schools.

Duquesne, which made the list last year for the first time in a decade, coming in at No. 144, moved up to No. 121 on this year's list, in a five-way tie.

The dean of Duquesne’s law school said the university’s improved ranking is likely due, at least in part, to its consistency in a time when many law schools are struggling to maintain class sizes.

“We made a conscious decision, with the strong support of the university, that we weren't going to sacrifice our high standards just to fill seats,” said Ken Gormley. “That has financial ramifications, but we stuck to our guns and decided to stay focused on our mission of developing educated, ethical lawyers.”

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The report, which uses criteria including students' acceptance rates, job placement rates and law school admission test scores, examined 194 accredited schools.

U.S. News and World Report doesn't immediately provide all the data behind a school’s ranking, noted Pitt Law School Dean William Carter, so it’s hard to be certain about why any given school fared the way it did.

But, he said, the jump in Pitt's ranking probably can be attributed to its increased job placement success and the fact that the school held its median scores steady on the law school admission test, or LSAT.

Yale University topped the list for the second year in a row, followed by Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Chicago.

As for how significant the rankings are for students choosing a law school, Mr. Gormley said most prospective students are aware of the U.S. News numbers. “But I think in most cases, they are sophisticated enough to figure out much of this is a PR tool,” he said. “Most professional schools’ reputations, unless you’re Harvard or Yale, are regional. But [the rankings] do contribute to developing an image both regionally and nationally.”

Mr. Carter said while he was “gratified” that Pitt had risen in the standings, it would not have an impact on what the school is already doing. “I remain resolute in my view that U.S. News rankings should never be treated as the single metric by which applicants evaluate a law school,” he said.

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REPOST: Court: School was within its rights to ban U.S. flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo

The court's verdict on the school that banned the use of U.S. flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo is out. Read about it from this CNN.com article. 

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(CNN) -- A California school that stopped students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo didn't violate their constitutional rights, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

The school's approach, according to the appeals court, kept students safe in a climate of racial tension.

"The controversy and tension remained," a panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in their opinion, "but the school's actions presciently avoided an altercation."

School officials were worried about violence and disruption of school activities "and their response was tailored to the circumstance," the opinion said.

The case dates back to May 5, 2010, when the principal of Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, asked a group of students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn their shirts inside out or take them off.

The students at the Northern California school refused, according to the appeals court's summary of the case, and later brought a civil rights suit against the school and two administrators, arguing that their rights to freedom of expression, equal protection and due process had been violated.

Judges said the civil rights case forced them to weigh the difficult question of what takes precedence: students' free speech rights or school safety concerns?

According to court documents, the incident occurred amid "ongoing racial tension and gang violence within the school, and after a near-violent altercation had erupted during the prior Cinco de Mayo over the display of an American flag."

The previous year, court documents said, a group of students carrying a Mexican flag had clashed with students who hung an American flag from a tree and chanted "USA" on Cinco de Mayo, a holiday marking a famous Mexican military battle that is often celebrated in the United States.

In 2010, the appeals court said, "threats issued in the aftermath of the incident were so real that the parents of the students involved in the suit kept them home from school two days later."

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REPOST: Judge: Spying on NJ Muslims by NYPD was legal

Surveillance on Muslims in New Jersey is deemed legal by the court. Read about this news on SeattlePI.com.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that theNew York Police Department's surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey was a lawful effort to prevent terrorism, not a civil rights violation.

In a decision filed Thursday in federal court in Newark, U.S. District Judge William Martini dismissed a lawsuit brought in 2012 by eight Muslims who alleged that the NYPD's surveillance programs were unconstitutional because they focused on religion, national origin and race. The suit accused the department of spying on ordinary people at mosques, restaurants and schools in New Jersey since 2002.

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 Martini said he was not convinced that the plaintiffs were targeted solely because of their religion. "The more likely explanation for the surveillance was to locate budding terrorist conspiracies," he wrote.

The judge added: "The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself."

Farhaj Hassan, a plaintiff in the case and a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq, said he was disappointed by the ruling.

