• Everyone can relax because free internet porn is not unfair competition to pay sites.
• P. Diddy finds himself being sued for $1 trillion dollars….literally.
• The night ends in handcuffs for actor Shia LaBeouf after a bar fight.
• Michael Moore files lawsuit in Los Angeles alleging Weinstein brothers defrauded him of $2.7 million.
• Michael Jackson drama continues as Dr. Conrad Murray’s trial will be televised.
• Actress Halle Berry’s divorce turning into a nasty war, especially over custody battle of daughter Nahla.
• Pamela Anderson feels that immigrants coming to America need to respect the country and do things by the book.

Tell us what you think! We would love to hear your opinion.

Be sure to check in next Wednesday for the PULSE!!

As you likely know, the majority of books are first released in hardcover edition and then within the average of one year later they are released in paperback format at a much lesser cost. This is helpful for writers because it allows them to have two different points in promotion of their work and two spikes in sales, ideally.

In the case of Mr. Harvey things have apparently not gone so smoothly. He was at a book signing in Virginia recently when one of his fans handed him a paperback copy of her book, requesting that he sign it. The woman had the receipt from her purchase, demonstrating that the fraud was no likely perpetuated by her, but rather, part of a larger book fraud scheme. Harvey then offered her $100 and hardback copy of his book to be permitted to keep the paperback copy and receipt, most likely with the intent to investigate the situation.

Steve Harvey’s reps are not yet commenting on the situation, but we can only hope that they are successful in finding the perpetrators. One also hopes that they are working with local law enforcement to investigate these issues.

As part of the entertainment industry, books are significantly less glamorous, and frequently less lucrative than their flashier relatives – movies, television, music, etc. It is so important that we protect literature and we protect artists’ rights.

One of the most discussed potential books leaks surrounds the Harry Potter series. With set release dates for all of the books done sometimes years in advance, there were concerns at every step that they might be released early. Anyone who has worked in a book store knows that the majority of heavily anticipated books arrive in the stores about 4-7 days prior to their scheduled release. This makes sense because of the importance of a coordinated timed mass release. If half of the stores failed to place a book on the shelf as expected, it would be damaging to their reputation and credibility. What likely happens in situations such as the Harry Potter leaks is that an unscrupulous bookseller sneaks a books out of the store and it finds it way onto the internet.

Though Mr. Harvey’s case does not involve a book leaked before its time, rather an issue with format release, it allows us to open the door to this important conversation. It is my position that because of the lessons that Harry Potter and Twilight have taught us, bookstores should be constructed with a vault in the shipping and receiving department to ensure the security of highly anticipated books. Additionally, it would be refreshing to see increased stakes. If the punishment for leaking a book outweighed whatever could be gained, we would hopefully see less of this damaging behavior.

• Legal suit commences over downloading of Paris Hilton’s now seven year old sex tape.
• Actor David Arquette looking for a fresh start in 2011 after being released from rehab.
• Chris Brown tries to get restraining order lifted in time for the Grammy’s.
• Actress Eva Longoria’s divorce from NBA star Tony Parker becomes final in the state of Texas.
• LAPD decides not to pursue drug investigation involving actor Charlie Sheen.
• Producers from the movie ‘Hurt Locker,’ not going down without a fight in publicity and defamation case.

Tell us what you think! We would love to hear your opinion.

Be sure to check in next Wednesday for the PULSE!

The timeline for this case began on April 5, 2010, when Monica Beresford-Redman’s body was found in a sewage tank on the premises of the resort where the couple had been vacationing.  In re Extradition of Bruce Ainsley Beresford-Redman, No. CR 10-2780M, 2010 WL 5313494, at 1 (C.D.Cal.  Dec. 17, 2010).  On April 7^th, Mexican police questioned Beresford-Redman about several scratches on his body, as well as about sounds of an apparent struggle that had been heard by his downstairs neighbor.  Id. Beresford-Redman claimed he scratched himself during several hikes with his family, and that he had been up late that night playing a game with his son.  On November 12, 2010, the United States filed a “Complaint for Provisional Arrest with a View Towards Extradition.”  Id. On November 16^th, Beresford-Redman was arrested.  On November 29, Beresford Redman filed a “Motion to Release” alleging that Beresford-Redman’s Fourth Amendment rights had been violated because no probable cause existed for his arrest.  Id. The Motion also advanced an argument that the evidence against Beresford-Redman was hearsay, and thus insufficient to support a probable cause determination.  Id.

