EOC: Forced Choice

In this blog entry we are FORCED to list our classmates final projects from best to worst.  BUT before I do I must say I am very surprised on how many people did not do it!  Anyways this is how I figure it....

 

 

1.Kylie Cameron; The blog was complete.  She finished all entries and wrote well. 

2.Amer Khwaja; Blog was complete.  Finished all posts and correctly completed all parts of the final.

 

3.Me; Although I am missing a few quotes from the book, my entire blog is complete and I took the time to answer all final project posts thoroughly.

 

4.Chris Sua-  Well spoken, everything is complete and correct.  My only knock I can think of is that you can't tell his quotes from his blog.

 

5. Alicia Booth- Although she was not able to find a lawyer she still knocked the final project out of the park.  Her questions were great and her evaulation made complete sense.

 

6.Brianna Ramirez-  Her blog looked complete, but it was a little hard to read to be honest; but she completed everything on time it looks like.

 

7..Lisa J- Although she is missing some posts she completed the assignment and it read well.

8.Andrea Carrillo- Everything looks great, I just wish she elaborated more on her final project blog entries; she was verys straight forward and to the point.

 

9.John Allen, Rom Alon, Erika Mc Bee-Marquez, Brian Ramirez...ummmm....no content on the final project, which is very surprising, so I can't even give an opinion besides; WOW. 

Week 10 EOC: Lawyer jokes

Q: What's the difference between a female lawyer and a pitbull?
A: Lipstick.

Q: What's the difference between a vacuum cleaner and a lawyer on a motorcycle?
A: The vacuum cleaner has the dirt bag on the inside.

(http://www.iciclesoftware.com/LawJokes/IcicleLawJokes.html)

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
His lips are moving

How do you get a group of personal injury lawyers to smile for a picture?
Just say "Fees!"

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

Two small boys, not yet old enough to be in school, were overheard talking at the zoo one day. "My name is Billy. What's yours?" asked the first boy. "Tommy," replied the second. "My Daddy's an accountant. What does your Daddy do for a living?" asked Billy. Tommy replied, "My Daddy's a lawyer." "Honest?" asked Billy. "No, just the regular kind", replied Tommy.

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A truck driver would amuse himself by running over lawyers. Whenever he saw a lawyer walking down the side of the road he would swerve to hit him, enjoy the load, satisfying "THUMP", and then swerve back onto the road.

(at this point some of you are probably wondering how the trucker could distinguish the lawyers from the humans. Obviously he saw the trail of slime they left!)

One day, as the truck driver was driving along he saw a priest hitchhiking. He thought he would do a good turn and pulled the truck over.

He asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?"

"I'm going to the church 5 miles down the road," replied the priest.

"No problem, Father! I'll give you a lift. Climb in the truck." The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the truck driver continued down the road.

Suddenly the truck driver saw a lawyer walking down the road and instinctively he swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so at the last minute he swerved back away, narrowly missing the lawyer. However even though he was certain he missed the lawyer, he still heard a loud "THUD". Not understanding where the noise came from he glanced in his mirrors and when he didn't see anything, he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father. I almost hit that lawyer."

"That's okay", replied the priest. "I got him with the door!"

 

http://www.101funjokes.com/lawyer_jokes.htm

Week 9 EOC: Permission

   Imagine this; your a graphic designer hired to develop a new website for a clothing company.  They give you their color scheme, verbiage, and style they are want on the site.  They also want images of sexy women and men dressed in vintage clothing with a rock'n'roll feel to it.  The problem is they cannot afford a photographer to conduct a photoshoot for these images.  What should you do?  Should you just troll around the internet copying images to your desktop that fit the description of what they had in mind?  The answer is no.  That would be stealing intellectual property from a photographer who lives off the money that he/she makes from taking such images.  What you should do is send a letter/email to the photographer who shot the orignal images you are interested in using for the site.

   This is the correct way of doing business and it also keeps you safe from getting a lovely cease and desist letter in the mail.  Even if the photographer says "sure go ahead and use whatever images you want"  you should still send a permission form to get a signature for use.  Remember "the weakest ink is stronger than the best memory".  There are many types of forms for these types of situatuations.  Here is a short list: Getting Permission to Use Text ,Getting Permission to Use Photographs, Photo Permission Agreement, Getting Permission to Use Artwork, Agreement to Use Artwork in Motion Picture, Getting Permission to Use Music, Notice of Intention to Obtain Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Sound Recordings, Music Synchronization and Videogram License Agreement, Website Permissions, Academic and Educational Permissions, Getting Permission to Use Trademarks, Art and Merchandise Licenses.

