Your own arguments and opinions

 

   When it comes to the Gaming Industry there are a lot of concerns when starting your own business. What do I need to have to register as a business? How do I protect myself and my ideas, and products? The most concerning topic that I will definitely ask my lawyer. Is if I were to create a videogame with Violent aspects and a person in real life were to act out and hurt someone. Am I held liable? I have seen many articles and news segments with adults and children who act out and Videogames and/or Movies are to be blamed.

Rule of the Law

(to be updated later)

Reasoning of the law

(to be updated on a later date)

Questions

The questions that I have posted have precedence in my career. If I am going to function as a successful developer I must know these things

Legal Authority

     How I found my lawyeris I have met him when I took his Communications class during my schooling which is how I learned of his work as a lawyer. 

 

Week 8: legal questions

1)      If I had a Gaming company what would I need to obtain to expand my business  in other countries?

2) What are the necessary criteria to pursue- counterfeiting against an offending party in the court system?

3) What do copyright laws protect when it comes to “ideas” for videogames?

4) Why is it that there are games that clearly are based on another game such as CandyCrush which is based off Bejeweled, and is able to be made and sold to consumers legally?

5) How does a Gaming company and/or person(s) apply copyright laws to their videogames?

6) I have read that Mod chips are illegal to install in a hardware system due to the dismantling of the console and warranty, but there seemed to be an underlying reason (example Nintendo) What are possible legal reasons that this is so ?

7) Can Websites and/or Internet Content Providers be Held Liable for Violation of Intellectual Property Rights if they are Only Providing Links to Illegal Software and/or Other Illegal Devices?

8) How does the opinion or agreement of videogames in the Courts being treated as a true form of expression will impact the Gaming Industry?

9) What are videogames lacking to not be considered as a form of expression like movies or books?

10) If I created a videogame with a violent aspect to it and a person were to act out in real life those violent aspects could I be held liable? (most recent example: an 8yr old boy killed his grandmother after playing grand theft auto in Louisana)

Week 7: Finding a Lawyer

I imagine locating a lawyer can be difficult in the sense of a “free consultation” or to interview on a series of questions. My first steps in completing this assignment I have used the internet to find at least 9 references of contact information. Each of my 9 choices sparked an interest for me to give them call due to their description(s) that was listed for viewers to read and locate. The next course of action is  to call over the course of the days into weeks and see if I have any luck of finding someone who will agree to speak with me, but my tenth choice is probably going to be the lawyer that I will be able to interview since I have met him before so he may feel more inclined to speak with me.  Uglow is a teacher that I have had previously and he was very knowledgeable about the law and communicated fairly well when speaking about course of actions legally and just when dealing with people. What makes him more of an option is the fact that he teaches at my school and the fact  the kind of cliental that he works with makes him more of a choice for me.

Illegal Trade

Week 6: Illegal Trade

LEGAL

MORAL

ETHICAL

FINANCIAL

This has been an ongoing problem. You most likely have heard of it yourself at some point in your life or have seen knock off’s of actual products that someone is else made to sell illegally. We think nothing of it really, but what is this person or persons really doing? I know its an illegal act for them to sell to the public, but what legal issues are being raised? For starters it is violating that particular company or companies that do sell the actual product or products that are being illegally copied and sold. These transactions are copyright infringement and complete disregard of the trademark. The Companies themselves lose exponential amounts of money. Somethings that are sold however that are not “real” are brakes for cars or air bags that are sold at great expenses to only fail on that victim who bought it in the first place. This is also done to medicine products that may not do anything, but put the person at an even greater risk than they were probably to begin with.

Morally and ethically this the wrong thing to do to someone else to sell something that doesn’t work and possibly putting others in harm’s way. Taking away money from a legit company that has the legal right to their products.

 Financially these people are making A LOT of money that is tax free. Also Employing people (not all people some are slaves to these organizations) to make and sell to the public. Making the act of stoping these kinds of things from happening impossible.

Rocky Ford

The only thing that Rocky Ford can do is well of course trade mark and patent their name and product to protect themselves from such things to happen to them in the future. Now the future proper courses of action would be what any company that has products to sell to the public. Advertise, but when I say advertise I don’t  mean a bunch of bad advertisements. People see enough of those on a daily basis. They only need 1 or 2 good advertisements to get their company going, and to build up their name and export to other states. Rocky Ford could also share their safety protocols in creating safe and delicious cantaloupe melons. Thus becoming a trustworthy brand that people recognize.  Where sometimes just being recognizable is enough to have a shopper interested in purchasing a product  along with the credibility, and quality of the product. You can sell.

APPLE VS SAMSUNG

Even the title of this blog is pretty intimidating when you ultimately think about it? Two of our major mobile communication providers are "fighting" over smart phone technology. Samsung has committed at least 2 dozen of Apple U.S. patent rights.  http://phys.org/news/2013-08-patent-apple-samsung-federal-appeals.html

After reading up on this I can honestly say, "this isn't a surprising fight between companies. NOT to mention the fact that so much money is on the line here."

