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guilds, digital media, entertainment and technology.&#xa;&#xa;From entertainment/technology attorney Jonathan Handel, Of Counsel at TroyGould in Los Angeles, freelance journo and former Contributing Editor at the Hollywood Reporter.</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>477</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-914535860371802106</guid><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:22:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2020-09-11T13:22:24.876-07:00</atom:updated><title>SAG-AFTRA Engages Jonathan Handel as Outside Special Counsel</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Leaves The Hollywood Reporter; will continue to practice entertainment/tech law; writes at jhandel.news&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p data-pm-context=&quot;[]&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;LOS ANGELES (September 8, 2020)&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp;–  SAG-AFTRA has engaged entertainment/technology attorney and journalist Jonathan Handel as an outside Special Counsel to the union, effective Sept. 1, to work on special projects and cutting-edge issues.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Handel brings a deep familiarity with  SAG-AFTRA and with entertainment, technology, law and labor. He is a 30-year practicing attorney and covered the entertainment industry for &lt;em&gt;The Hollywood Reporter &lt;/em&gt;for a decade.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;SAG-AFTRA Chief Operating Officer and  General Counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said, &quot;We are thrilled to have Jonathan working with SAG-AFTRA and look forward to engaging his talents on a number of crucial issues and projects. He is an accomplished and forward-thinking attorney with a talent for incisive analysis, which  coupled with his entertainment industry expertise perfectly positions him to help advise on complex matters for the union.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“This is a time of enormous economic and  technological challenge for all SAG-AFTRA members,” said Handel. “Working- and middle-class people are under assault in this country, and our industries are no different. I’m excited and grateful to have the  opportunity to help tackle some of the toughest problems ever faced by the union’s members – many of whom I have the privilege to call friends –  and I hope to make an enduring contribution to their careers, well-being and basic dignity.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Handel has left his post at &lt;em&gt;The Hollywood Reporter&lt;/em&gt;, but will continue to practice entertainment and technology law for other clients that do not conflict with SAG-AFTRA assignments. As part of the agreement to engage Handel, the union is also acquiring an app that the lawyer and technologist wrote to help members navigate their health insurance options.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Handel is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College with a degree in applied math and computer science and received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He was active in LGBTQ and party politics and wrote a local civil rights  ordinance in addition to serving on various city commissions. He clerked for a federal court of appeals judge, practiced appellate litigation, served as a federal Associate Independent Counsel investigating alleged White House political misconduct, and was a member of the Writers Guild  of America, West, legal staff, before transitioning to entertainment and technology transactional law, negotiating for a range of clients.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The author of &lt;a href=&quot;https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUUitf5Ahf5UdIJEy0ZOpavplxKxJHPXvxAYuDxvMKEU16IDb_R3SCs2FJMr06PGoxpLZmdz-2BYi3BjXFKy7-2FP0vXzspno9m00arXf2co0IWcXzOkQ1bUtz6l8VGgwXNKJ2qw1pSHVV8PCrhEmERw967f3sF3H-2Bt7hKmDKeKKo6RKIQjOQRKBOHIvd2aJQq-2BvzdBmt3K6SfkJCaXQNMuVscj4cB6FpX57CF9yGi8KpgUHemtQKc4YOpyKTGQ8vchvrqVclHdzs88rcY-2F2KCv1x-2F1e0RcG3UzgIEbu7x4Wkoz8PGhDiyPrwWhzwHro2a9FVsYYZragSFuNtfmOdEUgqUMGePnTtst9P-2BfnpSocR61AZ-2Bp9w36AcgY-2Fooy7zbejlzhuTMoQ-3D-3D&quot;&gt;four books&lt;/a&gt; on entertainment labor, including a full-color &lt;a href=&quot;https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUUitf5Ahf5UdIJEy0ZOpavpMGJRsk1DzkT7JEpffk49AMQ3G_R3SCs2FJMr06PGoxpLZmdz-2BYi3BjXFKy7-2FP0vXzspno9m00arXf2co0IWcXzOkQ1bUtz6l8VGgwXNKJ2qw1pSHVV8PCrhEmERw967f3sF3H-2Bt7hKmDKeKKo6RKIQjOQRKBOHIvd2aJQq-2BvzdBmt3K6SfkJCaXQNMuVscj4cB6FpX57CF9yGi8KpgUHemtQKczeWpybioEMskwtWgSWr7Mm7MqvJpadpo0XxptZClkZbV68YklDyzMuqeUAFqPL033rGJbRovk3mgJbT3hs-2FCFVJfQwSgdsT48aBDoz4lW-2FZc5KnfYdJK9sqW05nCpLjM9vi3yUgbENIEv8K802bl8A-3D-3D&quot;&gt;guide to residuals&lt;/a&gt; based on his industry-leading chart, Handel is currently on the adjunct faculty at &lt;a href=&quot;https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUXIQ2P3h-2BzQWHwHWQl4FjnxbbTkPAUsYCUn3LbhLQCMpLGLU_R3SCs2FJMr06PGoxpLZmdz-2BYi3BjXFKy7-2FP0vXzspno9m00arXf2co0IWcXzOkQ1bUtz6l8VGgwXNKJ2qw1pSHVV8PCrhEmERw967f3sF3H-2Bt7hKmDKeKKo6RKIQjOQRKBOHIvd2aJQq-2BvzdBmt3K6SfkJCaXQNMuVscj4cB6FpX57CF9yGi8KpgUHemtQKcev3ZgJ-2FUagi3ekSgrVvRNAPFehFbYMRB1hgs6q5kWwUJ2rZBSAsqTs5KCjQ61rhlrTCYSF243rXlfUInJRs0wQGdoLLqhcPIPLi2vej9blsv0ftPKFN5FmApF3yjbGgAm8dbhfSXqQlzLt6IZ2DPTQ-3D-3D&quot;&gt;USC Gould School of Law&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUUwssE9C1GYkzGUu5vtShbA-2FCkYu-2BOBgqLHVGviFc01-2FU8UKNmXOPOipbP7oBC5GYQ-3D-3DB_ir_R3SCs2FJMr06PGoxpLZmdz-2BYi3BjXFKy7-2FP0vXzspno9m00arXf2co0IWcXzOkQ1bUtz6l8VGgwXNKJ2qw1pSHVV8PCrhEmERw967f3sF3H-2Bt7hKmDKeKKo6RKIQjOQRKBOHIvd2aJQq-2BvzdBmt3K6SfkJCaXQNMuVscj4cB6FpX57CF9yGi8KpgUHemtQKcXtXpXZDcis8aWfrm-2FLNqtsB4ozR7S1V-2Ba4xI0xAZWklXBAz-2BEGzOY6QiGDV-2BW5R4FOLqTgdvJqjB1-2Fx-2BWzonThqABUPzbRaI3MbHTeT6mXAaoCCwrNHCjN9fTSMQoxWlVUxCfVdvZ027HrEuEKFe1w-3D-3D&quot;&gt;Southwestern Law School&lt;/a&gt; and is a non-resident research fellow at the &lt;a href=&quot;https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUTx-2FWjHJRudr0rXFoWT9lf1fARzBambX5zOycwuxOqwVponuslqUmbH7MqXMfamNEMHtqsd1CYNGqcCddSvSoaE-3DMSV4_R3SCs2FJMr06PGoxpLZmdz-2BYi3BjXFKy7-2FP0vXzspno9m00arXf2co0IWcXzOkQ1bUtz6l8VGgwXNKJ2qw1pSHVV8PCrhEmERw967f3sF3H-2Bt7hKmDKeKKo6RKIQjOQRKBOHIvd2aJQq-2BvzdBmt3K6SfkJCaXQNMuVscj4cB6FpX57CF9yGi8KpgUHemtQKcWn2Q7YdjJuh6NQYRLcu5a-2BD03FcYCPjpaNW3gv5qRXTpZhCSphyRQjvgr5zuTVwmiZxEgUclQvs2Ui1NG-2BerBjq-2BUn5w7IAb3mGZdbttMOP3bj6lmWMlWuyhh4E-2B-2F99L-2F-2FVaRHR4ebT3mZ3vDpCvBA-3D-3D&quot;&gt;Rutgers&lt;/a&gt; School of Management and Labor Relations’ Institute for the Study of  Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. He is a widely respected industry commentator and has made more than 1,100 media appearances. He is also a prodigious writer of television scripts, stories, stage plays and poetry and is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and an associate member of the Dramatists Guild and the Society of Composers &amp;amp; Lyricists.