Clinical Law Prof Blog

Coachella - The Next Pop-Up Tax Clinic Opportunity?

Ah Coachella.  California's yearly music and arts festival affords lot of opportunities for its attendees - amazing music, lots of star sightings, entire websites devoted to the fashion strategies to employ while attending, and being able to file your taxes unsuccessfully.  Wait?  What? 

At least ten people tried to file their taxes from the Coachella campground post office this past weekend.  Ironically the "post office" isn't a real post office, nor sponsored by USPS, and "acts more as an intermediary" between the festival "and the real local post office" according to the California Mercury News.  Megan Hampton, who runs the Coachella "office, was quoted as saying "No, I can't 'just take it...How do they have their taxes here? I don't know." 

Jeff Baker @JRBProf - better get that clinic outreach #JusticeBus ready for this weekend.  Sounds like there are folks who could use your clinic's help - maybe even Kanye or Kesha.  If not this year then perhaps we need to plan a road trip and ask Prof. Paul Caron @SoCalTaxProf to tag along.  As long as actress Vanessa Hudgens @VanessaHudgens can tell us what to wear.  I'm in @hagan_carrie.  Maybe I'll have a #Suitsy by then. 

 

 

But How Do I Teach...? Good question, now that summer's about over.

If you are like me, summers go way too fast.  One of the challenges of being a clinician is that your summers are more often than not filled with roll-over cases/students, summer classes, externships, and miscellaneous writing/vacations/activities.  Sooner than we know, it is fall semester again, and we are once again faced with new students, new cases, new challenges and an impetus to energize ourselves and our curriculum.  As I am not quite ready to face that yet, and others of you might feel similarly, I thought I would post a distraction instead, to get us through the remainder of summer. My summer ends in 11 days, and I plan on making the most of it!

It's around this time of year that I take a few minutes at work to recycle, clean my office, water my neglected plants and look for new office decorations to get me through another academic year.   Some of my favorite works are by an artist called Brandon Bird.  Brandon gained a decent reputation when he developed a Law and Order Coloring Book several years ago, which if you haven't seen it, is available here and offers up a few chuckles: http://brandonbird.com/lno_color.html.  As further incentive, it contains a dot-to-dot of the cop character Lenny Briscoe, which is always useful on a day you need something to procrastinate with.

My most recent work purchase is a print called "A Night Away" (image below from http://brandonbird.com/lno_camping.html).  I like it for its subtlety and because students usually do a triple take once they see the print.  And because, let's be honest, sometimes we all just need a night away.  Even Lenny Briscoe and Jack McCoy.

Here's to all of us having a good rest of our summer and a fresh start to the new academic year.  May your offices be free of clutter, files neatly organized, withdrawals all granted and classes all prepped.  Best wishes for Academic Year 2014-15!

 

 

 

A Supreme Court Decision that Went Under the Radar

 There has been rightful focus on the Supreme Court’s most groundbreaking recent pronouncements: rejection of warrantless cellphone searches, establishing for-profit corporations’ rights to religious choices (!), and mandatory union dues curtailments. Because it was not, perhaps as socially consequential as those decisions, last Wednesday’s  6-3 ruling against Aereo, an upstart Over-The-Top (OTT) internet service, went under the radar, so to speak. Speaking to the Media Law and Policy teaching side of my brain, the Court held that Aereo, an internet provider of broadcast programs, directly violated the copyrights of ABC, FOX, CBS, NBC, and other “traditional” broadcast networks.  The decision preserved—for now—broadcasters’ exclusive ability to control the re-transmission and licensing of its programs. On the other hand, the decision was a temporary setback for the ‘cord cutters.’ 

Cord-cutters, most of whom are Millennials, are those media consumers who have elected to do away with traditional television viewing, going so far as not just refused to subscribe to cable television, but not own a television at all. As a result, cable companies have seen a marked decline in subscribers. At the same time, broadcast and cable companies have chased viewers onto the internet, their laptops, their tablets and their smartphones.  Television networks, in fierce competition with the likes of online networks such as Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime, have Hulu, Hulu Plus, or their own online channels streaming network content. Aereo posed a real and further threat to cable and broadcast television revenue streams. 

Broadcast networks bring in billions of dollars per year from cable companies by permitting them to air broadcast programs such as ABC’s Modern Family.  In addition, the owners of those shows (which may or may not be the network’s parent company) can yield untold revenue by licensing syndication rights to cable networks or OTT streaming networks such as Netflix.  In that context, it should be apparent why the networks were so concerned about Aereo, whose technology captured broadcast signals by way of miniature antennas on large antenna boards, and provided broadcast program downloading and time-shifted viewing or recording. While charging subscribers between $8-$12 per month for the service, Aereo paid the program owners nothing. 

