Bondsman in Seminole County – Looking to use Legal Automation Software?

Source     : Huffington Post
By            : AJ Agrawal
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Looking to use Legal Automation Software?

When I entered the 500 Startups Accelerator Program, one of the top accelerators in the world, I couldn’t believe how many entrepreneurs were struggling with legal fees. To “properly” get incorporated, get an investment, and allocate options, the fees can quickly rack up. And being that this was one of the top accelerators in the world, I figured if these companies were having this problem, it must be something most startups were going through. As I dug deeper in the subject, I found that more and more founders have started turning to legal automation software to save their businesses. While having a lawyer take care of your legal work is always the best option, for money strapped entrepreneurs $10,000 lawyer fees are just no an option. So if you’re going to try the legal automation route, follow these tips before you get started. Doing some planning in the beginning will help save you tons of headaches and legal fees down the road, after you’ve built a solid foundation right from incorporating.

1. Use The Right Software

It’s important that you use established software systems that are user friendly if you’re going to try and create your own legal documents. When we were starting out, we used LegalZoom, and because so many people are familiar with their user interface it was easy to ask around for help when we didn’t know anything. The nicest thing I like about the software is once you learn how to use it; you can easily keep using the software for both business and personal documents. Another alternative is Rocket Lawyer, however, the software is much less known than others even though I’m a big fan of its ease to use.

2. Don’t guess if you don’t know

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made a mistake on legal documents. Figuring our employee stock options, creating a convertible note, or even making a privacy policy can get overly confusing. One of the greatest lessons I learned during my time in 500 Startups is how important it is not to take chances on your legal documents. If you don’t know the answer to something, find someone who does. Even if you have to pay a few dollars to get an expert legal opinion, in most cases it’ll be worth it.

3. Switch to a lawyer as soon as you can

While legal automation software is nice, it is not a long-term solution. Once you raise your first round of capital, you should immediately find a lawyer. In San Francisco, there are many law firms who will defer fees to startups they like. If you have this option, I definitely recommend taking it. Legal software is a backup plan, and should never be your primary path to getting your legal docs taken care of.

Read More : huffingtonpost.com/aj-agrawal/looking-to-use-legal-auto_b_8411438.html

Sanford Bail Bond – Legal action over vulnerable woman ends ‘without satisfactory outcome’

Source    :  Independent IE
By            :  Mary Carolan
Category : Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

Legal action over vulnerable woman ends ‘without satisfactory outcome’

A LEGAL action over the treatment of a vulnerable young Irish woman, who was returned here last summer from involuntary detention in a UK psychiatric unit, has concluded without a satisfactory outcome, the High Court heard.

She had been detained more than 20 months in the UK and reports showed she has refused to engage in recommended therapies, the courts also heard. Mr Justice Seamus Noonan said, although the reports showed she is not making progress, his hands were “tied” given his previous High Court finding she has the necessary mental capacity to make decisions about her treatment. The HSE and all the parties had acted in the woman’s best interests but, in light of the court’s findings and the fact the woman and the HSE both wanted the case to be over, he must strike out the entire proceedings, the judge said. He refused an application on behalf of the woman’s court-appointed guardian, which was supported by her father, to adjourn the case for one final review.

Liability for the costs of the case, estimated at more than €1m, will be decided at a later date. The 18-year-old woman, who has a borderline personality disorder making her prone to unpredictable episodes of self-harm including trying to take her own life, has spent almost all of the last four years in psychiatric units in Ireland and England. The €400,000 annual costs of her care in St Andrews’ hospital in Northampton, England, would have built a purpose built unit for her here, Mr Justice Noonan previously observed. Last March, another High Court judge directed an arrangement should be put in place for her return to Ireland by June 12.