"I have dedicated my career to serving my country, and this just feels like a slap in the face — all because of the way I pray," he said.

The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and the California-based civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, which represented the plaintiffs, also called the decision troubling.

"In addition to willfully ignoring the harm that our innocent clients suffered from the NYPD's illegal spying program, by upholding the NYPD's blunderbuss Muslim surveillance practices, the court's decision gives legal sanction to the targeted discrimination of Muslims anywhere and everywhere in this country, without limitation, for no other reason than their religion," CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy said.

The lawsuit followed a series of stories by The Associated Press based on confidential NYPD documents that showed how the department sought to infiltrate dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups in New York and elsewhere.

Martini faulted the AP for its use of the documents.

"The Associated Press covertly obtained the materials and published them without authorization," he wrote. "Thus the injury, if any existed, is not fairly traceable to the city."

The AP declined to comment on the ruling.

The city's Law Department also declined comment. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had been staunch supporters of the surveillance programs, saying they were needed to protect the city from terrorist attacks.

A similar lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn is still pending.

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REPOST: Boston Bombing Prosecutors Will Seek Death Penalty

If convicted, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, primary suspect on Boston marathon bombing last year, may face the death penalty. Continue reading here:

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U.S. prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he’s convicted of the bombing at last year’s BostonMarathon that killed three people and injured 260, the first deadly terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

The decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was announced yesterday by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz in Boston. Ortiz said Tsarnaev’s intentional involvement in the “especially heinous” attack, his lack of remorse and his betrayal of the U.S. justified a death sentence.

“The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Holder said in a statement. There have been only three federal executions since the penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s, the most prominent of which was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Federal cases that can carry a capital sentence are reviewed by the attorney general, who decides whether the government should seek a post-conviction penalty phase where a jury decides whether to impose death. Holder’s decision was reached after hearing arguments from Tsarnaev’s defense team.

Tsarnaev, a 20-year-old former college student, pleaded not guilty in July to 30 counts, including allegations he killed a university police officer in the days after the bomb attack. The office of the federal public defender in Boston declined to comment on the death-penalty decision. The government may set aside capital punishment if a defendant agrees to a plea bargain, often one with a sentence of life without parole.

Death Poll

A Boston Globe poll in September found that a third of city residents backed the death penalty for Tsarnaev, while 57 percent supported a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said that while he supported the process used by Holder to make his decision, he remains opposed to capital punishment.

“As state representative, I voted against the death penalty. If I was asked to vote on that today, I would vote the same way,” Walsh said at a press conference at city hall yesterday. “We are a city full of heart and courage, and we stand together as one Boston in the face of evil and hatred.”

A Russian immigrant and ethnic Chechen who is now a U.S. citizen, Tsarnaev was inspired by al-Qaeda and motivated by the U.S. military’s killing of Muslim civilians, the government claimed.

He’s charged with leaving homemade bombs in crowds near the marathon’s finish line on April 15. His older brother, who allegedly helped mastermind the plot, was killed after a shootout with police in an ensuing manhunt.

The explosions killed three people: Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, Lu Lingzi, 23, and Martin Richard, 8.

‘Hardly Surprising’

“It is hardly surprising that the government will be seeking the death penalty,” said Mark Pearlstein, a former prosecutor in Boston who’s now a lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery LLP. “In doing so, the legal proceedings will be greatly complicated and will take much longer to complete.”

Massachusetts doesn’t have a death penalty. Executions under U.S. statute take place by lethal injection at the death chamber at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Tsarnaev is being held in a federal medical facility in Ayer, Massachusetts. He faces a Feb. 28 deadline to decide whether to seek to move the trial out of Boston.

“Eric Holder chose to speak for the nation as a whole, rather than for just Boston or Massachusetts,” said Daniel Filler, a professor at Drexel University School of Law in Philadelphia. “Massachusetts residents, the jury, will make the final call about imposing death,” said Filler, who created a capital defense clinic while at the University of Alabama.

