Blog Post

Caitlin Holland

Today’s news is often overcome with vivid imagery of war in the middle east, the upcoming Presidential Election, and other important topics. Yet, one recognizable name seems to be in the news more than all of the rest- Taylor Swift.

Swift is again making headlines for being the topic of conversation. Earlier this year, The pop singer was widely reported on because of an alleged invasion into her privacy when rapper Kanye West, and his Wife Kim Kardashian West, shared a recording of a phone call with Swift, seemingly without her consent. Oscar winner Jared Leto, who most recently played the Joker in this summer’s hit, Suicide Squad, is the latest celebrity to be embroiled in a spat with the infamous Swift.

Unique to this situation is Leto’s legal claim to prevent notorious gossip company TMZ from releasing leaked footage. The footage shows Leto listening to Taylor Swift’s album, seemingly for inspiration for his own band’s music, and dismissing her and her music. Leto’s production company, Sisyphus Touring Inc., brought suit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California claiming that they owned the copyright to the work under work made for hire.

In copyright law, the work made for hire doctrine gives the copyright interest to the employer rather than the creator when the work was made within the creator’s scope of employment.

The District Court held that despite the existence of a written contract, there was no written agreement signed before the footage was filmed. In fact, the work-made-for-hire contract was signed about three months after the footage was filmed. Therefore, Leto’s production company cannot claim that the leaked recording was a work made for hire and therefore cannot claim the copyright. The court cited the controlling case for the Ninth Circuit which states that the work made for hire contract has to be made before the creation of the work. In other words, the contract signed after the creation of the work cannot act retroactively, nor can it work to transfer the rights to the work unless specifically stated.
The use of copyright to restrict the use of a protected work is not unique. Many copyright owners have succeeded in using the monopoly of copyright ownership in order to effectuate censorship. Leto’s  use of copyright law, if it had been successful, would have been the latest in a series of copyright claims made to effectuate censorship which is directly at odds with not only the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, but with the Copyright Clause of the Constitution which empowers the United States Congress to promote the progress of the useful arts, not to restrict it.

Lishayne King

In the past, American democracy has often been referenced with respect to the technological developments that define it. Examples of references that have been used to allude to the 2016 campaign include: the Snapchat election, the meme election, or the Facebook election. Curiously, however, the current campaign has been identified not by modern or advanced technology. Rather, the current election season has been described by much older technology, e-mail.

Recurring conversations have focused on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and the vulnerabilities and dangers that e-mail poses. While e-mail allows for a centralized station for communication, it also provides a false sense of security, failing to remind us that an e-mail can “[reside] on every device that every recipient ever downloaded it on.” Given the many people in different locations that may be involved in a campaign, the convenience of e-mail becomes apparent. Had the Clinton campaign utilized a more current form of technology, such as Slack or Signal, its private communications may not have been as susceptible to seizure.

However, efficiency and security may have better served the Clinton campaign through face-to-face meetings.

Source: Farhad Manjoo, Whoever Wins the White House, This Year’s Big Loser Is Email, New York Times (Oct. 19, 2016), http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/whoever-wins-the-white-house-this-years-big-loser-is-email.html?_r=0.

Justin Farooq

Oral arguments by opponents of President Obama’s Climate Plan were heard last Tuesday, September 27, 2016, in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.   President Obama’s marque climate change policy has considerable political, economic and historical impact.[1]  Its legality, which is widely anticipated to eventually be decided by the Supreme Court, could rest on a legislative mistake in an unclear provision of a 26-year-old statute.[2]  The mistake in the law at issue here, State of West Virginia, et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, involves an amendment to the Clean Air Act passed by Congress in 1990.[3]

The Clean Air Act of 1970 is the legal basis of Obama’s Clean Power Plan. An ambiguous provision in that act, Section 111(d), gave the E.P.A. far-reaching power to regulate unknown future contaminants.[4] When the act was passed, carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant.[5]  In 1990, when Congress passed the new Clean Air Act, it amended Section 111(d).  The amendment passed by the House said that if the E.P.A. was already regulating power plant pollution under a separate law, it could not use Section 111(d) to generate new regulations, which would essentially double regulate, but the amendment passed by the Senate, conversely, did permit such double regulation.[6]  When the two bills were combined, Congress forgot to remove one of the disagreeing amendments and thus President George Bush signed it into law with both amendments in place.[7]

Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, and a leader in coordinating the legal opposition to the plan, said, “The E.P.A. is going beyond what it’s authorized to do by Congress and essentially creating new law.”[8]  The consequences of the decision could be monumental.  If the law is struck down, the United States will lose its ability to slash greenhouse gas productions, and if upheld, it will forever change the electricity system, shutting down hundreds of coal plants and creating a comprehensive shift to wind, solar and nuclear energy.[9]

 

[1] Coral Davenport, Obama Climate Plan, Now in Court, May Hinge on Error in 1990 Law, The NY Times (Sep. 25 2016), http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/us/politics/obama-court-clean-power-plan.html.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Id.

 

[1] Kevin Penton, Supreme Court Urged To End Laches Defense In Patent Cases, Law 360, https://www.law360.com/ip/articles/852823/supreme-court-urged-to-end-laches-defense-in-patent-cases (October 19, 2016, 4:13 PM).

[2] Id.  See also, 35 U.S.C.A. § 286.

[3] See Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1962, 1970 (2014).

[4] Id.

[5] Penton, supra note 1.

[6] Id.

[7] Bill Donahue, High Court Gives ‘Raging Bull’ Copyright Suit 1 More Round, Law 360, http://www.law360.com/articles/538794/ (May 19, 2014, 10:17 AM).

Jonathan Ziarko

As the new technology of VR (Virtual Reality) is becoming widespread throughout society people are discovering new and innovative ways to use it. The technique known as, Clinical VR, is being tested as a coping mechanism for chronic pain as a substitute to pain medication.[1] The importance of this new technology cannot be understated. It is estimated that one in five people in developed countries will have to deal with long-term chronic pain.[2] In addition to that chronic pain costs the United States around $560 billion a year in lost productivity and healthcare costs.[3] Although the VR gear is quite expensive its usefulness in the area of pain management could be a game changer in the medical industry.

The technique using virtual reality immersion to, in essence, distract patients from the extremely painful care that may be going on around them, such as wound cleaning.[4] The patient’s brain simply cannot take in the visual information around them as usual and they have something else to focus on other than the care being provided. Some researches have found that the use of Clinical VR can reduce a patients perceived pain by as much as 24% which is close to the same decrease seen with the use of narcotics.[5] However it does not help everyone and most physicians are being careful right now to not oversell the value of it.[6] It is still an emerging technology but it could become something we see in all hospitals very soon.

 

[1] Sophia Stuart, These Doctors Are Incorporating VR Into Pain Management, PCMag (Oct. 6, 2016, 08:00 AM EST), http://www.pcmag.com/news/348386/these-doctors-are-incorporating-vr-into-pain-management.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Rachel Metz, Better Than Opioids? Virtual Reality Could Be Your Next Painkiller, MIT Technology Review (July 18, 2016), https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601911/better-than-opioids-virtual-reality-could-be-your-next-painkiller/.

[6] Id.

Shamsheer Kailey

Researchers from MIT’s CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) have developed a device that can determine human emotions by analyzing reflection in wireless signals. The device, called EQ-Radio, does not depend on emotional cues rather uses wireless signals that bounce off of human body. The reflection measures breathing and heart rate of the human and the information is used to predict the emotion state of the person as being happy, sad, angry, or excited.

EQ-Radio’s success rate in detecting emotions is higher than its rivals such as Microsoft’s Emotion API. In a sample size of 30 people between the age of 19-77, EQ- Radio correctly guessed emotions 87 percent of the time. The leader of the project, Dina Katabi, said that they hope this technology can be used to monitor and diagnose medical conditions such as depression and anxiety.