The HSE later brought further proceedings arguing her circumstances had changed since that March order. Some doctors belived she could not be kept safe in the Irish services and should remain in the UK unit where high levels of security could be put in place, the HSE argued. The further proceedings, involving six senior counsel, at least three juniors and six solicitors, came before Mr Justice Noonan on more than 20 occasions, ultimately leading to the HSE accepting the woman had capacity to make decisions about her treatment.  As a result, the HSE was no longer seeking to have her detained further in England. The case raised complex legal issues related to the Irish High Court’s jurisdiction to order the involuntary detention in a psychiatric unit in England of an Irish adult with a personality disorder. This is in the context of Irish mental health legislation specifically prohibiting the involuntary detention of adults with personality disorders. The Oireachtas’ view personality disorder should not be subject to involuntary detention is shared by other jurisdictions, including Scotland and Wales, Mr Justice Noonan previously said.

The evidence was that the Irish approach to treatment of persons with personality disorder is considerably different to the approach in England, he also noted. The Irish services engaged in more positive risk taking and believed long term detention distorts normal human behaviour and makes it difficult to achieve transition to normal living. The sides later agreed last July she should be returned to Ireland on terms including appropriate facilities would be put in place for her within months. It was also noted, while there remained agreement she had the necessary capacity, the decision whether or not she engages with the services was for her to make. She had said she would do so and, after exchanges with her, the judge said she impressed him as “very bright and articulate”  with her whole life ahead of her “and every reason to live it”.

Read More : independent.ie/irish-news/courts/legal-action-over-vulnerable-woman-ends-without-satisfactory-outcome-34147045.html

Bail Bond Sanford – It’s legal to grab dinner with your dog in New York

Source     : USA Today
By            : Jon Campbell, Gannett Albany Bureau
Category : Sanford Bail Bond , Bail Bond Sanford

It’s legal to grab dinner with your dog in New York

Restaurant owners can now allow dogs on their outdoor patios because of a bill signed into law by New York’s governor this week. The new law, effective immediately, permits restaurants to allow customers’ dogs in outdoor dining areas, but only if a separate entrance doesn’t require the animal to walk indoors or where food is being prepared. The new law is one of 39 that Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved late Monday. He rejected 22 bills, including one that would have directed state money to programs that trap, neuter and release feral cats.

Before Monday, the state’s health code had prohibited canines that weren’t official guide dogs from entering eateries’ outdoor patios and decks. Along with having an outdoor entrance, a participating restaurant also must have “reasonable signage” signaling pets are allowed. Dogs must be on a leash. Dogs are still prohibited from sitting on chairs, benches, seats and other fixtures. If the dog is served water or food, it must be in a single-use container. And if a dog does happens to go to the bathroom, the law specifically requires it to be cleaned up.

“Surfaces that have been contaminated by dog excrement or other bodily fluids shall be cleaned and sanitized,” the law says. When it comes to feral cats, Cuomo weighed in against the surprisingly controversial bill, which had been at the center of a late-session flurry of lobbying before lawmakers left the state Capitol in June. The veto would have taken money from state dog-license fees and directed them toward nonprofits dedicated to neutering feral cats, which have become an increasing problem in many upstate towns and cities.

In vetoing the bill, Cuomo suggested that the program may actually be illegal. He pointed to the state Agriculture and Markets Law, which prevents dog and cat shelters from releasing an animal other than by adoption or to an owner claiming it. “(The) prevailing science suggests that (trap, neuter, release) programs are not guaranteed to reduce feral cat populations,” Cuomo wrote. “And even if they do, (they) may take many more years to do so than existing programs.”

