EOC: Week 11: Forced Choice

1. Cameron, Kylie
Kylie’s project blog posts was very good read, it had all of the requirements needed for this project.
 
2. Reininger, Zachary
Zach’s was very informative but he should of chose other color besides the color red for the quotes, because it was hard to read a thin red text on a dark gray background.
 

3. McGivern, Joy

Joy’s Project Blog post was so informative and easy to understand.

4. Stephens,Briana Lynne
I like how she chose a bigger text size, because it was easier for me to read, but she misspelled final on her label.
 
5. Khwaja, Amer

Amer’s project was okay, I think it could have been better, but he did have all of the requirements.

 

6. Sua, Christopher

I thought mine was okay, I thought it could have been better, but definitely not the worst and I should of read the direction more carefully, because I color my entire text instead of just quotes.

 

7. Munns, Lisa Jae

Lisa’s had something missing in her final project and should work on the title as well, because I was confused by the title, I thought she miss labeled her blog, but she didn’t.
 

8. Booth, Alicia

I like her project, but not sure it that’s 1500 words and I had the same problem where the lawyer didn’t know all of the answer, because they aren’t in that field.
 

9. Carrillo, Andrea Elizbeth

Andrea’s was missing 3 blog posts required for this project and obviously didn’t have 1500 words and definitely need more info.

My Own Argument and Opinions

I agree with most of these laws. I wish the international copyright life span last longer, “In the book it says, “This protection must last for at least the life of the author plus 50 years.” Infact I wish copyright would last forever until the world ends, but I understand, I mean once you’re dead than you can’t do anything if anyone steals it. In the U.S. the life of the, “copyright lasts between 95 and 120 years.” I think both U.S. and International copyright law should last the same at least. Especially if the with internet being so international. U.S. citizens isn’t the only ones that uses it. That’s my only argument to the entire copyright system.

Rule of Law

In the book it says, “Copyright law protects a variety of original expression, including art, sculpture, literature, music songs, choreography, crafts, poetry, software, photography, movies, video games, video, websites, architecture, and graphics. Protection occurs automatically—that is, you acquire copyright once you fix the work in a medium—but this automatic protection can be enhanced by registering the work with the U.S. Copyright Office.” In other words your no one is allowed to steal your work, but if you want more protect register. A work can only be copyrighted if it’s an original work and for it to be recognized an an original work. In the book is says, “It must be original—that is, the author must have created rather than copied.” So I don’t think any fan art can be protect by the copyright so keep that in mind. “It must be fixed in a tangible (concrete) medium of expression—for example, it should be recorded or expressed on paper, audio or videotape, computer disk, clay, or canvas.” And lastly, “It must have at least some creativity—that is, it must be produced by an exercise of human intellect. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. To give an example, it must go beyond the creativity found in the telephone white pages, which involve a nondiscretionary alphabetic listing of telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings.” The only things copyright laws do not protect are ideas and facts. The book says, “it protect only the unique way in which ideas or facts are expressed.” So if you have a great idea for an art and you don’t want people to steal that idea, don’t spread it online or tell your friends and secretly apply it on your art. That’s the only advice I can give. What about an international copyright law? Does it apply the same way as it does here in the U.S.? Well, they are very similar due to several of international treaties. The most important treaty for artist are the Berne Convention. In the book it says, “Under this treaty, all member countries (in excess of 100 countries, including virtually all industrialized countries) must afford copyright protection to authors who are nationals of any member country.” but the international copyright protection doesn’t last very long, it only last about 50 plus years. Another thing that helps out with the international copyright law is GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). In the book is says, “GATT treaty contains a number of provision that affect copyright protection in signatory countries. Together, the Berne Copyright Convention and the GATT treaty allow U.S. authors to enforce their copyrights in most industrailized nations and allow the nationals of those nation to enforce the copyrights in the United States.” So to put things short, yes, your art will be protect in most countries. Just because you created it doesn’t mean you own it. In the book it say, “If a work is created by an employee in the course of the employment, the work is called a “work made for hire” and the copyright is made by an employer.” For example Spielberg doesn’t own Jurassic Park, but Universal owns it. “If the work is commissioned and the parties sign a written work-made for hire agreement, the copyright will be owned by the commissioning party.” And “If the author sells (“assigns”) the copyright to someone else, the purchasing person or business owns the copyright.” Well what happens if some one steals/copies your work? What action can you take? Well, in the book it says, “In the even someone infringes the exclusive rights of a copyright owner the owner is entitled to sue in federal court.” There are three ways to ask the court if your work is infringed. This book says, “Issue order (restraining orders and injunctions) to prevent further violation.” You can also “Award money damages if appropriate.” Or you can, “In some circumstances, award attorney fees.” Be careful of what you take off the internet for your own use thats all I can say. It only time a copyrighted work be used without an owner’s permission is when “a copyrighted work are considered fair use.”