Apple and Samsung have been suing each other on multiple stages. It started in April 2011 -
 The Apple v. Samsung saga began in April 2011, when Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) accused Samsung of "slavishly" copying the iPhone and iPad. Samsung replied by counter-suing Apple, accusing the Cupertino company of infringing on its software patents. (http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/08/technology/mobile/apple-samsung-timeline/index.html)

In that trial Samsung basically copied much of Apple's features of design to their products which Apple was awarded a billion dollars which was reduced.
Following this trial their was a separate proceeding with the ITC on banning certain Iphone products stating that it violated certain Korean company pacts.

A countersuit filed by Apple a week later was on several patent infringements. Only to file another law suit in the California district court in February 2012.

Now what are we getting from this information? We have Apple a $108 billion dollar vs Samsung a  $50 billion dollar (from what I can find on these standings of net worth's these are correct as of now)
I am not going to say that its okay for Samsung to use another company patent because it is not okay, but this is happening for a reason. Whatever is successful in the market there will be companies that will copy the breed winner. In the court proceedings that I did mention if you happened to click on the link you will notice that neither of companies really took off their products from the market that they were being sued for. Why? Because people like options.

This is basically a battle for all the profit.

Edward Snowden

There is much controversy on Edward Snowden either he is the modern day hero or an utter traitor. Now according to some U.S. Senators this is a wide and well known program, and that this a justifiable program due to the Patriot Act http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/ The Patriot Act is a way to determine a terrorist and what appropriate action to take against a terrorist in the United States and all around the world.  (for a more descriptive information on the Patriot Act just click on the grey link). Examples of certain senators are the following:

"This is nothing particularly new," Chambliss said. "Every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this, and to my knowledge we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that Congress should take another look at the law, but suggested the outcry by some was not warranted. "Right now I think everyone should just calm down and understand this isn't anything that's brand new," he said.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/verizon-phone-records-nsa_n_3397058.html?utm_h

"I’m a Verizon customer," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during an appearance on Fox News. "I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/verizon-phone-records-nsa_n_3397058.html?utm_hp_ref=politicsp_ref=politics

Now whether you agree or not with these Senators to how ever degree of extent. I for one have heard from my peers, "Oh the government is listening..." via what ever communicational means that was said, but I have heard it all before. Emails, cell phones, and house phones. The reason I bring this up is only because I imagine my peers, friends, family are not the only citizens who feel this way. I certainly feel distrustful of government officials, so I do agree with some of the above text that is not new.

What I don't agree with are two things that I am seeing/ hearing. The first is the point this was a moment in the making from how our society is distrustful and etc. of our Officials. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/21/poll-sees-tough-count/ The link I have listed is from 2010 so I can imagine on how much more negative (hopefully positive) The American people do not participate in our government due to non interest (and feel everything is taken care of) and/or distrustful so when you hear someone say, " our government is so awful " please take a moment and inform them that our government is run by the people of the United States and we elect someone to represent us so participate and to elect more qualified people. There are not supposed to be professional Senators who remain Senator for more than 2 years. Any how the fact that the American public is angry about this invasion of privacy. Only when Edward Snowden slapped us in face with "proof" of what we have already suspected. We should of been angry a long time ago about this. My second reason is the fact that the Officials are trying to justify and pull some scapegoat with Edward Snowden. Painting an image of a traitor of the U.S. Who did this man  betray? The American People? From what I can tell the American People are happy that he validated what most had already suspected/ knew. If anything he just broke an employment contract of silence to the world on how - to - spot - a - terrorist - with cell phone intel - and what not.

 Before we start completely dismissing the Patriot Act is to understand that well it actually has a noble form of protection when you read what the purpose is. How one conducts it however is a whole other story. I say this because there is no actual "disclosure" to the American public of how this procedure was done before Edward Snowden. Some in Congress state they had no idea to what extent that this had on its citizens or that I didn't know, but that is such an excuse. What makes the Patriot Act a joke to me is the fact that it was not amended like it should of been. Did not have much rules to it. Amendments that were tried to be added to it did not fall through.

... the Patriot Act, which authorized this type of surveillance, was up for reauthorization in 2006, 10 senators voted against it. This past December, an amendment that required the NSA to reveal the number of Americans surveyed was shot down by a 43 to 52 vote. Another amendment that would have applied more transparency to the program failed 37 to 54. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/verizon-phone-records-nsa_n_3397058.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/a-patriot-act-history-lesson-how-warnings-were-mocked-in-the-senate/277612/ (a quick look at the attempt of adding amendments to the Patriot Act. Very informative I highly recommend it.)

After looking into this whole incident or scandal (whatever you call this) Did Edward Snowden do anything wrong? Yes, he did. Even though the intentions were amazing and very brave of him to do. He did reveal this not only to the American public, but the World. The ultimate purpose of that whole program was to fight terrorism around the Globe, but does this make him a bad person? No, it doesn't. He's just paying for a mistake that Congress made. Hopefully, this not only brings about a whole new way for fighting terrorism that is actually serving its purpose. Instead of invading the lives of innocent people, but it actually gets the American people to actually get involved in electing the right people to not only represent you, but to finally realize if your not going to partake in this Democracy. Do not be surprised when you lose control.