Read More : usatoday.com/story/travel/nation-now/2015/10/27/dogs-outdoor-dining/74699106/

Sanford Bail Bond – Why ‘Sort Of Legal’ Is Not Where You Want To Be In China

Source     : Above The Law
By            : Dan Harris
Category : Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

Why ‘Sort Of Legal’ Is Not Where You Want To Be In China

It is neither easy nor cheap for a foreign-owned business to operate legally in China. The following is the most basic list of what you need to do:

1. Determine whether your business model is legal for a foreign business in China.
   2. Form and register your legal entity in China. This will typically be a WFOE, a Representative Office, or a Joint Venture.
   3. Lease property (technically, a prerequisite for the registration process above).
   4. Draft an employee manual and execute written employment agreements with all of your employees.
   5. Open a bank account with a Chinese bank.
   6. Figure out and pay all of your taxes, including company taxes, employee taxes, and social insurance payments for your employees.

Doing the above will not be cheap or easy. But it is necessary. As China is becoming wealthier (a continuing trend despite its recent slowdown), its need for service businesses is multiplying rapidly. Chinese companies are wooing Western companies with a promise of a quick and cheap (if not free) start in China, with eventual riches to be made from China’s still-thriving consumer market. The Chinese company convinces the American company that there is demand in China for the American company’s service or product and the two companies should work together to market the service or product in China. A typical scenario plays out as follows: The Chinese company convinces the American company to let it handle everything. The American company then leases space from the Chinese company, and the Chinese company hires a couple Chinese employees on behalf of what it calls a joint venture and puts the American company’s name and logo on an office door. Voila, the American company now has a business in China.

Except it doesn’t.

In “Forming A Chinese Company. Do It Right Or Do It ALL Wrong, But Don’t Do A Rep Office,” I wrote about Americans who form illegal Representative Offices because forming a China WFOE is too time consuming and expensive:

I get the sense that those contacting our China lawyers on forming a Rep Office (when only a WFOE would be legal) are hoping they have found THE loophole nobody else has found and if they can get the blessing of an attorney for what they are doing, their operating illegally in China will somehow not be “so” illegal. I wish I had some magic oil I could sell to sprinkle on these sort of illegal China businesses to make them legal, but I have no such thing.

I went on to write of how going “half-legal” is not only riskier than operating legally, but also riskier than operating completely illegally:

As lawyers we are never going to tell our client to go full illegal, but in my role as a blogger, I can state that going full illegal in China usually makes better sense than paying a lawyer and then operating half-on and half-off the grid. I think people know this, but their rightful discomfort at operating illegally makes them want to clutch on to something that can justify (however falsely) their actions.

The same holds true with forming a Representative Office when a WFOE is required. Forming a Representative Office in this situation just lets the Chinese government know where you are and what you are doing and thereby makes it easy for them to realize that what you are doing requires a WFOE and your doing it as a Representative Office is illegal.

But what really drives me crazy about all this is that on many occasions, companies for whom we have refused to form Representative Offices smugly tell us that some other company is willing to form the Representative Office for them, as though this somehow means we were wrong in declining to take money to do something we know will eventually fail. The quasi-partnerships with Chinese companies I described above are just as illegal, and having a relationship with a Chinese entity is almost certainly not going to help you when the Chinese government finds out. It is also not going to help you when one of your employees sues you and is able to point out that you do not really exist in China. Whenever I learn of one of these “fake” joint ventures, I suggest the Western company immediately register its trademarks in China because that trademark is being used in China already, but without any protection. More than once, the American company has responded by assuring me that everything was fine because their Chinese “partner” had helped with trademark registration and more than once we quickly determine that the registrations had been done in the Chinese company’s name, not that of our new client. The biggest risk with these quasi-partnerships is that when they become profitable, the Chinese company (either directly or indirectly through the government) often simply boots out its Western partner. And when that happens, the Western partner usually has no legal recourse to stop its Chinese partner from taking over the business. If the Western company sued the Chinese company in a Chinese court (pretty much the only place that might hear the case), what would it even say? “Your Honor, I know my business was here in China completely illegally, but that is because starting up a business legally here is just so difficult and expensive, but now that the business is worth millions, it just is not fair for me to get kicked out of it and for my Chinese partner to get the whole thing.”