Reasoning of the Law

The copyright law is important, because media is not physical creation like a sculpture, it is what you see. So the only way to protect your creation is through a copyright. It has even gotten more important after the creation of the internet. On the internet people can stay anonymous and steal people’s work off they internet. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 helps the creators protect their work on the internet. In order to protect your work, you must get for a copyright especially if your a filmmaker like me. In the book it states, “ Motion pictures are entitled to copyright protection under the audiovisual work category and may be registered with the U.S. Copyright.” The motion pictures are being protect in Copyright Act of 1976, both film and animation are being protect by this Act. In the section 101 of the act, this section is also mentioned in the book as well, “Motion pictures are audiovisual works consisting of a series of related images which, when showing is succession, impart an impression of motion, together with accompanying sound, if any.” So even a stop motion animation and silent films are protect by this act. You don’t have to register to a get a copyright. In the book it says, “Registration is not required to obtain copyright protection; that occurs automatically when a work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Nevertheless, registration is recommended. Even though there’s a copyright law, there are people out there who will try to steal your work. So what do you do it that happens? Well, the lawyer that I talked to told me this, “Notify them of the violation, and demand that they cease. Of course, in anticipation that they do not comply with your demand and you have to proceed with a civil lawsuit, it's best to send your demand by certified mail in order to prove that you attempted to resolve the issue outside of court.”

The Questions

These question are of interest to me, because will be a filmmaker, so I’m very worried about my intellectual property taken without permission specially with the internet where anything can be taken so easily. My questions mostly involves copyright because, I would be working for a studio like Universal and Paramount so I won’t be actually owning anything. It will belong to the studio that I work for at that time. If I were to remake the movie Jaws, I would be working for Universal and Universal would own that rights. so my ten questions were:
1. How can I tell if someone has used my work without my permission?
2. What action should I take if someone steals my work or use without permission?
3. Is it a copyright infringement if I use a clip of the movie for my own work?
4. Does my copyright offer protect from other countries?
5. How long does my copyright protection last?
6. How can I make sure that an idea hasn’t been copyrighted, so I won’t end up stealing?
7. Do I have to publish my work first in order to gain copyright protection?
8. How can I prove that a person has taken my work?
9. How can I prove that my work is an original work?
10. How can I tell that a sound effects or a video are public domain?

Legal Authority

I made contact with Lucien Cravens, he’s one of my dad’s friends. Lucien specializes in Accidents, Bankruptcy, Criminal Defense, and Divorce. Lucien Craven is a retired U.S. Air Force and can speak Japanese. He started working for U.S. Air Force in 1985. In 1992 he graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and in that same year he started working at Japanese Ministry of Education. He left that job the next year. He left the Air Force in 1999. He graduated from William S. Boyd School of Law in 2001. He was in vacation when I contacted him, but he was still cool with answer questions for me. My dad messaged him asking if it’s okay, to answer couple of question for me and of course he said yes. so thats how I made contact with him. I think he is a great lawyer, for him to answer my questions while he’s in vacation is saying something. Even though he doesn’t specialize in Intellectual property, he went through the trouble of answering them. So if you need help with Accidents (Personal Injury), Bankruptcy, Criminal Defense, and Divorce, This is the guy to talk to I think. All of my dad’s friends have been cool so far to talk to. I don’t think it would be a pain on contacting him.

EOC: Week 10: Lawyer Jokes

Q: Why did God invent lawyers?
A: So that real estate agents would have someone to look down on.
http://www.iciclesoftware.com/LawJokes/IcicleLawJokes.html

A man who had been caught embezzling millions from his employer went to a lawyer seeking defense. He didn’t want to go to jail. But his lawyer told him, "Don’t worry. You’ll never have to go to jail with all that money.” And the lawyer was right. When the man was sent to prison, he didn’t have a dime.
http://www.ahajokes.com/law003.html

How many personal injury attorneys does it take to change a light bulb?             