Officer Shot

In addition to the bombing deaths, Tsarnaev is charged with killing Sean Collier, a police officer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Collier’s shooting at point-blank range on the evening of April 18 set off an overnight manhunt that led to Tsarnaev’s capture and the death of his brother, Tamerlan, 26.

Holder’s decision drew an objection from Amnesty International USA.

“Capital punishment contributes to a cycle of violence and it is outrageous that as the world moves away from the death penalty, the U.S. federal government has decided to seek a death sentence,” Steven Hawkins, executive director of the human rights group, said in an e-mail.

Three days after the bombing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released pictures of the brothers taken near the scene of the blasts, before authorities had identified them.

Three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s friends recognized him, prosecutors said. They were later charged with conspiring to obstruct a federal probe into the attack by hiding or destroying evidence. All three have pleaded not guilty and face trial in June.

‘Especially Heinous’

Tsarnaev “committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner,” Ortiz said in a filing yesterday in federal court in Boston.

She listed aggravating factors to back the call for a death sentence, including the planning that went into the attack and the selection of an “iconic event” known to draw large crowds.

Additional factors were the multiple killings, the death of a child, Tsarnaev’s statements encouraging others to commit acts of terrorism and his participation in a shootout with police on April 19, according to the filing.

Tsarnaev received asylum from the U.S. and enjoyed the freedom of being a citizen, Ortiz said. He “betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people,” she said.

The case is U.S. v. Tsarnaev, 13-cr-10200, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).

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US government sues security firm for fraud

The U.S. government joined a suit against a security firm involved in issuing security clearances to unqualified personalities.

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United States Investigations Services LLC (USIS) is the largest provider of background investigations to the federal government. Its security solutions are implemented for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Defense (DOD), Office of the Personnel Management (OPM), and the intelligence community. The private firm was created as part of a process to reduce the size of the civil service.

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According to the complaint, the company did not go through its mandate of quality background investigations thus, violating the Federal False Claims Act. It was found that USIS issued a fraudulent clearance for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. Snowden’s case is not part of the complaint, though, and is only one of among 665,000 known cases. Despite the alleged security lapses, USIS still sought payment for all of its supposed services. Its contract with the OPM in 2012 was for $253 million.

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Blake Percival, the whistle-blower and a former USIS employee, bared that the company “dumped” and “flushed” cases starting 2008. This practice was perceived to boost revenues for the company and meet its committed volume. USIS has cornered two-thirds of the volume allotted for contractors and more than one-half of background investigations performed by the OPM.

Evan Granowitz is an experienced litigator based in Los Angeles, Calif. Go to this Facebook page for more updates in the legal arena.

The alternatives to civil trials

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Civil cases arise due to disagreements between people, businesses, and other entities including the government. Lawsuits usually progress through a few steps from the pleadings, to the discovery, and then a trial. Sometimes, an appeal may be made. Apart from trials, however, there are other ways for two parties to deal with their disputes.

While the alternatives may not result in the final resolution of the dispute, they may still prove to be valuable to the parties involved because they can save on time and expenses. It is best to take into account the desirability of these alternatives in order to avoid any unnecessary expenses in seeking remedies for the quarrel and to allow for their timely implementation. 

The first alternative is a settlement. Even without outside help, the parties involved may be able to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. Many cases settle before they even reach the trial stage but the option is still available to both parties at any time during the litigation process.

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The second alternative is mediation. It is more common for entities involved in civil litigation to seek the involvement of a neutral third party to assist the settlement efforts of both sides. The mediator can help both parties identify the risks involved in pursuing their case and how those risks could affect their goals. Still, the mediator does not have any authority to force the parties to agree on the settlement.

The third alternative is arbitration. Less formal than a trial, arbitration is an adversarial proceeding wherein the entities involved select a neutral third party, present their evidence, and argue their case. The arbitrator then decides which party wins. When parties agree to settle their dispute with binding arbitration, the downside is that they cannot appeal the arbitrator’s ruling to a court.

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Evan Granowitz is a civil litigator who works for Wolf Group LA. For more news and articles about the civil litigation process, follow this Facebook page.