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coverage: &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-names-jonathan-handel-as-an-outside-special-counsel&quot;&gt;The Hollywood Reporter&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://variety.com/2020/film/news/sag-aftra-jonathan-handel-special-counsel-1234762918/&quot;&gt;Variety&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://deadline.com/2020/09/sag-aftra-jonathan-handel-outside-legal-counsel-thr-1234573044/&quot;&gt;Deadline&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-engages-jonathan-handel-outside-special-counsel&quot;&gt;SAG-AFTRA website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2020/09/sag-aftra-engages-jonathan-handel-as.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author><georss:featurename>Los Angeles, CA, USA</georss:featurename><georss:point>34.0522342 -118.2436849</georss:point><georss:box>5.7420003638211554 -153.3999349 62.362468036178846 -83.0874349</georss:box></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3118738486512112874</guid><pubDate>Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:00:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2016-12-12T03:00:27.156-08:00</atom:updated><title>Sirocco (Poetry &amp; Politics)</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;o:DocumentProperties&gt;   &lt;o:Author&gt;Marian Lam&lt;/o:Author&gt;   &lt;o:Version&gt;11.9999&lt;/o:Version&gt;  &lt;/o:DocumentProperties&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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44. <br />
45. <iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/297504537&auto_play=true&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
46. <br />
47. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
48. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Music/FX credits: piano Amir Mofrat; flute Jensmuse; wind Mark DiAngelo.</i><br />
49. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/jhandel99/sirocco" target="_blank">Click here if the player above is not visible.</a> </i></div>
50. <br />
51. <br />
52. <br />
53. <div class="MsoNormal">
54. An ill wind blows</div>
55. <div class="MsoNormal">
56. Straight across the land:</div>
57. <div class="MsoNormal">
58. You can feel it now.</div>
59. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
60. </div>
61. <div class="MsoNormal">
62. It’s a desert gale</div>
63. <div class="MsoNormal">
64. That dessicates compassion;</div>
65. <div class="MsoNormal">
66. A sandstorm</div>
67. <div class="MsoNormal">
68. Scouring empathy from the heart.</div>
69. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
70. </div>
71. <div class="MsoNormal">
72. It’s a parching blast,</div>
73. <div class="MsoNormal">
74. A dry sirocco</div>
75. <div class="MsoNormal">
76. That burns away kindness.</div>
77. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
78. </div>
79. <div class="MsoNormal">
80. A wind that turns landscapes</div>
81. <div class="MsoNormal">
82. Into arid civic ruin.</div>
83. <div class="MsoNormal">
84. <br /></div>
85. <div class="MsoNormal">
86. <br /></div>
87. <div class="MsoNormal">
88. ——————————————————————————</div>
89. <div class="MsoNormal">
90. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Previously</i></div>
91. <div class="MsoNormal">
92. <br /></div>
93. <div class="MsoNormal">
94. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/trump---the-grand-experim_b_12148146.html">Trump - ‘The Grand Experiment’ (Video) (Poetry & Politics)</a></div>
95. </description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2016/12/sirocco-poetry-politics.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-8387845355545461297</guid><pubDate>Fri, 23 Sep 2016 03:30:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2016-09-27T17:06:54.926-07:00</atom:updated><title>Trump - &#39;The Grand Experiment&quot; (Video)</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:WordDocument&gt;   &lt;w:View&gt;Normal&lt;/w:View&gt;   &lt;w:Zoom&gt;0&lt;/w:Zoom&gt;   &lt;w:PunctuationKerning/&gt;   &lt;w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/&gt;   &lt;w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;false&lt;/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;   &lt;w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;false&lt;/w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;   &lt;w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;false&lt;/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;   &lt;w:Compatibility&gt;    &lt;w:BreakWrappedTables/&gt;    &lt;w:SnapToGridInCell/&gt;    &lt;w:WrapTextWithPunct/&gt;    &lt;w:UseAsianBreakRules/&gt;    &lt;w:DontGrowAutofit/&gt;    &lt;w:UseFELayout/&gt;   &lt;/w:Compatibility&gt;   &lt;w:BrowserLevel&gt;MicrosoftInternetExplorer4&lt;/w:BrowserLevel&gt;  &lt;/w:WordDocument&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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115. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="1" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v_PRq3bXRrE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="180" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UeFYWj2m20o?autoplay=1&rel=0&feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
116. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
117. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
118. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
119. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The Grand Experiment</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
120. </div>He said I alone can solve it all:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>  <br />
121. <div class="MsoNormal">The Mexicans will take the fall,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rapists and murderers one and all. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I'll keep them out with a beautiful wall.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
122. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He claimed Muslims on the Jersey Shore</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cheered 9/11 with a roar.</div><div class="MsoNormal">So he proposed to even the score</div><div class="MsoNormal">By turning away refugees from our door.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
123. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He picked off his rivals one by one</div><div class="MsoNormal">With insults from his verbal gun.</div><div class="MsoNormal">A playground bully in his roots;</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now some of the vanquished lick his boots.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
124. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Party leaders professed surprise;</div><div class="MsoNormal">But said not a word as they saw him rise.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Their fifty-year history brought us here:</div><div class="MsoNormal">Filled with whispered expletives like nigger, and queer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
125. </div><div class="MsoNormal">They acted as if they didn't know</div><div class="MsoNormal">That his campaign was a toxic show</div><div class="MsoNormal">And didn't believe he’d continue to crow</div><div class="MsoNormal">While eager crowds watched, faces aglow.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
126. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Now their surprise has turned to dismay,</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the leaders still have little to say.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He's ours, they reason, and so they endorse;</div><div class="MsoNormal">While with their party he rides off on a horse.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
127. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Think what he'd do if he brought into play</div><div class="MsoNormal">The FBI and NSA.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like Nixon he’d create a mess</div><div class="MsoNormal">With the help of the IRS.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
128. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He could reshape the Pentagon</div><div class="MsoNormal">And stack the Court</div><div class="MsoNormal">As if in a game</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or perverted sport.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
129. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Treaties we rely on now</div><div class="MsoNormal">He might simply disavow;</div><div class="MsoNormal">And let the Russians have their way</div><div class="MsoNormal">If the Baltics didn’t pay.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
130. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He seems to love color</div><div class="MsoNormal">But not every hue:</div><div class="MsoNormal">Only white sheets,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Blood red,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Black and blue.</div><div class="MsoNormal">To him that’s our nation,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Through and through.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
131. </div><div class="MsoNormal">An original birther,</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’s no mere apprentice.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet he speaks without mirth or</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ending a sentence.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
132. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He riles up the crowd</div><div class="MsoNormal">By mouthing hatred aloud.</div><div class="MsoNormal">With a trumpet, a tweet</div><div class="MsoNormal">And a wink and a nod,</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’ll grind all his foes</div><div class="MsoNormal">Right into the sod.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
133. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Or deport them like cattle,</div><div class="MsoNormal">From Maine to Seattle.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
134. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The economy’s up and crime is down </div><div class="MsoNormal">But his constituents are white folks,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Not black and few brown.</div><div class="MsoNormal">A fact that for him</div><div class="MsoNormal">Warrants not even a frown.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
135. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He boasts of his billions</div><div class="MsoNormal">Till people get dizzy.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But ask for returns</div><div class="MsoNormal">And he throws a tizzy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
136. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The deleveraged, the macho, the unschooled and enraged:</div><div class="MsoNormal">They lap up his act, his airplanes and gilt;</div><div class="MsoNormal">And won’t even notice</div><div class="MsoNormal">Till the knife’s in to the hilt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
137. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He has but one thing</div><div class="MsoNormal">To say to dissenters:</div><div class="MsoNormal">I beat all the governors,</div><div class="MsoNormal">And even the senators.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
138. </div><div class="MsoNormal">But sadly, he says,</div><div class="MsoNormal">What you can’t beat anymore</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is the protesters at rallies – </div><div class="MsoNormal">Hey, is that chick a whore?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
139. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He calls women dogs</div><div class="MsoNormal">And his daughter hot.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’d probably tap that,</div><div class="MsoNormal">If related they were not.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
140. </div><div class="MsoNormal">And speaking of dogs:</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’ll wag like a pup</div><div class="MsoNormal">When a strongman like Putin</div><div class="MsoNormal">Feeds him crap to lap up.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
141. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He flirts with white power</div><div class="MsoNormal">And dictators abroad;</div><div class="MsoNormal">Talks of conspiracies,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dark secrets and fraud.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
142. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Evidence is absent</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so is the truth;</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dissecting his meaning</div><div class="MsoNormal">Can require a sleuth.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
143. </div><div class="MsoNormal">“Believe me” he’ll say,</div><div class="MsoNormal">As facts slip away;</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then walk it back</div><div class="MsoNormal">With an “I don’t know” crack.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
144. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He mocks the disabled</div><div class="MsoNormal">And impugns a judge;</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s as though someone cabled</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Keep sending us sludge!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
145. </div><div class="MsoNormal">They said he would pivot,</div><div class="MsoNormal">But how could he change? </div><div class="MsoNormal">For this is a man </div><div class="MsoNormal">Of limited range.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
146. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He says, Crush the press</div><div class="MsoNormal">And ignore all the mess:</div><div class="MsoNormal">Constitution, statutes and all the rest.</div><div class="MsoNormal">As leader, I say, I’m the one who knows best.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
147. </div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s kind of ironic</div><div class="MsoNormal">Since the media made him;</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then like a tonic</div><div class="MsoNormal">Farewell they had bade him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
148. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet he often stumbles</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then revives.</div><div class="MsoNormal">If this guy wins,</div><div class="MsoNormal">What survives?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
149. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Laughing off war crimes</div><div class="MsoNormal">And testing religion;</div><div class="MsoNormal">He might leave some liberties</div><div class="MsoNormal">But perhaps just a smidgen.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
150. </div><div class="MsoNormal">And what if he loses?</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s, I smell a rat!</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now gun owners</div><div class="MsoNormal">Should ready their gats!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
151. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">E pluribus unum:</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">But in truth our fates</div><div class="MsoNormal">Likely depend</div><div class="MsoNormal">On random swing states.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
152. </div><div class="MsoNormal">By November we’ll spy</div><div class="MsoNormal">On which road we’ll go;</div><div class="MsoNormal">Have we chosen the high</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or selected the low.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
153. </div><div class="MsoNormal">And then the world</div><div class="MsoNormal">Will finally know</div><div class="MsoNormal">If they need still be wary.</div><div class="MsoNormal">For this man is quite scary.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
154. </div><div class="MsoNormal">To him experts are nothing,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Not even the generals.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He thinks himself wise,</div><div class="MsoNormal">But what kind of owl</div><div class="MsoNormal">Screeches all day</div><div class="MsoNormal">And puts on a scowl?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
155. </div><div class="MsoNormal">His hair in a rage,</div><div class="MsoNormal">He’s off on a rant.</div><div class="MsoNormal">His mind thinks thoughts</div><div class="MsoNormal">That most of ours can’t.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
156. </div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’m sending the nukes</div><div class="MsoNormal">And feel fresh as a daisy.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">To him this is smart;</div><div class="MsoNormal">To the rest of us, crazy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
157. </div><div class="MsoNormal">A Muslim dad with a book</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is to him just a crook;</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Who wrote that speech?”</div><div class="MsoNormal">Asks the man whose own wife</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mouthed words from another’s life.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
158. </div><div class="MsoNormal">And a Gold Star mother</div><div class="MsoNormal">Contorted in grief</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is not even entitled</div><div class="MsoNormal">To simple belief;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
159. </div><div class="MsoNormal">POWs are losers –</div><div class="MsoNormal">The insults abound.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Why is someone so tawdry</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even around?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
160. </div><div class="MsoNormal">You’ve sacrificed nothing.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Not true, he replies.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve built businesses, buildings.</div><div class="MsoNormal">And told many lies!</div><div class="MsoNormal">What does it take</div><div class="MsoNormal">To open some eyes?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
161. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I killed in New York,</div><div class="MsoNormal">He boasts with a bluster;</div><div class="MsoNormal">And could do it for real</div><div class="MsoNormal">Which most cannot muster.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
162. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Love trumps hate;</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or so they say.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But darkness is deep</div><div class="MsoNormal">And people, clay.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
163. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Fear mixed with rage</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is a potent brew.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hitler knew it.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mussolini too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
164. </div><div class="MsoNormal">From bully to bully pulpit;</div><div class="MsoNormal">How bad could it get?</div><div class="MsoNormal">We survived McCarthy.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this is worse yet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
165. </div><div class="MsoNormal">His name’s now a verb;</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Trump that bitch” is the cry.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m sure that he’s heard it;</div><div class="MsoNormal">But he bats not an eye.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
166. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Ties, wine and buildings</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s all just a brand.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Like a bogus university</div><div class="MsoNormal">Built on nothing but sand.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
167. </div><div class="MsoNormal">He wants immigrants out,</div><div class="MsoNormal">Except for his wives.</div><div class="MsoNormal">For they alone</div><div class="MsoNormal">Know his true size.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
168. </div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s all a disaster,</div><div class="MsoNormal">He says, but wait!</div><div class="MsoNormal">Elect me now</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I’ll make it great.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
169. &lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2016/09/trump-grand-experiment-video.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/UeFYWj2m20o/default.jpg" height="72" width="72"/></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-8875274721506537972</guid><pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:00:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-11-09T14:27:57.562-08:00</atom:updated><title>It’s a Play! It’s Live Internet TV! It’s Both, and it Opens in Los Angeles on Friday</title><description>&lt;h4 id=&quot;yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8646&quot;&gt;&lt;i id=&quot;yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8645&quot;&gt;‘The Noir Series’ harkens back to the days of live TV but presents a thoroughly modern challenge to entertainment unions&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
170. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
171. <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHJA_7vKbN9piNrnthlK-P_UE9U2peV4z5PGAmOtb_DUndSpZwfcrv-xtrDEN39FoSJ47z9nI0PpT9CmpsUpw7q7GiBsZITdZ68AprFhj6Wwy939tw5rKmybOkWha3dGyCIzApsfDnEjU/s1600/The+Noir+Series+-+Bad+Medicine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHJA_7vKbN9piNrnthlK-P_UE9U2peV4z5PGAmOtb_DUndSpZwfcrv-xtrDEN39FoSJ47z9nI0PpT9CmpsUpw7q7GiBsZITdZ68AprFhj6Wwy939tw5rKmybOkWha3dGyCIzApsfDnEjU/s1600/The+Noir+Series+-+Bad+Medicine.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
172. <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8669">Bad Medicine,' a segment from  'The Noir Series,' features a chain-smoking doctor and two disconcerting  nurses. Credit: Turner Munch.</i></span></td></tr>
173. </tbody></table><br />
174. <div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8680">Somewhat like Shimmer, <i>Saturday Night Live</i>’s mysterious concoction that was both a <a href="https://screen.yahoo.com/shimmer-floor-wax-000000185.html">floor wax and a dessert topping</a>, a production called <i><a href="http://www.hereticklab.com/thenoirseries.html">The Noir Series</a></i> that runs this weekend in Los Angeles manages to be both a stage play and live Internet TV. You can buy “<a href="http://noirseries.brownpapertickets.com/">studio audience tickets</a>” to see the show in person at the <a href="http://www.schkapf.com/" id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8693">Schkapf Theatre</a> or purchase <a href="http://static.viewer.dacast.com/b/43652/p/48152">online viewing tickets</a>.  The producers – who describe the show as a 90 minute omnibus comprised  of “four plays inspired by the dark and pulpy noir of Hollywood’s past,  filmed and streamed with an eye towards Hollywood’s future” – will be  happy either way.</div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8680"><br />
175. </div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8682">But will Actors’ Equity, the union that governs live theatre? Produced under the banner of <a href="http://www.hereticklab.com/" id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8695">Heretick Theatre Lab</a>, <i>The Noir Series</i>  seems to challenge Equity’s long-held determination to disallow  recording or streaming of plays in order to preserve the primacy of the  live performance.</div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8684"><br />
176. </div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8684">Seemingly, the solution adopted by Heretick’s artistic director <b>Jennifer Cotteleer</b>  is simple: the production went with a SAG-AFTRA new media contract  rather than an Equity agreement. But it's not quite that easy: Cotteleer  acknowledged that the production “is a play” -- and SAG-AFTRA contracts  haven't always saved the day when the experiment was tried in New York.</div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8697"><br />
177. </div><div id="yui_3_17_2_5_1415391803319_8697">For more on this innovative production and its challenges, click through to my article in <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s-a-play-s-live-747299" target="_blank"><i>The Hollywood Reporter</i></a>.</div><br />
178. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Visit my website (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;), follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot; target=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhandel&quot; target=&quot;&quot;&gt;LinkedIn&lt;/a&gt;. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;  </description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/11/its-play-its-live-internet-tv-its-both.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHJA_7vKbN9piNrnthlK-P_UE9U2peV4z5PGAmOtb_DUndSpZwfcrv-xtrDEN39FoSJ47z9nI0PpT9CmpsUpw7q7GiBsZITdZ68AprFhj6Wwy939tw5rKmybOkWha3dGyCIzApsfDnEjU/s72-c/The+Noir+Series+-+Bad+Medicine.jpg" height="72" width="72"/></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-5810093360091576076</guid><pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2014 20:44:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-10-24T14:24:44.005-07:00</atom:updated><title>&#39;Citizenfour&#39; Review: Quiet Moments in a Hong Kong Hotel Room as Edward Snowden, Journalists Fight to Save Democracy</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:WordDocument&gt;   &lt;w:View&gt;Normal&lt;/w:View&gt;   &lt;w:Zoom&gt;0&lt;/w:Zoom&gt;   &lt;w:PunctuationKerning/&gt;   &lt;w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/&gt;   &lt;w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;false&lt;/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;   &lt;w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;false&lt;/w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;   &lt;w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;false&lt;/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;   &lt;w:Compatibility&gt;    &lt;w:BreakWrappedTables/&gt;    &lt;w:SnapToGridInCell/&gt;    &lt;w:WrapTextWithPunct/&gt;    &lt;w:UseAsianBreakRules/&gt;    &lt;w:DontGrowAutofit/&gt;   &lt;/w:Compatibility&gt;   &lt;w:BrowserLevel&gt;MicrosoftInternetExplorer4&lt;/w:BrowserLevel&gt;  &lt;/w:WordDocument&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;