The issue of extradition is governed by the Extradition Treaty between United States and Mexico.  Under this article, defendants can be extradited between the United States and Mexico if the crime they committed is punishable by more than a year of imprisonment.  Id. at 3. Evidentiary burdens correspond to those in the “requested party’s” jurisdiction (in this case, the United States).  Id. Here, the district court already ruled on December 17, 2010 that probable cause existed to support the issuance of a provisional arrest warrant.  Id. Because the court found probable cause, it did not consider whether or not probable cause is required to support the issuance of provisional arrest warrants under the Extradition Treaty—an issue over which the circuits are currently in disagreement.  Id. The court also relied on long established precedent in its holding that hearsay evidence can be used to find probable cause in extradition proceedings.  Id. Based on this case history it is likely that the court will grant the U.S. prosecutor’s request for extradition of Beresford-Redman.

This places the erstwhile producer’s fate firmly in the hands of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico (where Cancun is located).  Under this state’s law, aggravated homicide is defined as an intentional deprivation of life where one of four elements is met: (1) premeditation; (2) unfair advantage; (3) treachery; (4) betrayal.  Id. at 4.  Premeditation exists if a perpetrator decides to commit the crime, and chooses the means to do so.  Unfair advantage exists where the perpetrator is either stronger or more skillful than the victim, or if the victim is unarmed or helpless.  Id. Treachery exists when the victim is intentionally surprised or abused by the perpetrator.  Id. Betrayal exists when there is a breach of the trust between the victim and the perpetrator that originates from a unique relationship such as marriage.  Id. Here, it appears that at least one, and potentially all four of these elements are met, suggesting that Beresford-Redman will likely face an aggravated sentence if he is convicted of the murder of his wife.  And judging from the strength of the evidence contained in Mexico’s voluminous report, a conviction is highly likely.

In response, Beresford-Redman is likely to proffer evidence of recent crimes at or near the premises where Beresford-Redman is alleged to have killed his wife (namely 2 violent crimes and an attempted rape) in an effort to paint the premises as unsafe, and the murder as yet another manifestation of Mexico’s struggle with organized crime.  Aside from the apparent weakness of this circumstantial argument in the face of the direct evidence against Beresford-Redman, there is a political motivation that undermines Beresford-Redman’s chances of acquittal: Mexico’s need to convict.  Indeed, if Beresford-Redman’s strategy were to succeed, Mexico’s tourism industry would suffer yet another devastating blow.  Based on the information available, however, Mexico has little reason to worry.

This past weekend Charlie had quite the party.  Over 36-hours he partied with several different hookers and porn stars, reportedly had a briefcase of cocaine delivered to his house, and was critiquing porn videos.  This display of awesome adult behavior, did I mention Mr. Sheen is 45 and has two children, resulted in Charlie finally having a hernia and finally checking into rehab while his show goes on hiatus.

Now, you may ask yourself – how many criminal cases does Mr. Sheen have pending against him.  The answer is shocking – ZERO!  Brooke Mueller refused to press charges after the incident in Aspen, and he got off with a probation violation and time served.  The incident in New York City was not pursued by police because there was not enough evidence and the porn star, Capri Anderson, may have actually stolen a Patek Philippe watch from Charlie.

Well then, the studio behind “Two and a Half Men” must be livid right?  I mean, CBS’s insurance liability for Charlie must be through the roof?  The show must be about to be canned?  Nope.  Wrong again.  CBS and Warner Brothers Television are standing behind Charlie.

Somehow, Charlie has been able to get doctor’s notes and medical excuses to relieve him and the production of any liability.  For now, everything is merely rumor and conjecture.  Charlie is still showing up to set with his lines memorized and playing his part.  Most importantly, the advertisers are not pulling out of the show and the show’s rating are still soaring.  ”Two and a Half Men”‘s ratings are actually up 2% from the previous year.  All publicity is good publicity, as the old adage goes.  The show is the most lucrative advertising vehicle on CBS as well, an average spot costs over $200,000 for 30-seconds.