• How many can you afford?
• Three - one to turn the bulb, one to shake him off the ladder, and the third to sue the ladder company.

http://brainden.com/lawyer-jokes.htm

Q: What do you call a lawyer gone bad?
A: Senator.
http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Lawyer.htm

Q: How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
http://www.jokesandhumor.com/jokes/225.html

EOC Week 8: Bratz Brawl

Mattel and MGA Entertainment went to court, because Mattel claimed that Bratz was part of their intellectual property. Because the guy who designed Bratz was working for Mattel at the time and therefore Mattel owns the sketches, at least that’s what Mattel has said. Mattel and MGA had been in court for years, but in April of 2011, Mattel has lost the case. Carter Bryant a guy who designed Bratz has said that he came up with the design in 1998, when he was living with his parents. Mattel did not own the original sketches for Bratz. In the article by The Wrap says, “Mattel had claimed lost wages between $314 million and $544 million in the current trial.” And MG was awarded $3.4 million for damages for trade-secret theft. It looks like Mattel were able to stop Hasbro from copying their idea with Hasbro’s G.I. Joe line, but looks like Mattel couldn’t stop MGA, which I think is very interesting. And it was all because of Mattel not owning Bratz designs. It’s cool to see that Mattel won’t be the only ones making dolls for girls. It seems like Bratz is more popular with girls more than the Barbie dolls. That’s probably the true reason why Mattel wanted to take MGA to court. Bratz had their own movie, TV series and songs and Barbie only had few movies. So I think that’s one of the reason why Bratz are more successful right now. Mattel should research more, but now since they’ve lost money it would be impossible right now.

Week 8 BOC: Progress in getting a lawyer

I’m still in a progress in getting a lawyer. My parents apparently know a lawyer, but they don’t know what he actually does as a lawyer. So I’m not sure if he’s a real lawyer.  I have already made my ten questions to ask for that lawyer. I will contact him this week and hopefully I will get to talk to him and get to know him. This project started off pretty badly because my dad told me that I’m not doing this project, since I have to talk to a lawyer. But now everything is okay and I can talk to my lawyer. I hope that lawyer would able to talk to me, if I can then this project would get very difficult for me. After I talk to the lawyer then the project would get easier from there. All I’m worried about is contacting the lawyer, because this is the hardest part about this project.

EOC Week 7: Plans

I think this will the toughest school project I would ever do. Hearing that it is not easy to get a lawyer to talk to you. I’m already nervous about this. Hopefully my family would know a lawyer. If not I would have to ask my friends. If my friends don’t know any lawyers then I would have to search on the internet for a local lawyers that would talk to me. I might start with the lawyers that just got started since, they would need to build up their ego. Since every lawyers study every law in the book, they should know about intellectual property even if they aren’t focused on that field. But before I do all that I will have to come up with ten questions for the lawyer according the directions for this project. ten questions that are related to my interests. Since I am focusing on my Digital Filmmaking and Video Productions major. My question would have to be based around that. I will have about three weeks to do my project, so on week 1, I will come up with 10 questions related to my major. Week 2 I will have to contact a lawyers and get my questions answered, hopefully that won’t take too long to do. And my last week I will put everything together. Hopefully it will work out for me. This will tough, but I will have to give it my all, in order to complete this important project for this class.

EOC Week 6: Illicit

My hobby is to collect action figures. I never bought knock-offs because it breaks so easily and the company who makes the products will lose products. But now watching the documentary “Illicit: The Dark Trade” I will never ever buy knock-offs of any kind. People can get killed from these trades. People just don’t realize what they buying. If it’s cheap and looks real, people will buy them. Knock-off seems to be everywhere, so what people should do is to look up where they are buying from. Places like Ebay are harder to source, so those kinds of sites are risky. People who buys knock-offs and is aware that it is fake, Should watch this documentary. This documentary really opened my eyes to this dark trade. Even though I never buy knock-offs, I never realized of how bad, buying knock-offs were. It is scary and people should be aware of these things. If the price of the product are too good to be true, the chances are that it is fake and should avoid it. When are buying knock-offs, you’re not just hurt to company. You are hurting the people that are working in these unfortunate jobs. Just be careful of what and where you’re buying from.

EOC Week 5: Patent Trolls

I have just read an article on Patent Trolls. I think when this lawsuit happens, the trolls and the company both are at fault. The Patent trolls has no right suing something that they don't even own. And the company needs to check if they still has the rights for a patent or else something like this would happen. For those who don’t know who that patent trolls are. “Patent trolls is a disparaging term for someone who sues for patent infringement, but who does not make or sell any products using they patented technology. There is a friendlier term for them that I don’t use for 2 reasons. Patent trolls are easier to remember and Patent troll is a right word for them in my opinion. “A friendlier term for the practice is patent assertion company.” Like I said Patent trolls are easier to say. “Patent trolls typically rely on the fear of permanent injunctions to elicit licensing fees.” A way to avoid patent trolls are to check if you still have the rights to the patents. I don’t like patent trolls at all.