Read More : abovethelaw.com/2015/10/why-sort-of-legal-is-not-where-you-want-to-be-in-china/

Bondsman in Seminole County – Aurous Ad-Free Music Streaming Service Was Sued By The RIAA

Source    :  IB Times
By            :  Max Willens
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Aurous Ad-Free Music Streaming Service Was Sued By The RIAA

The free music service Aurous was in the music industry’s crosshairs before it even launched, and it took less than a week of its going live for the industry to open fire. The Recording Industry Association of America, which acts as a legal enforcer for recorded music, served Aurous co-founder Andrew Sampson with a lawsuit Wednesday, charging the 20-year-old Florida resident, and 10 unidentified collaborators, with three counts of copyright infringement. On Thursday, Judge Jose E. Martinez granted the RIAA’s request for a temporary restraining order against Sampson, which prevents him and his collaborators from working on the site at all until the two parties meet later this month.

Sampson maintains that the site is on solid legal ground. He has said Aurous does not host any copyrighted material, and that it simply collates music from licensed playlists available on places like Google, SoundCloud and YouTube. But four legal experts contacted by International Business Times see the case as open and shut, and not in Sampson’s favor. “I just don’t see the courts ruling in their favor on any level,” said Wallace Collins, an entertainment attorney specializing in intellectual property.

With the music industry betting more and more of its future on the global success of streaming, Sampson ought to have expected the suit. But because he took none of the precautions that services like Popcorn Time and BitTorrent took, it’s possible that the young programmer, who told IBT in an interview Tuesday that his entire platform is built around discussions he had with lawyers, may think he has something up his sleeve. “If they didn’t have an argument for defense, they wouldn’t have done this,” said Steve Schlackman, of counsel at Savur Goldthread and the editor of the Art Law Journal.

An Inflection Point

The RIAA responded to Aurous so aggressively because the record industry is at a pivotal moment. Nearly 16 years after it first sued Napster, the world’s record labels have finally managed to get themselves into a position to embrace a new reality, in which people around the world access music instead of buying it. In a sense, it is their only option. The launch of the iTunes Music Store in 2003 accelerated the decline of physical album sales and forced labels to put their faith in download revenue, but after growing healthily through the first decade of the 21st century, revenue from downloads has begun to fall as more and more people embrace the ability to listen to virtually any song they want, on demand.

Read More :  ibtimes.com/aurous-legal-ad-free-music-streaming-service-was-sued-riaa-it-doesnt-look-promising-2142693

Seminole County Bail Bonds – Legal Tech Startups, IPOs, Fax, Time Matters And OpenOffice

Source    :  Above The Law
By            :  Sean Doherty
Category : Seminole County Bail Bonds, Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Legal Tech Startups, IPOs, Fax, Time Matters And OpenOffice

In the post “No There There For The Legal Tech Industry?” I questioned whether legal technology is a sustainable, mature industry for vendors because of the lack of programs designed by and for lawyers. I did not, however, acknowledge startups that focus on legal tech. When you look at legal-tech startups offering contract management, data analytics, legal research, workflow tools and more, there is hope that a legal technology industry will flourish and help lawyers and law firms provide efficient and cost-effective legal services. The World Bank reported that giving money to entrepreneurs in developing countries will spur high growth. The tactic should also work for developing industries like legal technology. So have you hugged a startup today or are you waiting for a more mature technology partner? Perhaps one that has had an initial public offering (IPO)? A provider of cloud-based business and legal software, AppFolio Inc., raised $74 million in its IPO on June 26. The company offered to the public 6.2 million shares at $12 per share. It is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker APPF. AppFolio develops and distributes MyCase law practice management software for small law firms. Besides client communication tools, MyCase software includes tools for tracking time, billing clients, managing cases, and assembling and managing documents. Does the IPO make it mature and a more appealing tech partner than a startup? IPOs can be risky business. One must ask, “Why offer an IPO?” Has private investment petered out? Although AppFolio enjoys robust year-over-year growth, it also has significant expenses and debt, according to its Q2 2015 financial results. After the IPO, according to Benzinga.com, the Santa Barbara, California-based company’s main stockholders, Investment Group of Santa Barbara (33.9 percent) and BV Capital (14.5 percent), will remain its primary equity holders.