It could serve as a less invasive way to monitor patient’s heartbeat thus, minimizing the need to be hooked to monitoring devices. This technology could also be used by TV and movie studios to read what parts of movie worked in focus groups, and smart homes could change the music based on the person’s mood.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

­­­­­­­­­­Mary Beth Griggs, Wireless Sensors Can Detect People’s Emotions, Popular Science (September 20, 2016), http://www.popsci.com/wireless-sensors-can-detect-peoples-emotions.

Emma Fusco

Last Tuesday, a healthy baby was born in Mexico to a Jordanian Couple.[1]  What makes this birth so spectacular is that this child technically has three parents.  This was the first live birth of a child using a technique that is banned in the United States.[2]

This technique involves traditional sperm and egg, plus additional DNA from a third party donor and used when one parent has mutated mitochondria that would affect the child’s health.[3]  The mitochondria are separate from the DNA that determines a child’s inherited traits so, if the mitochondria contain mutations, this can result in fatal diseases that often kill babies with a few years.[4]

In order to do this, DNA is removed from the egg of the mother containing the mutated mitochondria, and is placed into the egg of a healthy donor after removing that donor’s nuclear DNA.  That egg is then fertilized.[5]

Initially, the couple had gone through two bouts of trial and error through a less invasive technique, but their first child died at age 6, and the second at 8 months.[6]  The couple was then referred to a fertility center in Mexico since this procedure is banned in the United States.[7]

This successful birth raises the question of when this technique will become legal in the United States?  Plenty of other countries are implementing this procedure and are far past the research stage.[8]  For many couples, this is the only way to conceive a healthy child.  Perhaps if the United States doesn’t lift this ban on this procedure, many more couples will be going abroad to conceive.

 

[1] Gina Kolata, Birth of ‘3-Parent Baby’ a Success for Controversial Procedure, N.Y. Times, Sept. 28, 2016, at A4.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Kolata, supra.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

Xiang Qi

Shares of Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s largest banks, slopped by 7.5% in European trading and closed at $11.85 after U.S. Department of Justice proposed last week that it pays a 14 billion dollar settlement in light of a mortgage-securities investigation.[1] Although the Bank’s spokesman Jörg Eigendorf denied that Chief Executive John Cryan has sought help from the German government, it has always been the German government who ended up pay for these settlements. [2] Ever since last year, Deutsche Bank’s share price has been decreasing in both European and U.S. stock markets as a result of repeated settlement with the DOJ.

Speculations have it that DOJ reached its astronomical number of settlement in retaliation of EU’s taxes of 14.5 billion on Apple on September 1st. It is no coincidence that the amounts involved in both cases are almost equal as the EU committee is led by countries like Germany and France. These settlements unfortunately has placed Deutsche Bank’s riskiest debt securities under pressure, besides its market shares. Its $2 billion worth of certain additional Tier 1 debt fell about 2 Euro cents on Monday, to around 73 cents on the euro. [3]

There are mainly two reasons that helped establish Deutsche Bank’s feud against U.S. authorities. The first one is German government’s attitude towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Angela Merkel’s hesitation to support TTIP has undermined credibility and feasibility of ratify the agreement between EU and the U.S. despite years of efforts in negotiation by the U.S.

The second reason is that the German and French led Euro-zone has not been willing to execute a new round of quantitative easing (QE). The European Central Bank again refused a QE motion on this month’s EU general council meeting. This decision has put the Federal Reserve on a tough spot as the return of U.S. debts has been climbing by 24 percent within the last three month. Chancellor Merkel’s domestic policy has also led to its party’s approval rates slumping among the young voters. Merkel and her cabinet had to be very discrete as they deal with the transatlantic relationship with the U.S.