Charlie’s problems seem reminiscent of those of Keifer Sutherland from “24″ fame.  Keifer famously had to go to jail for over a month from a series of DUIs.  As the star of “24″, his antics seriously jeopardized the show’s filming schedule.  The show went off the air the following season.

Now, this is a legal blog and Charlie Sheen doesn’t seem to have any legal troubles, so why am I writing about him?  Most likely his contract with CBS for the show has a morals clause.  That means that Sheen is probably in violation of a term of his contract.  If he is in breach of his contract for the show, they could cancel it at any time and, if the contract was drafted correctly, probably will not have to pay Charlie any sort of large severance check.  If any of these rumors are proven, if he is ever charged for his drug use or for engaging in prostitution, or violent rages, his contract could be revoked or he may become uninsurable.  Insurance is key for any production in Hollywood.  The production cannot continue if Charlie is not insured without a TON of waivers.  It would cost Sheen a lot of his own money as well.

At least one of three things will have to happen to get Charlie on track it appears: 1. He gets arrested and goes to jail for a significant amount of time; 2. He ends up seriously ill and/or overdoses; or 3. Advertisers pull out of “Two and a Half Men” and CBS cancels the show.  Somehow, I don’t think number 3 will actually affect Charlie.  Between residuals and his salary – he won’t ever have to work again.  It appears that Mr. Sheen is officially untouchable.  For the sake of the grips and gaffers on the show, I hope he gets it together soon.

Before we get to the legal stuff, let’s at least get cover the basics of Torrent-Finder and BitTorrent technology.  BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol and is currently the main tool for those looking to illegally acquire copyrighted media on the internet.  All a user must do is navigate to a Torrent sites, search for a song or movie, and start downloading.  Torrent-Finder, however, is not actually one such site.  It is a meta-search engine, which accepts a user’s query, then checks dozens of other Torrent sites and presents the results.  What this means is that Torrent‑Finder neither hosts any copyright-infringing files, nor even links to such files (it links to other links to the files).

With all that being the case, how and why is the government going after this specific domain?  The seizure of the Torrent-Finder domain seems to fall within the scope of civil forfeiture (check out (a)(1)(B) here), covering property used to facilitate copyright infringement.  Most of the internet fury has come under the banners of the First and Fourth Amendments and is too substantial for this sort of blog post, but I’ll try to summarize quickly.

To avoid Fourth Amendment issues based on unreasonable seizures, ICE went through the common process of acquiring a warrant based on probable cause established by a law enforcement affidavit.  Much of the hostility seems to stem, at least in part, from the ICE affidavit, which contained numerous controversial facts/errors/lies (depending on who you ask) and was signed off on by an agent with only one year of experience.

The First Amendment argument is more complicated, but it deals with potential prior restraint on non-infringing expressive speech that gets swept up in these sorts of situations.  Thus, even though a site may facilitate illegal downloading of certain files, can the government shut down the entire site, thereby blocking all access to all of the non-infringing material at the same time?  This question is further compounded by the logistics of the entire situation.  Remember, Torrent-Finder is a search engine, which neither hosts nor links to infringing material, and yet it (not the “infringing” sites) was still seized.  On the other hand, the government merely seized the domain names, not the servers or the sites themselves, which were still reachable by IP address and can almost immediately be relocated to other domains (which Torrent-Finder did do).

For a more substantial analysis, here’s a blog defending the legality of the seizures, and one attacking it.  Of all the internet opinions, I like these two the best because they spawned subsequent debate that’s done a pretty thorough job of covering the issues, which I’ll link as part 3, part 4 and part 5.  Highly recommended reading.

In the end, although I don’t believe that it was illegal, I wonder what the point of seizing a domain like Torrent-Finder could be.  It’s an almost trivial matter for a website to acquire a new domain, which is exactly what Torrent-Finder did (it’s now Torrent-Finder.info).  In fact, many similar sites have responded in recent weeks by proactively moving overseas, away from the US-controlled .COM domains.  While I can see the strategic reason for attacking counterfeit goods sites on the biggest internet shopping day of the year, I’m not sure how shutting down a single Torrent search engine for a day contributes to the fight against illegal file-sharing.  Was it thrown in to test some specific issue?  Was it a mistake?  Because Torrent-Finder is alive and well at its new domain, this whole seizure may never amount to anything.  All I know for sure is that the file-sharing war drags on with no end in sight.