The broadcasters executed a bold legal strategy that paid off.  They argued that Aereo was legally liable for direct infringement (primarily liable for re-transmitting copyrighted work), as opposed to indirect infringement, or secondary liability. For the Supreme Court, the issues came down to two seemingly simple questions: Was Aereo performing a copyrighted work, and if so, was it performing it publicly? Justice Breyer, writing for the majority, answered both questions “yes.” 

Aereo’s position was that it was simply a “dumb pipe”—like a set of rabbit ears or a VCR—that any consumer could purchase and use to watch or record programs.  Justice Scalia, in dissent with Justices Alito and Thomas, agreed, arguing that Aereo was more like the Kinko’s that provides a patron with the library card: It’s the patron that may violate copyright law when copying the book, not Kinko’s. 

The majority disagreed, and held that Aereo was acting more like a cable company, through which subscribers can elect which shows to watch or record. Moreover, despite the fact that Aereo technology assigned an individual to each antenna, and even if subscribers were watching the same show, a separate copy of the show was made for each viewer, the Court said Aereo was providing the show to the public. Consequently, Aereo was bound to seek copyright permission from the copyright holders—just like cable companies. 

The decision will likely ring the death knell for Aereo and similar streaming servicers (e.g., FilmOn), if Aereo’s weekend decision to suspend its streaming service is any portent. On the other hand, the decision was a tremendous victory for broadcast networks. By ruling not just that Aereo was liable for copyright infringement, but directly liable, the Court spared television program copyright owners the fate that befell the music industry. The Napster and Grokster decisions caused the record industry to engage in nearly a spate of “John and Jane Doe” lawsuits—chasing individual consumers for alleged or actual illegal downloading and sharing of music. Those lawsuits—tens of thousands—proved to be both economically costly and a public relations disaster for the industry.  Copyright holders of television broadcast content, for now, will be spared a similar fate. 

Even if Aereo ceases to exist in its current form, there are other internet businesses that allow consumers to view broadcast programming without the aid of cable or satellite infrastructure. In addition, virtual multiple-system operators are seeking to aggregate television channels and deliver them by broadband connection.  However, under any regime, how the business makes money will be, well, the $64,000 question. In light of the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision, paying for content from television broadcasters will be a given for the foreseeable future. For now, cord-cutting Millennials will have to find another OTT to watch their favorite broadcast show.

 

Funding Opportunity for Law School Clinics

Our nation is currently witnessing headlines about the busing of hundreds of unaccompanied children across the Southwest from Texas to Arizona, where they are being warehoused, but there are tens of thousands more unaccompanied children in our nation who are not making headlines.  All need our help.  Tomorrow Gannett is publishing an op-ed I wrote about the need to provide legal representation for these children.  It can be found here. 

Law school clinics interested in this issue should consider applying for the AmeriCorps grants that the Obama administration announced on Friday to provide legal representation for these and other migrant children who are in similar circumstances (see NYT article).  Information about the grants can be found at this site.  The targeted jurisdictions for the grants are:  Arlington, VA; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Bloomington, MN; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; El Paso, TX; Hartford, CT; Kansas City, MO; Las Vegas, NV; Memphis, TN; Miami, FL; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Newark, NJ; Omaha, NE; Orlando, FL; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; San Antonio, TX; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA.

If you need background in preparing your application, an excellent study about these children was just published by UC Hastings with the support of the MacArthur Foundation.  I recently wrote a brief law review article arguing for the appointment of government-funded attorneys and personal representatives to help unaccompanied children navigate the legal labyrinth they face.  If you would like to talk or need help with your application, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  You will also find tremendous resources among our our colleagues who are immigration law faculty.  They are a font of knowledge, passion, and commitment.  Good luck!     

One of Inga's "Must See Movies" for the Summer

Below is a trailer for a movie that I am planning on seeing this summer...that is if I can find it within a 300 mile radius of Spokane, Washington.  "The Rules of Racism" is the third movie in the series "Hidden Colors" from New York Times bestselling author, Tariq Nasheed.  The previous two films in the series are "Hidden Colors: The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent" (2011) and "Hidden Colors 2: The Triumph of Melanin" (2012).  

WARNING: If you watch this video on YouTube and glance below the video to the comments section, prepare to be outraged, amused, befuddled, disheartened and a host of other emotions...