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180. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
181. Hong Kong has been ground zero this year in the fight for freedom, with students and Occupy leaders battling police for control of the streets in a desperate campaign to maintain the Chinese territory’s relative autonomy from erosion by the central Beijing government.</div>
182. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
183. <br /></div>
184. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
185. But the city hosted much quieter freedom fighters a year earlier, not on the streets but in the confines of an international hotel room. When journalist Glenn Greenwald and documentary film maker / journalist Laura Poitras responded to emails from an intelligence community member who identified himself at first only as “Citizenfour,” little did they how deep the rabbit hole would be and that unraveling history’s largest spying operation – a worldwide mass dragnet by the NSA that targets essentially everyone on earth – would mean traveling to Hong Kong and debriefing Snowden in a hotel room from which none of them would emerge unchanged.</div>
186. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
187. <br /></div>
188. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
189. Nor, it seems likely, will the audience of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizenfour, </i>which takes the viewer inside that hotel room via footage Poitras shot as the interviews with Snowden unfolded. Even though we now know, thank to the courage of Snowden, and of Greenwald, Poitras and their colleagues, that the NS’s warrantless programs hoover up everything from everyone, domestic and foreign, emails, telephone calls, metadata and apparently <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>contents as well, it’s nonetheless gripping to watch the interplay between source and journalists as the latter learn the details and attempt to figure out what to do about it.</div>
190. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
191. <br /></div>
192. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
193. Snowden, young, handsome, sincere, is outwardly calm, willing to give up his comfortable life, family ties, and perhaps his freedom to slow the U.S.’s slide towards a nation of subjects rather than citizens. But his Adam’s Apple betrays him. Take a close look and you can see he’s swallowing hard, even as he insists he’s made his peace with the choice to sacrifice his own comfort for the greater good. Later, when he rearranges his hair to muddle his identity as he prepares to slip underground, his curses at an errant cowlick underscore the anxiety he feels.</div>
194. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
195. <br /></div>
196. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
197. As a journalist, I’ve worked with anxious sources, tried to <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/judge-scolds-hollywood-sex-accuser-742505">uncover truths</a>, published <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-merger-mercer-report-leak-294434">secret documents</a> and laid bare the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/inside-the-sag-boardroom_b_158829.html">backroom dealings of closed-door meetings</a>. I’ve never worked on anything as momentous as Poitras and Greenwald’s brief, nor put my life (cf. war reporters) or freedom at risk, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizenfour</i> nonetheless felt eerily familiar in its duet between source and reporter, as documents and thumbdrives change hands and broad contexts and telling details emerge. </div>
198. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
199. <br /></div>
200. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
201. As a former math geek and computer scientist, I’ve long been interested in the NSA, and knew that the nascent intelligence community during World War II had monitored every international telephone call and telegram from or to the U.S. As far back as the early 1980’s – when I worked for the military-contractor think tank that created the Internet’s predecessor for the Defense Department – I figured that computerized monitoring of international communications was taking place (though I never worked on such projects), so the Snowden revelations at one level were unsurprising. But they didn’t fail to chill last year, nor when seen again in the film. </div>
202. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
203. <br /></div>
204. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
205. Not all of the documentary takes place in the hotel room. Particularly unnerving is footage of earthmovers in the Utah mountains relentlessly clawing at the landscape as they construct a massive NSA data center to store the intercepts that Snowden says the agency in drowning in – so much so, he says, that the intelligence community has lost the ability to find the valuable information in its own hoard. Dogged in their pursuit of bedrock, the steamshovels’ unforgiving appetite for raw earth and their inexorable attack on the landscape become in Poitras’s sure hands visual signifiers of the greed for information – and thus power – that characterizes the security apparatus that has flowered since 9/11 under both Bush and Obama.</div>
206. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
207. <br /></div>
208. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
209. The tension between national security and freedom has seldom been tauter, nor the balance harder to strike in a world where every bit, byte and packet is subject not just to interception but also to weaponization. With his actions, Snowden ignited a debate that will long continue, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizenfour</i>, the third film of a post-9/11 trilogy – the other films landed Poitras on a secret watch list from which she found no escape and drove her to relocate to Berlin – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>will stand as an urgent and gripping record. See it this weekend. The NSA probably already has.</div>
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247. </style> <![endif]--><br />
248. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Visit my website (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>), follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel" target=""><i>Facebook</i></a><i> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhandel" target="">LinkedIn</a>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript"><!--