MTV stood by the show in the face of the controversy, premiering the first and second episodes of the series this month.  Even though the network contends that they shall stand by their creation, the advertisers and sponsors have not been so brave.  After just one week, the sponsors began to drop like flies, pulling their support and association from the program altogether.  Sponsors that pulled the plug include: Taco Bell, Wrigley, General Motors, Subway, Schick, Foot Locker, L’Oreal, and H&R Block.  The network’s own loyalty may shift fairly soon as well, as the executives responded to the sponsor fall-out by calling for some serious editing of future episodes to tone down the controversial content.  With actors as young as fifteen years of age, MTV needs to take a critical look at the material that they are producing and distributing across the country.  An allegation of child pornography has serious legal implications, even without a conviction, due to the costs of litigation and the loss of revenue from sponsors.  Sexual exploitation of minors is a political hotbed, and should MTV continue to stand by their controversial program without attending to the legal limitations, they may soon find themselves standing alone.

Federal law defines child pornography as “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where (A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; (B) such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (C) such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” 18 U.S.C.A. § 2256(8)(A-C).  A minor is a child younger than eighteen years of age, and “sexually explicit conduct” can be “actual or simulated.”  18 U.S.C.A. §§ 2256(1), 2256(2)(A).  The image of a minor engaged in sexually explicit, lewd, and lascivious conduct is considered to be illegal contraband and a federal offense.  This image need not be of actual sexual activity to fall within the scope of the statute.  In accordance with the above-cited language, the visual depiction need only be sexually suggestive, serving as a simulation of sexual conduct.  Depending on the current and future content of the television show, it is at least possible that MTV could infringe on the federal statute by simulating sex acts with minor actors.  More likely, they will walk the fine line on the edge of an actual violation, infuriating family groups and causing controversy.  And what could be better for ratings?

 Like many divorces that involve large amounts of money (Camille estimates the estate at $120 million), this divorce is not making its way through the courts as fast as Grammer would like. There is much evidence to suggest that Camille played a large role in ensuring Grammer’s continued success and without her his career would likely have stalled long ago. Because the paychecks would have all come in his name, Grammer seems to have forgotten the important role that Camille played in his career. These are tricky situations. How should a judge create a fair settlement package when much of what Camille did for Grammer is likely intangible? Also, should we be asking judges to predict the future? We do not know the level of success he may have had without her, if any. Regardless of the difficulties involved, some judgments must be made.

 Camille filed for divorce on July 1, 2010 citing irreconcilable differences. As he had already moved on, Grammer had no reason to contest. Sadly, the Grammers did not sign a prenup. Camille’s attorney, Neal Hersh, has requested a $10 million bond be made to ensure the security of her eventual payout during the ongoing litigation. A hearing has been set for today, January 26, 2011, to hear Grammer’s petition to dissolve the marriage now and resolve the distribution of assets later. Camille is against granting a divorce this quickly and would like to see the process through. Camille’s response in the Superior Court filing stated that Kelsey’s request is “solely for the reason that he intends to remarry as soon as possible…. I do not believe his is a sufficient reason to prejudice my rights to the community estate, especially given the large and complex nature of our estate.” Judge Maren Nelson has scheduled another hearing for February 7, 2011.

 Camille brings up some interesting points that should not be disregarded. Should Grammer be able to do whatever he wants simply because he is famous? I should hope the answer is no, but that is rarely the case. On the other hand, many non-famous divorces allow for dissolution of marriage separate from the division of assets because the latter can take a significant amount of time regardless of fame.

 Sadly, mud slinging has now become part of this very public debacle with Camille saying some very unflattering things, including accusations that Grammer enjoys cross-dressing. It is hard to understand how that is relevant to the matter at hand, but such is the nature of divorce.

 On another note, does it bother anyone else that the “Real Housewives of…” are frequently neither married nor housewives???