As you can see there is a specific permission form for pretty much any ocassion.  All of which will keep you out of jail and safe from legal consequences.


   

Week 8 EOC: Bratz Brawl

Girl fight!!! But seriously, when I heard about this case the only thought that came to my head was "yawn".  I am not a big toy guy, and being some what of a "man's man" I couldn't care less over two doll companies battling over who did what.  I understand the angle though, and the article on the hearings was a good read.

In a nut shell last thursday, Mattel Inc., made famous for their Barbie doll line, headed back to court to once again try to prove that MGA Entertainment Inc. stole the toy company's intellectual property when they created the Bratz doll line a ten years ago.  Why? Mattel Inc. believes that MGA Entertainment Inc. did some top-secret missions to involving disguises, fake business cards, and dummy voices(Oh I can see the Saturday Night Live skit of that top-secret operation now).  The mission worked SO well they say that the spies were able to gain access to competitors' show rooms at toy fairs, got information on rivals' newest products, price lists and marketing strategies(according to court documents).  Wait, it gets better...Mattel (Barbie) says that MGA stole trade secrets by telling Mattel employees from Mexico, Cananda, and the U.S. to download Mttel documents before coming to work for MGA.  Mattel also states that several Mattel workers were hired in Mexico by MGA stole company documents that helped MGA start up a Mexico division very quickly using Mattel's mexican playbook.

The question I asked myself while reading is why? Why would someone go through this much trouble to get trade secrets and documents for a little girl (or maybe little boy's) toy doll?  Then I read that MGA Entertainment Inc. at its peek made 1 billion dollars in revenue! Everything began to make sense and fall into place.  This isn't a fight over a doll. This is a fight about cash!  Cash revenue that the Bratz doll was taking away from the powerful Barbie doll line in the same market.  At the end of the day something as innocent as a Barbie doll can be ruined in the capitalistic country and fought over as if it was World War 3, equipped with secret agents wearing disguised steal secrets, allegedly.  I understand where Mattel is coming from; they were here first and the Bratz doll is treading on their territory.  At what costs though? 
"It is a colossal waste of money," says Sean McGowan, toy industry analyst at Needham & Co. "I understand they wanted to send a message that they protect their intellectual property....Message delivered." 

Week 7 EOC: Plans

My classmates and I have been working diligently this quarter; keeping our eyes on the prize.  From our humble beginnings with little known knowledge of the subject (patents, copyrights, and trademarks), to studying our butts off for our midterm, and now we are seasoned veterans on the subject ready to go into the real world and stretch our brain muscle.  We now have to go on a search for someone who has vast knowledge of the subject of intellectual property, in short, we need to interview a lawyer.  How am I going to wrangle a lawyer to answer my questions of intellectual property within my field of photography?  I have a few ideas...

The first thing you should know about me is that I am a passionate person, have almost no shame, ambitious, and almost ignorantly confident (which gets me into trouble sometimes).  Be that as it may; my plans for finding a lawyer to annoy, I mean interview, with a series of ten questions about intellectual property within my career field are mildly simple.  First I am going to contact my immediate family, namely my older brother, who has needed lawyers to protect himself from his brushes with the law.  My brother is my first choice because although he is a large menacing figure, he is unusually charismatic and is a great judge of personality; keeping a tight circle of trust outside of our immediate family.  Once I exhaust my family's resources I believe I will have to move on to phase 2 in the search for a lawyer, I call it Operation Plan B.

Operation Plan B is just a fancy way of saying I am going to open up my laptop, attach to a Wi-Fi network and Google lawyers in my city of Las Vegas that specialize in intellectual property cases.  Then one-by-one I will go fishing and make phone calls working through the contact information of law practices I uncover, hoping that something bites.  If this also fails, I plan to make follow up calls to law firms who never picked up my phone calls and/or showing up unannounced (I have no shame) showing that I am persistent about my need of a lawyer to interview.

If this fails as well; desperation will set in and I will use social media as my Ali. I will flood the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and use the power of email to get my need out into the unsuspecting public.  Bottom line is that I have never been one to take no for an answer and some how, some way I will achieve my goal of setting up a simple 20 minute interview with a lawyer to answer my questions on intellectual property pertaining to my field of digital photography.