Besides the IPO in practice management, in e-discovery UBIC, Inc. (UBIC) went public in 2013. But UBIC’s public offering did not usher other discovery providers into the public domain. If IPOs are indicia of stable technology partners in a mature industry, most legal tech companies are privately funded infants and the legal tech industry is nascent. We need to look elsewhere for maturity—from the inside out. Lawyers as technology consumers must continually demand increasingly more sophisticated products to compete in legal services and not simply ask for products that satisfy minimal ethical requirements of competence in representing clients. Perhaps then will we get vendors who supply a continuing flow of innovative products to make a vibrant, mature legal-tech industry?

ABOVE THE LAW’S APP EVENT

Last Friday afternoon I dropped in on Above The Law’s Academy for Private Practice (APP) and landed in the session “Break the Bottleneck: Managing Workflow,” where my fellow columnist, New York attorney and MyCase tech evangelist Nicole Black, led a panel comprised of Washington, D.C., lawyer Carolyn Elefant; Jennifer Ellis, of Lowenthal & Abrams; and Jared Correia, senior law practice advisor at Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP). The discussion included what tools to use in managing a law practice and communicating with clients. When Ellis brought up using fax technology to communicate with clients, fellow panelists showed little support and no sympathy. But fax remains a secure point-to-point (P2P) communication and a technology that is, out of the box, HIPAA-compliant. I still maintain a Web-based fax service to communicate with clients that can’t be bothered with encrypted email. But as Ellis observed, if I received faxes via email it would blow a hole in the security of the P2P fax protocol and subject it to public Internet email messaging. I receive email notifications of incoming fax transmissions from my service provider and log on to the system using a secure connection to review incoming faxes. The managing workflow session had a lively question-and-answer period. A participant had a question on what to do with LexisNexis’s Time Matters and new attorneys looking for a more modern, Web-based system. Had a representative from LexisNexis been there, he or she would have inquired whether the questioner’s firm used the Time Matters Mobility module. The Web-based Time Matters Mobility service supports remote access to the firm’s Time Matters server via the Web. Out of the office, attorneys have access to their secure calendar and contact integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange.

To satisfy incoming Millies (Millenials), law firms can take their Time Matters license to a private cloud. Amicus Private Cloud, Legal Workspace and Uptime Legal Systems would be happy to host a firm’s practice management system, even its entire practice, in a private cloud. Youngsters will find it hip when they can remotely connect to their practice-management platform, even from inside their office. Hoot. A fellow attendee also wanted to know what practice management systems support OpenOffice. I got nostalgic. I started my law office on Sun Microsystems SPARC technology using StarOffice. When I moved to Intel-based PCs, I switched to OpenOffice.org, which was the open-source distribution of StarOffice. When Oracle Corp. acquired Sun Microsystems, it rebranded StarOffice to Oracle Open Office and discontinued the product. On the bright side, Larry Ellison donated OpenOffice.org code and trademarks to the Apache Software Foundation, which develops and distributes Apache OpenOffice under the Apache license. While Oracle was fiddling with StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, volunteer developers forked OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice. Both software suites have a similar code base and include applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases. Although these two open-source software projects share the vast majority of their code, a notable difference remains: LibreOffice can embed fonts into documents so they look the same on any computer system even if the computer doesn’t have the font installed.

You can download LibreOffice or OpenOffice software for free for Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X operating systems. The open office suites support Open XML, which will allow your documents interoperability with Microsoft Office and other XML-based applications and ensure documents can be open and read during their life cycle as business records. The only practice management system I know that integrates with LibreOffice and OpenOffice is HoudiniEsq, which also works with Word and WordPerfect.