 

[1] Jenny Strasburg, Deutsche Bank Shares Drop on Fears of Capital Raising, The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/deutsche-bank-shares-drop-on-fears-of-capital-raising-1474881370

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

 

Nick Dellefave

Apple is again making headlines, this time for an iPhone defect that has touched thousands of iPhone users and is likely to affect many more. The defect, known colloquially as “touch disease,” has been the subject of numerous complaints from consumers, experts, and Apple employees.[1] Touch disease involves a loss of functionality of the touch screen, typically in the form of frozen phone screens or screens that are unresponsive to touch, rendering the phone unusable.[2] The issue is characterized in particular by the appearance of grey bars across the top of the iPhone screen.[3]

Touch disease is apparently a consequence of “bendgate,” a structural design problem that causes the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to bend.[4] The bending, which is caused by the iPhone 6’s thinner profile and a change to a less rigid rear case, results in the bending and twisting of the internal logic board during day-to-day use.[5] The logic board can experience slight deformation when the iPhone is pulled from a pocket, put into a tight-fitting case, or dropped.[6] Gradually, after being bent and flexed thousands of times, the Touch IC chips – two controller chips responsible for the functionality of the touch screen – begin to dislodge from the logic board.[7] This causes the “misfires” that are behind touch disease.[8] The problem is especially prevalent in the iPhone 6 Plus, because it is larger than the iPhone 6 and is thus more prone to bending.[9]

The Touch IC chips in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are connected to the logic board via small solder balls, the separation of which is responsible for the loss of touch screen functionality.[10] In previous iPhone models, the chips were covered with a rigid metal shield and reinforced with underfill, while in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the shield was replaced by a flexible sticker shield and no underfill is used for the Touch IC chips.[11] In the newer iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the Touch IC chips were relocated to the display assembly and away from the flexible logic board.[12]

While Apple has made changes to prevent the bending and screen functionality issues in its newer phones, as of this writing, the company has taken no action to remedy what appear to be the long-term consequences of this defect.[13] Apple Store employees report that Apple is aware of the issue, but for customers whose phones are no longer under warranty, the repair costs $329.[14]

At least one class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States on behalf of owners of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.[15] Others have been filed in Canada.[16] The US suit accuses Apple of violating California’s consumer fraud statutes as well as the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act.[17] The plaintiffs in the suit request that Apple repair, recall, and/or replace iPhones affected by touch disease, as well as extend the warranties for all iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users for related issues.[18]

It may be in Apple’s best interest to take these steps, lawsuit or no lawsuit. As a high-end brand that thrives on its reputation for quality, Apple would likely be severely impacted by the negative publicity resulting from the revelation that an entire generation of its products is susceptible to a design defect. With the iPhone 7 hitting store shelves and the holiday season just around the corner, maintaining that reputation is of critical importance.

 

[1] Jason Koebler, Geniuses Say Apple Knows About iPhone 6 ‘Touch Disease’, Won’t Admit It Publicly, Motherboard (Sept. 27, 2016, 10:30 AM), http://motherboard.vice.com/read/apple-employees-company-is-hiding-iphone-6-plus-touch-disease-truth-from-customers?utm_source=mbfbads&utm_campaign=interest.

[2] Julia Bluff, A Design Defect Is Breaking a Ton of iPhone 6 Pluses, iFixIt (Aug. 23, 2016), http://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touch-death/.

[3] Id.

[4] Anthony Cuthbertson, iPhone 6 Design Flaw is ‘Bendgate 2.0’, Newsweek (Aug. 25, 2016, 12:19 PM), http://www.newsweek.com/iphone-6-design-flaw-bendgate-20-493428?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=incontent&utm_medium=related1.

[5] Bluff, supra note 2.

[6] Koebler, supra note 1.

[7] Bluff, supra note 2.

[8] Id.

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Bluff, supra note 2.

[13] Koebler, supra note 1.

[14] Id.

[15] iPhone 6 Touchscreen Defect, McCune Wright LLP, http://mccunewright.com/iphone-6-touchscreen-defect/.

[16] Sophia Harris, ‘Piece of Crap’: Apple Hit With Proposed Class Action Lawsuits Over iPhone ‘Touch Disease’, CBC News (Oct. 2, 2016), http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/apple-touch-disease-iphone-6-class-action-1.3786930.

[17] Chance Miller, Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over iPhone 6 ‘Touch Disease’ Hardware Issue, 9to5Mac (Aug. 29, 2016), https://9to5mac.com/2016/08/29/apple-iphone-touch-disease-lawsuit/.

[18] Id.