Week 6 EOC: "Illicit"

I have a confession.  My mother, the women who gave me life, is a criminal.  She knowingly breaks the law at an average of once a month, and the worst part about it, she is not alone.  She runs a criminal enterprise with help from her criminal friends.  What is her illegal business?  My mother and her friends conduct "purse parties" about once a month, selling knock off bags for a fraction of the price.  I used to rationalize that she is not hurting anyone, and that her "purse parties" were a fun way to save money to look more like a high status diva.  Everything changed once I saw the move"Illicit: The Dark Trade"

Many people share my original view on the harmless selling of knock-off fashion merchandise.  The movie "Illicit: The Dark Trade" showed that this seemingly innocent fun for retired mothers and housewives is just the tip of the iceberg for the black and grey market.  Think about it; how do we know that these knock-off purses weren't stuffed with kilos of cocaine or heroine upon shipment to small town USA?  Or the same cargo hold that those same persons are used to ship the fashion goods, aren't also used to ship young women for trade as sex slaves?   At the end of the day, it is just another illegal service that is being smuggled into America. 

This movie really amazed me and opened my eyes unto the illegal world that we live among everyday.  The question is how can you stop such a unstoppable market?  The problem also is that WE are the ones largely fueling this type of business; whether it be drugs, prescription medicine, and/or human organs.  I have come to the realization that, along with my mother, I too am a contributor. Bottom line is that as long as there is a need or a strong want for their style of production, there will always be a market for it. 

Week 5 EOC: Patent Trolls

What is a Patent Troll?  Is it a disgustingly green monster covered in warts, that lives under a bridge, and assigns patents on the weekends?  Nope.  The exact definition for a "Patent Troll" is someone who sues for patent infringement, but who does not make or sell any products using the patented technology.  Are you scared yet?  Well you may not be, but "Patent Trolls" are scaring the pants off of many huge corporations.

The most infamous "Patent Troll" to date is a patent lawyer named Raymond E. Stauffer.  Mr. Stauffer became infamous when he was shopping at a New Jersey mall one day, simply shopping for bow ties at Brooks Brothers.  He noticed something interesting about the bow ties on display, they all had old patent numbers on their labels.  I can only imagine how many people looked at those old numbers and never gave it a second thought.  Where the company, employees, and most customers overlooked could eventually make Mr. Stauffer a very wealthy man.  Due to his profession's background he knew that the retailer would have to come out of pocket for violating a law that bands companies from marking products with old and invalided patent numbers.  He would have settled out of court for $25,000, but the retailer went to war with him; now he should be awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Since he fruitfull find, more than 300 lawsuits have been put together by similar "Patent Trolls", inspired by Mr. Stauffer." Coporations are spooked and many are being advised not to mark their items with any patent numbers at all to avoid similar law suits about items that "slipped through the crack." I applaud Mr. Stauffer for sticking it to the man.

 I think it is amazing that something so small and insignificant as patent numbers could cause such a scare in the corporate world and could be financially beneficial to a regular everyday consumer.  I am not surprised that the number of "Patent Troll" lawsuits has spiked, it even has me contimplating attempting such a lawsuit.  Why should we feel bad about a corporations losing money, because someone has an unfair advantage.  It happens to us, the consumer everyday.  Especially with the difficulty for a individual to obtain a patent for their amazing invention or work, while huge corporations hand out patents like its never going out of style.   So do your thing "Patent Trolls"; because in the recession our country is currently in, it feels good to know that the "little guy" won a battle or two. 

Week 4 EOC: Death Race Jeapordy

Todays class was very fun and exciting, but I did learn a lot of definitions and patent terms in the process. Why? An amusing, yet cut throat version of Jeapordy was played amongst us students called Death Race Jeapordy. Each student had to create their own Jeapordy game out of power point, and create twenty questions using 5 different categories. I myself kept the categories light and commical (Feelin' Blank, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Show Me the Money, Gimme GimmeGimme), but I left my questions challenging for the class.

The first rounds went well. We didn't know exactly what the prize for succeeding in the game would be, but this helped motivate us like a carrot hung from a string to get a mule motivated to walk forward. As the questions from another students game was being presented I immediatley became astonished on how familiar the patent terms and defintions were to me. After thumbing through 140 pages of defintions in our text books I am surprised that I was able to answer some questions off the top of my head. Now I am not saying Mr. Pinto is a eduacational genius, but the man does know what he is doing.

By the time it came to "Death Race Jeapordy" portion of our program, bonds amongst groups were being formed like a cheap reality show; students were making sure to link up with the best and brightest minds of the class. Ones our 4 groups were created, war began as we battle amongst the 4 groups of students making sure we didn't help another group out by speaking to loud or not covering our terms as we wrote out the answers on the board. Once the dust settled, my group became victorious in our Jeapordy battle, and to the victor comes the spoils. I was awarded 29 extra credit points to be used on my midterm the following week. What does that mean? All I need to get on my midterm is a 71% to receive a 100% on my midterm test, which is awesome. The extra points are amazing, but the fact of the matter is that due to the creation and involvement in the Death Race Jeapordy game that Mr. Pinto created, I might not even need those 29 extra points at all. Goodtimes! 