Read More : abovethelaw.com/2015/10/a-scattering-legal-tech-startups-ipos-fax-time-matters-and-openoffice/?rf=1

Bail Bond Seminole County – Law Report Calls for Wider Access to Legal Aid Funding

Source     : The Age
By            : Alana Schetzer
Category : Bail Bond Seminole County, Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Law Report Calls for Wider Access to Legal Aid Funding

Litigants representing themselves should be offered access to some advice and assistance from Legal Aid, as most people who decide to go it alone are doing so because of cost, a new report recommends. The Law Institute of Victoria released a report on the state’s under-pressure Legal Aid system on Tuesday, recommending the state adopt the Queensland system, which supports lawyers who volunteer their time to assist those who either choose, or can’t afford, to go to court without a lawyer. Law Institute president Kate Miller said although there was no official data, there was anecdotal evidence that the number of self-represented litigants had risen in recent years.

She said this could mean more people risking a poorer outcome. Self-represented litigants often take up more of the court’s time than those who are defended, and extra time means extra pressure and cost to the court. “Such outcomes include a criminal record, jail time, or a poor outcome in a family law dispute. It has also had an impact on already stretched court resources – it might mean legal aid dollars aren’t spent, but it does mean more court dollars spent supporting self-represented litigants to ensure that they still have fair hearings,” she said. Queensland operates a self-representation service, which connects litigants with lawyers who can provide them with advice prior to going to court. Liz Richardson, research assistant at Monash University’s Faculty of Law, wrote in The Age last year that the growth in self-representation was putting stress on the justice system, with those cases taking up to five times longer in court.

The Law Institute commissioned the PricewaterhouseCoopers report to investigate alternative ways to provide legal access within Legal Aid’s existing budget. Ms Miller said she hopes the report will be considered as part of the Andrews government’s upcoming access to justice inquiry, which was promised when Labor was in opposition.

Other recommendations from the report include:

-Improved data collection and improved transparency over costs differences of in-house lawyers and private practitioners

-The justice system could consider settling certain cases earlier, in a bid to save time and money

-Monitor the quality of service by its preferred list of barristers and solicitors, particularly in regional areas, to ensure quality service

-Urged for broader consultation between Legal Aid and Law Institute Victoria and the Victorian Bar.

Victorian Bar president James Peters QC said the cost of Legal Aid’s in-house legal team was a “particular concern”, saying the in-house model cost two-and-a-half times more to run criminal cases and up to four times more to run family law cases. “The report’s figures accord with the Victorian Bar’s calculations which show that for the cost of employing one in-house lawyer, [Legal Aid] could engage private barristers with the relevant specialist experience to run 20 trials and 20 pleas, more than an in-house lawyer could achieve in any given year,” he said. Legal Aid tightened eligibility criteria in recent years, to ensure its limited funds were directed at the most serious cases, and support the most disadvantaged clients. However, Ms Miller said this efficacy-driven agenda has resulted in people missing out. “After a certain point, it is not about distinguishing between the needy and the not-needy and it becomes about tough and often inefficient decisions. “Such decisions are not about efficiency but a system in crisis,” she said.

A Legal Aid Victoria spokeswoman said the system already offers a free legal phone line, which took 114,000 calls and provided free legal advice and minor assistance for 48,806 people in 2014-15. Legal Aid started collecting more detailed data in 2013, but results will not be released for 18 months. Legal Aid has come under consistent scrutiny in recent years, with stagnated funding one of its core problems. Ms Miller said the cost of justice in recent years has increased, Legal Aid funding has not kept pace. Although funding has increased by $13.2 million since 2013, this has not been enough to keep up with increasing demand, the report stated. In the past five years, the number of criminal matters going to court has increased by 29 per cent. She urged the federal government to adopt a recent Productivity Commission’s recommendation to pump an extra $200 million into the system, Australia-wide.