EOC Week 4: Jeopardy

My jeopardy experience in my class was great. I had lots of fun. Watching Jeopardy shows aren't fun at all, but actually playing jeopardy it's so fun. I learned a lot of terms in a process as well. Some of my classmate seems like they are taking the game too seriously, but other than that it was fun. I believe playing a great jeopardy people should just relax and have fun and it’s the same with all of the other games like basketball, football, soccer and etc. The students seem to get angry when they are losing the game. Which I think isn’t cool at all. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t play jeopardy that often, but thankfully  there weren’t any fights over it. There weren’t any cheating claims, but there were some “This isn’t fair!” moment. I was afraid because I’m playing jeopardy with people that I don’t have a lot of past interactions with. I do play jeopardy with my friends sometimes and when we do it is fun. But this jeopardy wasn’t bad at all. Jeopardy is a great way to study for tests.

Week 3 EOC: Stolen Valor Act

Stolen Valor Act says it's a federal crime to falsely claim that you have no military honors when you really have not, but apparently that's not the case by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says it's protected by the first amendment and that people can lie about anything. This can cause a lot of people because that means any company can falsely claim something and sell them to the public. For example, a company can falsely claim that it can cure cancer and somebody can stop them because it's protected by the 1st amendment and they can totally ignore the regulations. The first amendment needs to be regulated, if not the United States can be in a lot of trouble. If it’s not regulated then people will think that it is okay to yell “Fire!” at the movie theaters. A five year old kid will think it okay to say “bitch” to his/her mother. It will get bad for our country. Other countries already look down on us, this would make this worse than it already is. The people of the United States already has enough rights, it wouldn’t hurt to have more restrictions.

Week 2 EOC: Erin Brockovich

I have watched Erin Brockovich and researched the facts on the PG&E case. In the article from L.A. Times says that PG&E has agreed to pay $295 million settlement. PG&E have apologized to the Hinkley citizens. It is nice that they have apologized, but many have birth defects and many other diseases because of this pollution. It was an issue that PG&E have noticed, but didn't bother to do anything about it until it's too late. And knowing what the lawyer thought about the victims, this is brutal. I wish lawyers cared about their clients. I never liked lawyers even before learning about this case. Some of the lawyers are so greedy. It seems like lawyers only care about money and only care about their ego. I wish we had more people like Erin Brockovich, people who actually about their clients. The lawyers who are so greedy are unacceptable in my opinion. Many people don’t like lawyers and this is the reason why. Having people like Erin Brockovich are one of the rare moments they the lawyers care about the people. The people who are going into law, don’t be one of those greedy clients and be like Erin Brockovich.

Week 1 EOC: Voice

My name is Christopher and I currently a student at the Art Institute of Las Vegas majoring in Digital Filmmaking and Video Production. I was born in Tokyo, Japan. Even though I was born in Japan, I was raised here in Las Vegas for almost my entire life.I am a filmmaker.In my free time I film reviews mostly about toys, because one of my hobby is collection action figures and model kits. I post my reviews on Youtube. When my friends ask me, “What is your favorite movie of all time.” I say “none” because I love movies and can’t just make one. Other than watching movies, I love watching “making of” and Behind the Scenes that originally sparked my interest in filmmaking. What made made that interest set in stone was during high school. My friends and I got a Julius Ceaser project, so what my friends and I did was that we made a modernized version of Julius Ceaser and everyone in my audience loved it and so did my english teacher. But that movie has been lost, sadly. The other film that my friends and I did was a sniper film simply called “The Sniper” and it had no lines, it was just about 2 snipers shooting that each other. People who have watch this short little movie loved this one too. So I made a decision to become a filmmaker. My passion is to entertain my audience. I also want send message about life, what people should or should not do, so that the people would live a better life. I know that it won't work all the time, but that won't stop me from doing what I like to do. The genre that I focus on are action/adventure and drama. I want to touch people's heart with my films. My drama genre films will be about a true events. My action/adventure genre will be all fiction. I hope you will enjoy my films as I enjoyed making them. What I see lacking in current action films are that there are no stories and if there are it’s a really bad story. I want to change that when I become a filmmaker. I want to make a film with a really good story. I want the character to be lovable and even hated instead of just being there. We are at the age where the CGI are very cool and there for these movie studios focus on the EFX rather than the story itself. CGI are infact cool, but they have to have a story to them. Why are they there? How to characters feel about them? How does it effect the story? Those are the elements that the current films are missing. We always get a movie like Transformers and Battleship where they only focus on the CG and not those elements. We also get a drama that is not relatable and the audience don’t focus on that. So I want to change that.