California Entertainment Legal Questions

If your spoof is a true parody, you are protected under the "fair use" doctrine from a claim of copyright infringement. However, it is very tricky and difficult to decide if you really are creating a parody. A parody, according to the United States Supreme Court, "is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works". For some examples of successful parodies, check out the "Pretty Woman" song parody in the case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. and the case of Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin, where the appeals court upheld the right of Alice Randall to publish a parody of Gone with the Wind called The Wind Done Gone, which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's slaves. On the other hand, fair use was denied and infringement found in the case of Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books case, where the appeals court found that a satire of the O.J. Simpson murder trial and parody of The Cat in the Hat had infringed upon the children's book because it did not provide a commentary function upon that work. You should check with someone familiar with copyright law about whether fair use would be a defense in your case.... Read More

The company can ban you for violation of its Terms of Service. Most Terms of Service will give the company the right to ban your account if, in the judgment of the company, it needs to be banned. The company is allowed to protect itself and other users. In most cases, the company is not required to tell you the reason. If you think the company has you mixed up with someone else and if your legal record and your behavior are squeaky clean, and if the same is true of everyone else who may use your account, you may want to contact the company and plead your case. If it is a choice between banning your account and risking having a potential abusive user, the company will ban the suspect user.... Read More

You seem to be asking if you can watch movies that are online for free, even though you have reason to think those movies have been placed online in violation of copyright law. Is this what you are asking? I think using such websites is a mistake, because those sites tend to be loaded with malware and viruses. You may save a three dollar movie rental fee and destroy your whole computer. Also, the sites may be honeypots trying to catch people watching or downloading child pornography. These are really big risks you are taking. However, I am not aware of any law that makes it illegal to stream, as a viewer, material that violates copyright. If you download the movie, even temporarily, you are violating copyright. If the system you are using does that, you are in violation.... Read More

Go directly onto the Apple website and search for the "Find my Apple ID" form. Or make an appointment and go in and talk with someone at the Genius Bar. If you are filling out the retrieval form, you must be very certain you are on the actual Apple website so you avoid any phishing scams.... Read More

Under California law, it is illegal for anyone under age 18 to have sex. Even if both the boy and girl are both under age 18, if they have sex, they can both be charged with sex crimes. If an older person has sex with a younger person, depending on the age difference, the older person can be charged as a sexual predator and be forced to be on sexual predator registries for life. If you are dating an older teenage man, you are setting the stage for his life being permanently ruined. Don't do it to him or to yourself. Your parents have an obligation to keep you from any situation that may lead to you having sex before you are 18. A couple of handy rules are to date only people your same age and grade in school and to wait till you are in college to have any sex. And then, only do so after you have a good contraception (birth control) plan in place and working.... Read More

Vehicle Headlamps are explained in California Vehicle Code Division 12 Chapter 2 Article 2. If you google on this, you should be able to find the whole Code online so you can read it. Whether those lights are legal depends on if they meet the many requirements of this law. It is so complex that you might just want to call the Department of Motor Vehicles and ask. My tendency is to think the lights are so blue that they will be illegal because they might be confused with other types of lights and may not register in the minds or eyes of other drivers as being headlights. But I am not sure and I think you should ask the DMV.... Read More

Contact Arctic Cat. The company is located in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. There is a website. It is spelled with a C, not a K. My first inclination is that it would need a windshield, but there may be more to it than that. I am sure this is a question the company has dealt with many times. Happy Adventures to you.... Read More

Firms rarely take products off the market just because of the potential that some idiot can misuse the product. Every product can be misused somehow and way too often the misuse is intentional on the part of the consumer. Pharmaceutical products are a good example of this. A product is usually recalled only when significant harm results from normal use or if the product contains a feature that is known to cause harm, such as small removable parts on toddler toys that can be easily swallowed. The cost of removing a product from the market is enormous and includes in-house and possibly government investigation of the alleged flaws of the product, reimbursing merchants for advanced payments, changing advertising campaigns, recovering and safely disposing of or repairing the recalled products, informing the public of the recall, replacing the product on the shelves with another product when possible, addressing possible drops in the value of the company's stock, and redesigning the manufacturing process and possibly even the manufacturing facility.... Read More

You must obtain a life's story rights agreement. What they are talking about (I believe) is reserving the rights to produce a book on tape or the like. However, these are extremely detailed document and entertainment law is a highly specialized area of the law. Consequently, I encourage you to contact a qualified entertainment IP attorney to discuss the details of your matter.... Read More

Why "physically" altered a script is of no importance (otherwise secretaries in Hollywood would own most scripts). Also who's name is on the document as being its creator is of little importance. If you are implementing changes that is the product of another's creativity and you did not have them sign a work for hire agreement before this was done, including a non-compete, then they may own a portion of the IP. How much is often determined by the court.... Read More

Joint Stock Companies were the early version of corporations. The English formed joint stock companies so people could invest in forming colonies in North America and other locations. The Virginia Company was one of these. Settling of the colonies was a capitalist venture, moreso that being an activity of the English government. The Company appointed the governor and the ruling council. Spanish and French colonies, on the other hand, were developed by those nations, rather than as private companies owned by people. You can find this in writings about U.S. colonial history.... Read More

If your idea is to sell sex, forget about it. You are crossing into criminal territory in Oregon. If, however, your idea is to sell escort services such as "wing-man" or "wing-woman" these can be doable, but everyone involved in the transaction must be clear that THERE IS NO SEX. You need to go in for a full, in-depth legal consult for your business. Again, I warn you: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SELL SEX SERVICES. No matter how you think you can "spin" it or conceal it, you're just going to get into trouble. Also, whatever you do, make sure to pay your taxes!... Read More

You've actually just opened a really interesting can of Copyright worms! Generally, short posts (e.g. posts of "tweet" length) by users are not copyright (a common exception being a haiku); however, websites like Reddit generally have user policies about using comments obtained from their forums (like: you can't, for any commercial purpose). It really comes down to specifically what you are trying to do with the comments. You need a legal consult to discuss in full detail just what you are trying to publish! Depending on what you're trying to do, you may need Reddit's permission.... Read More

You cannot be a named or representative plaintiff unless you agree in writing. Your name and address should not appear in any documents unless you agree to that. If the case becomes certified as a class, then you should be given the option to opt-out from being included. Some class actions have opt-in notices and some have opt-out notices.If a lawyer has sent you a notice saying your name and address will be listed on a lawsuit as a plaintiff and you have not given your permission, something is very wrong with how that lawyer is operating. It is possible the person sending you the notice is not even a lawyer, but rather, some type of scam artist or blackmailer or just a kook. I have seen litigious nut cases who are not lawyers file truly crazy lawsuits in other peoples' names. Those people are called "vexatious litigants" and some have court orders against them barring them from filing any lawsuit without court permission. However, since it is part of a mental illness where such people believe they are lawyers, they keep filing crazy court cases or move to a different court location to do so. You might be a victim of such a person.Those kind of crazy concocted lawsuits are usually quickly dismissed, but that does not help all the victims whose names have been placed onto the lawsuit. You are right to scurry on over to your own lawyer. If this is a suit being filed by a non-lawyer or if the notice to you was made by a non-lawyer, I urge you to contact the police and say a person is practicing law without a license.... Read More