Read More : theage.com.au/victoria/law-report-calls-for-wider-access-to-legal-aid-funding-20151013-gk80n7.html

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Cartoon Network Gets Legal Victory Over Claims of Violating Privacy

Source     : Hollywood Reporter
By            : Eriq Gardner
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Cartoon Network Gets Legal Victory Over Claims of Violating Privacy

Cartoon Network is the latest entertainment company to successfully beat back claims of violating the Video Privacy Protection Act thanks to a ruling on Friday by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The VPPA is the federal law enacted in the 1980s after The Washington Post published a list of videos rented by then-Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. In recent years, many class actions have been attempted with the idea of leveraging the VPPA to guard the digital privacy of those watching videos online. A series of court decisions, though, have favored defendants. For example, Hulu and Viacom scored summary judgment wins in their own lawsuits earlier this year.

On Friday, the 11th Circuit took a look at a lower court’s decision to dismiss claims against Cartoon Network, which offers a mobile app for those who want to watch such shows as Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Pokemon and Transformers. The plaintiffs in the case allege that Cartoon Network tracks user mobile device identification numbers and, along with a record of video clips watched, shares the information with a third-party data analytics company.
To be a violation of the VPPA, Cartoon Network would have had to knowingly disclose personally identifiable information of a consumer, defined as “any renter, purchaser, or subscriber.”

Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan decides that Mark Ellis, the lead plaintiff, can’t be considered a “subscriber” as there isn’t enough of a relationship between him and Cartoon Network. Not only did he not pay any fees, but he didn’t register at the site, didn’t create a profile and didn’t sign up for any services. “In our view, downloading an app for free and using it to view content at no cost is not enough to make a user of the app a ‘subscriber’ under the VPPA, as there is no ongoing commitment or relationship between the user and the entity which owns and operates the app,” states the opinion. “Importantly, such a user is free to delete the app without consequences whenever he likes and never access its content again. The downloading of an app, we think, is the equivalent of adding a particular website to one’s Internet browser as a favorite, allowing quicker access to the website’s content.”

The opinion (read here in full) will buttress the developing legal conclusion that the VPPA won’t be a digital privacy guard, especially after the statute was amended by Congress in 2012 to allow online service providers to do even more sharing by getting written consent. However, entertainment companies might feel less comfortable about privacy obligations outside of the United States after the European Court of Justice last week invalidated a “safe harbor” pact dealing with data transfers from the E.U. to the U.S. in large part because the privacy of its citizens weren’t be sufficiently protected in the U.S. That case dealt directly with Facebook and has been analyzed in the context of large tech companies, though implications for digital entertainment shouldn’t be ignored.

Read More : hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/cartoon-network-gets-legal-victory-831321

Bondsman in Seminole County – Legal Consequences of Self-Defense

Source     : Carroll County Times
By            : Donna Engle Contact Reporter
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Legal consequences of self-defense

A recent self-defense course prompted a question about whether a victim could face legal action as a result of fighting off an attacker. The course was for women, but self-defense laws are gender-neutral. Whether a victim could face legal consequences depends on what the attacker did and how the victim defended himself or herself. “The law of self-defense justifies an act done in the reasonable belief of immediate danger. If an injury was done by a defendant in justifiable self-defense, he can neither be punished criminally nor held responsible for damages in a civil action,” the Court of Appeals said in a 1941 case.

Key point: The victim must have had a reasonable belief that she was in immediate danger. If a woman walks by and a man says, “Hey, baby, show me your ****,” she may be justified in saying she knows baboons with better manners. But it would be difficult for her to argue that she feared immediate danger, unless he made a more aggressive move. What if she walks on and the man follows her, continuing to make obnoxious or obscene comments? The woman whips out her pepper spray and sprays him with it. If he later sues her for assault, it will be up to a jury to decide whether she was justified in using the spray because she had a reasonable belief that he was about to attack her.

