USA Today, September 30, 2010 by Wendy Koch
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-09-30-sexads30_ST_N.htm
Jason Schultz, assistant professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, says lawsuits that accuse a publication of aiding child prostitution often fail, because courts traditionally cite the First Amendment’s protection of free expression.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2010 by Benny Evangelista
http://bit.ly/buMZgd
“Today’s news has kind of reminded people that AOL is actually not dead and buried,” said Eric Talley…. The acquisition of TechCrunch, which has about 40 employees, contractors and contributors, “is not a gigantic deal,” but it does give AOL a well-known brand within the tech community, Talley said. AOL also gains the potentially valuable CrunchBase online database of company and investor information. “That data could be the source of all types of future services that AOL is interested in getting into.”
Reuters, September 29, 2010 by Bill Berkrot
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE68S4WO20100929
“This is literally one of the things that keep M&A lawyers up at night,” said Eric Talley…. “People have tried that kind of an argument in a lot of judicial venues to say, ‘Judge, I want you to ignore the formal structure of this merger and pierce into its economic realities and call it what it is.’ Courts have been very unfriendly to that approach,” Talley said. While there is at least one notable exception … Talley said, “the doctrine has continued to persist in corporate law that the way you structure a deal really matters.”
KTVU, September 28, 2010 by Rob Roth
http://www.ktvu.com/news/25188373/detail.html
Fogel was ordered by ninth circuit court to reconsider his refusal to block the pending execution. He must now compare the state’s new lethal injection procedure with former practices. “What the 9th circuit was clearly concerned about was whether there is enough time to conduct a meaningful review in that short amount of time.”
Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2010 by Elisabeth Semel
http://lat.ms/cXahNO
Since the last execution in California, there has been no public groundswell to get the death chamber back in business. Californians have been no less safe than they were between 1992 and 2006, when 13 men were executed. In fact, violent crimes—homicides in particular—have steadily declined during this period.
The Orange County Register, September 28, 2010 by Vik Jolly
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-268495-cities-insurance.html
San Juan, which has a roughly $22 million general fund budget, would be hard pressed in these economic times to raise revenue, said David Gamage, assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley. “Raising additional revenues is never easy in California,” he said. “Most cities already have troubling budget situations and revenues already have gone down,” Gamage said. “For many cities, the spending obligations have gone up.”
The Daily Californian, September 27, 2010 by Aaida Samad
http://www.dailycal.org/article/110489/november_protesters_hearings_commence
“The protracted nature of these proceedings is one more indication that the student conduct code—both its text and implementation—is in need of repair,” said Stephen Rosenbaum, a lecturer at the law school who has represented student activists in the past, in an e-mail. “Any potential educational or judicial value of the process is obscured by the delay.”
The Wall Street Journal, China Real Time Report, September 27, 2010 by Stanley Lubman
http://bit.ly/9pRtYk
The outbreak of strikes at foreign-invested enterprises in China during the summer raises significant questions about the future of China’s industrial work force, and highlights a number of tensions at play. The questions involve different sectors of Chinese society, including business; government, including the state-controlled labor union; the All-China Federation of Labor Unions (ACFTU), and the work force.
-San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 2010 by Pamela Samuelson
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/26/INGM1FGPKR.DTL
Did you ever imagine you could be held liable for copyright infringement for storing your music collection on your hard drive, downloading photos from the Internet or forwarding news articles to your friends? If you did not get the copyright owner’s permission for these actions, you could be violating the law. It sounds absurd, but copyright owners have the right to control reproductions of their works and claim statutory damages even when a use does not harm the market for their works.
-Los Angeles Examiner, September 28, 2010 by Seth Chavez
http://exm.nr/cYJTMS
Professor Samuelson says such user-generated content challenges copyright law because it’s typically created by non-professionals—amateurs with different needs than, say, Hollywood studios. “Copyright law touches us all on a daily basis and now millions of people who create user-generated works have become copyright stakeholders,” said professor Samuelson. “Copyright law needs to be simpler, understandable, and more flexible to change with the times.”
The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2010 by Jennifer Valentino-Devries
http://bit.ly/duVug4
One FTC watcher, Berkeley Law School professor Chris Jay Hoofnagle, says he expects FTC report to suggest that Congress needs to act to protect consumers. “I don’t think the FTC is going to announce rules. I think they will call upon Congress to direct them to make rules,” he said.