Week 3 EOC: Stolen Valor

Stolen Valor? No, it is not a brand new action-adventure movie starring Arnold Shwartzeneger and Syllvester Stallone. This is the official summary; Stolen Valor Act of 2011 - Amends the federal criminal code to subject an individual who, with intent to obtain anything of value, knowingly makes a misrepresentiation regarding his or her military service to:(1) a fine, one year's imprisonment, or both if the misrepresentation is that such individual served in a combat zone or in a special operations force or was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor; and (2) a fine, six months' imprisonment, or both, in any other case. Provides that: (1) this Act shall not apply to a misrepresentation that an individual did not serve in the Armed Forces, and (2) it is a defense to prosecution that the thing of value is de minimis.-http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s1728

Confused? The Stolen Valor Act pretty much says that you can not lie about serving in the military and receiving metals due to service in the military. It was signed into law on December 20th of 2006 by President George W. Bush. The interesting thing about it though is at it's core, The Stolen Valor Act is basically about lying. Even more interesting is this; "The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, saying that the First Amendment defends a person's right to lie -- even if that person is lying about awards and medals won through military service."-http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/supreme-court-strikes-stolen-valor-lie-military-service/story?id=16669096 This is raising some eyebrows because the question now is: Should lying okay or illegal? "Moreover, the dissenters suggest that medal lies alone, without more, still do sufficient damage that criminal penalties are merited when such lies are told."-http://verdict.justia.com/2012/07/23/the-supreme-court-strikes-down-the-stolen-valor-act

I don't know about you, but my mother always taught me to always tell the truth and that the truth will set you free. Yes, it is our constitutional right to lie at will, but when is lying gone to far? When a company false advertises about a product? When a husband lies to his wife about working late at the office? When a women lies about her age and weight? When a student lies to his teacher about his/her fictional pet eating their homework? One's moral obligation is usually parellel in these types of discussions, but the point I am trying to make is if lying is socially accepted for what it is, then what is stopping a major multi-billion dollar corporation or a politician from saying what ever the heck they want to sell their product and/or get their message out to the naive public. This is always going to be a fine grey line to walk. People lie every day.  I guess we just need to be prepared and informed enough to call their bluff.

Week 2 EOC: Erin Brokovich

When I hear the name, Erin Brokovich, unfortunatley I automatically think of how hot the academy award winning actress Julia Roberts looked in the movie with that name as the title. What one should know of the name, Erin Brokovich, is how hard she fought for the hundreds of families effected by PG&E water contamination in southern California. Because of her relentless pursuit of justice, the plaintiffs were awarded $333 million to which she received $2 million in bonuses.

Why? PG&E’s Compressor Station is located approximately two miles southeast of the town of Hinkley and a dozen miles west of Barstow in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County. Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, to fight corrosion in cooling tower water. The wastewater from the cooling towers was discharged to unlined ponds at the site. Some of the wastewater percolated to the groundwater, resulting in hexavalent chromium pollution. The chromium affects an area of groundwater approximately two miles long and nearly a mile wide. - http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/projects/pge/index.shtml Hexavalent chromium pollution is a serious health hazard. It can cause tumors, many types of cancer; damages the nose, throat, and lungs and irritation or damage to the eyes and skin, and cause major damage to vital organs(all of which can be passed along to infants by their mother).

After reviewing the facts of the case and viewing the movie once again to refresh my memory I have become a little more fond of lawyers. I believe lawyers are a necessary evil in the world of today. Although they receive 40% of awarded settlements, they played a vital role in protecting victims, who of which could not fight for themselves otherwise.

EOC:About Me

I bring to the profession of photography my unique view of the world and a burning passion for my craft. I am born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada; which is reflected in my images due to my use of vibrant colors and the locations I use with in city around me. I have been working as a freelance photographer for the past nine years and in my brief career I have created a well rounded portfolio shooting everything from event flyers for nightclubs, websites, weddings, family portraits, NBA Summer League and model portfolios.  My goal is to run my own studio equipped for everything from simple portraits to high fashion, as well as working as a sports photographer for a professional or collegiate team. My passion for photography began when I was a young boy, helping my Father (who is a portrait photographer) with lighting, posing, and composition. Beyond my father's early influence, David La Chapelle has served as my inspiration.  His use eye-catching colors, elaborate scenes, and his success in the industry kept me in awe of his work.  I keep my photo-shoots organized and fun.  My passion for photography has found no limits; I live to shoot and shoot to live.