Standard instructions, which the judge gives to a jury before members begin deliberating, say that a victim acted in self-defense if: she actually believed that she was in immediate and imminent danger of bodily harm, her belief was reasonable, and she used no more force than reasonably necessary to defend herself against the threatened or actual harm. Another scenario: the man continues to follow the woman, who takes no action other than to walk faster and try to reach her car. The man steps up his pace and overtakes her. He reaches out, she ducks, grabs her handgun and fires.

Now she is in the area of law related to when a person may use deadly force in self-defense. Deadly force is the amount of force that could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious bodily harm. Maryland follows common law — judge-made law — on when the use of deadly force is justified on the grounds of self-defense. First, the woman had a duty to retreat or avoid the danger before shooting, if she safely could. If she could not safely retreat, she may rely on a 1984 case where the Court of Appeals ruled that a homicide is justified as self-defense if the shooter had reasonable grounds to believe she was in imminent or immediate danger of death or serious bodily harm from the attacker, believed he was going to kill her or cause her serious bodily harm, she was not the aggressor or did not provoke him to follow her and the force she used was not unreasonable and excessive, not more force than the situation demanded.

Read More :  carrollcountytimes.com/columnists/features/law/ph-cc-legal-matters-101115-20151010-story.html

Sanford Bail Bond – In Legal Twist, Messi Will Stand Trial On Tax Fraud Charges

Source     : Forbes
By            : Kelly Phillips Erb
Category : Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

In Legal Twist, Messi Will Stand Trial On Tax Fraud Charges

It turns out that Lionel Messi’s injury in Barcelona’s 2-1 victory over Las Palmas last month isn’t the most painful thing to happen to him this season. Days after it was reported that Spain had dropped criminal tax charges against the footballer, it appears that the trial is on again. Earlier this week, El Pais reported that the prosecution would drop criminal tax charges against the soccer star and only move forward against Messi’s father. However, according to court documents made public today, that request was overruled. El Pais now reports that “acting in opposition” to the Fiscalía (think of it like our District Attorney), a higher state authority (the State Bar which defends the interest of Spain’s Treasury) wants the case to proceed.

Contrary to the prosecution’s determination that Messi did not actively participate in the alleged fraud, the Treasury believes that Messi acted “de forma consciente y voluntaria” (consciously and voluntarily). Prosecutors in the case had originally found that Messi’s father, Jorge Horacio Messi, was solely responsible for the alleged fraud. By rejecting the prosecution’s dismissal (I know, that’s confusing), the judge has decided that Lionel Messi and his father Jorge will both stand trial for three counts of tax fraud. The latest indication is that Messi and his father could each face a jail sentence of 22 months and 15 days together with a fine of €4.1 million ($4.62 million U.S.).

It’s yet another twist in a long and complicated case that began in 2013, when a complaint was filed alleging that Messi’s father initiated a scheme using a series of shell companies in tax havens to shield royalties and other licensing income from Spanish income tax. Income from lucrative contracts with such companies as Pepsi -Cola, Procter and Gamble, and Adidas were allegedly funneled to Belize and Uruguay through an elaborate maze including the U.K. and Switzerland. The scheme reportedly allowed the pair to avoid paying nearly €4.165 million ($5.5 million U.S.) in tax. After the charges were made public, Messi took steps to clear the tax debt, making a “corrective payment” of €5 million ($6.57 million U.S.). That did not, however, discourage the case from proceeding. Despite the hits to his reputation, Messi held onto his endorsements, earning $74 million in salary and endorsements just last year. That was enough to land him the #13 spot on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 (up from #45 in 2014) and the #4 spot on Forbes’ list of World’s Highest Paid Athletes (behind boxers Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao and fellow footballer Cristiano Ronaldo).

Read More : forbes.com/sites/joshwolfe/2015/10/08/trailblazer-erik-weihenmayer-finds-blindness-no-barrier-to-adventure/