249. amazon_ad_tag = &quot;digmedlaw-20&quot;; amazon_ad_width = &quot;468&quot;; amazon_ad_height = &quot;60&quot;; amazon_ad_logo = &quot;hide&quot;; amazon_ad_link_target = &quot;new&quot;; amazon_color_border = &quot;C7C7C7&quot;; amazon_color_link = &quot;5588AA&quot;; amazon_color_logo = &quot;5588AA&quot;;//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/10/citizenfour-review-quiet-moments-in.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-8221457256120149870</guid><pubDate>Thu, 14 Aug 2014 19:58:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-08-14T13:50:42.861-07:00</atom:updated><title>An Actor&#39;s Cautionary Tale: Cancer Diagnosis and a Drawn-Out Battle Over Residuals</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
250. <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/modal_800/2014/08/wb_check.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/modal_800/2014/08/wb_check.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
251. <br />
252. Actors often complain about late residuals checks, although <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-slashes-residuals-processing-691550" target="_blank">SAG-AFTRA has cut processing delays lately</a>. But few stories compare to the battle waged by <b>Alex Doe</b> (a pseudonym),  a voice actor who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and endured a  3-1/2-year residuals runaround from Warner Bros. and SAG-AFTRA that ultimately  threatened Doe's health insurance.<br />
253. <br />
254. (Residuals are royalties that are paid to actors, writers, directors and musicians when movies and TV shows are rerun or are released in other media such as DVD or the Internet. They're not small potatoes: residuals can amount to 40 percent of an actor's income, and total about $2 billion per year.) <br />
255. <br />
256. How did this happen? Boomerang, an offshoot of Time Warner's Cartoon Network, failed to  report thousands of reruns of the actor's show for several years, and  the Warner Bros. residuals department resisted the union's contrary  data. The actor filed a claim with SAG in February 2011, and the union  and studio began arguing about the number of reruns and whether Doe had  been overpaid on a DVD release.<br />
257. <br />
258. Warners repeatedly promised more  information -- surprisingly, collective bargaining agreements don't  require that any particular data be provided -- and months often passed  between emails and phone calls. In 2012, the head of the union's  residuals claims department referred the matter to a legal department  attorney.<br />
259. <br />
260. But even with both departments involved, the delays continued. For more details, and the surprising resolution, see <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-sag-aftra-multi-725089" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
261. <br />
262. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Visit my website (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>), follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel" target=""><i>Facebook</i></a><i> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhandel" target="">LinkedIn</a>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript"><!--
263. amazon_ad_tag = &quot;digmedlaw-20&quot;; amazon_ad_width = &quot;468&quot;; amazon_ad_height = &quot;60&quot;; amazon_ad_logo = &quot;hide&quot;; amazon_ad_link_target = &quot;new&quot;; amazon_color_border = &quot;C7C7C7&quot;; amazon_color_link = &quot;5588AA&quot;; amazon_color_logo = &quot;5588AA&quot;;//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-actors-cautionary-tale-cancer.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-2830790109619059507</guid><pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:28:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-08-08T15:34:17.569-07:00</atom:updated><title>Review: NudeAudio Super-M and aiia SSSSSpeaker on Kickstarter</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt;   &lt;o:RelyOnVML/&gt;   &lt;o:AllowPNG/&gt;  &lt;/o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
264. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:WordDocument>   <w:View>Normal</w:View>   <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>   <w:PunctuationKerning/>   <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>   <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>   <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>   <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>   <w:Compatibility>    <w:BreakWrappedTables/>    <w:SnapToGridInCell/>    <w:WrapTextWithPunct/>    <w:UseAsianBreakRules/>    <w:DontGrowAutofit/>   </w:Compatibility>  </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">  </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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282. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
283. <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/1028891/photo-main.jpg?1407334616" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/1028891/photo-main.jpg?1407334616" width="400" /></a></div>
284. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
285. <br /></div>
286. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
287. Two new Bluetooth speakers offer a great reason to jet on over to Kickstarter.</div>
288. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
289. <br /></div>
290. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
291. The NudeAudio <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1180551085/nudeaudio-super-m">Super-M</a> ($99, campaign ending on August 15) offers great sound in a package thin enough to slip in a back jeans pocket. During my recent visit to the company’s South of Market offices, a head-to-head comparison showed that the unit delivered deeper bass and higher volumes without loss of fidelity than the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DVKORYG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DVKORYG&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkId=UOLRVHUD6YCS3USV">Jambox Mini</a> and was more rugged.</div>
292. <br />
293. <br />
294. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
295. NudeAudio is the same company that offers the delightful <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E954URQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E954URQ&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkId=KCUGTLDUHX5X2TL6">Move S</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D4MT9S0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00D4MT9S0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkId=53M5VQLAFUFIECOF">Move M</a> (which I reviewed last year) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E954UNK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E954UNK&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkId=QIFGNK5IZPRYGVWX">Move L</a> speakers and the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D4MT9OO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00D4MT9OO&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkId=ROOLJGSNCB4ILRKN">Studio 5 Lightning Dock with Bluetooth</a> (found in hotel rooms at The W). How does the company manage to deliver attractive products at aggressive prices? </div>
296. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
297. <br /></div>
298. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
299. As chief design officer Peter Riering-Czekalla answered that question, I found myself distracted by the highly tactile silicon-sleeved speakers in pleasing yet subdued colors arrayed around his workspace. But in essence, his philosophy, honed by years of experience at design powerhouse IDEO, is to focus on acoustics rather than unnecessary features, keep product construction simple and cost effective, and defer from spending millions on advertising that positions the speakers as costly status symbols.</div>
300. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
301. <br /></div>
302. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
303. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
304. <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/002/225/707/ef31e8182900ceda9e83ff93c1c03939_large.jpg?1404377247" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/002/225/707/ef31e8182900ceda9e83ff93c1c03939_large.jpg?1404377247" width="400" /></a></div>
305. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
306. </div>
307. <br /></div>
308. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
309. <br /></div>
310. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
311. NudeAudio’s home – San Francisco’s SoMa distract – is an expected place to find innovation, but Kiev is not. Yet Kiev – yes, the one in the Ukraine – is the origin of another interesting speaker on Kickstarter, the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/671415166/ssssspeaker-sweet-sounds-of-silicone">SSSSSpeaker</a> ($29, end tomorrow) from aiia. This one looks even more nude than the NudeAudio offerings: it’s literally just a speaker mechanism and a silicon speaker cone. But there’s a twist: the cone is collapsible like a those camping cups you might have had when you were a kid. Bright, collapsible, portable and light, the speaker produces enough volume for a pup tent and weighs very little.</div>
312. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
313. <br /></div>
314. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
315. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disclosure: The companies provided product for this review.</i></div>
316. <br />
317. <br />
318. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Visit my website (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>), follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel" target=""><i>Facebook</i></a><i> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhandel" target="">LinkedIn</a>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript"><!--
319. amazon_ad_tag = &quot;digmedlaw-20&quot;; amazon_ad_width = &quot;468&quot;; amazon_ad_height = &quot;60&quot;; amazon_ad_logo = &quot;hide&quot;; amazon_ad_link_target = &quot;new&quot;; amazon_color_border = &quot;C7C7C7&quot;; amazon_color_link = &quot;5588AA&quot;; amazon_color_logo = &quot;5588AA&quot;;//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/08/review-nudeaudio-super-m-and-aiia.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-7227867136898859321</guid><pubDate>Tue, 01 Jul 2014 23:19:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-07-02T10:45:38.312-07:00</atom:updated><title>How Do We Know Driverless Cars Are Safe? Google Says ‘Trust Us’</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt;   &lt;o:AllowPNG/&gt;   &lt;o:TargetScreenSize&gt;1024x768&lt;/o:TargetScreenSize&gt;  &lt;/o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
320. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:WordDocument>   <w:View>Normal</w:View>   <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>   <w:PunctuationKerning/>   <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>   <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>   <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>   <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>   <w:Compatibility>    <w:BreakWrappedTables/>    <w:SnapToGridInCell/>    <w:WrapTextWithPunct/>    <w:UseAsianBreakRules/>    <w:DontGrowAutofit/>   </w:Compatibility>  </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">  </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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338. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
339. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji6AWXoS9WRD_43WS1XH6LCMFwnqU5KTmlYEvBV6p1MVzWT5WUdq1mh8pRLn84XgGpCzZPj-JVkgVfiA-7NC3pma9wba7X0l2eOFfSN943-pUXZ53dZHSuFQW9y3c6pZd9Dqs-Ln4kIPs/s1600/596px-Google's_Lexus_RX_450h_Self-Driving_Car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji6AWXoS9WRD_43WS1XH6LCMFwnqU5KTmlYEvBV6p1MVzWT5WUdq1mh8pRLn84XgGpCzZPj-JVkgVfiA-7NC3pma9wba7X0l2eOFfSN943-pUXZ53dZHSuFQW9y3c6pZd9Dqs-Ln4kIPs/s1600/596px-Google's_Lexus_RX_450h_Self-Driving_Car.jpg" height="257" width="320" /></a></div>
340. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
341. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
342. </span></div>
343. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
344. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Driverless cars are on the road now – Google’s fleet has logged about 700,000 miles of autonomous driving – and the California DMV <a href="http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/autonomous/auto.htm">will be issuing regulations</a> in a matter of weeks allowing self-driving cars to be sold to the public, possibly setting the regulatory pattern for the rest of the country (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h40m09s">video</a>). Google has <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/28/google-driverless-cars/8409475/">predicted 2017</a> for first commercial availability, while Nissan and Mercedes <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20131011/OEM06/131019973/for-automakers-a-threat-from-tech-giants-on-road-to-autonomous-cars">say it will be 2020</a>. The cars are highly complex systems whose sheer quantity of software surely exceeds the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2012/12/automotive-os-war/all/">hundred million lines of source code</a> in today’s non-autonomous vehicles. They weigh thousands of pounds and hurtle down public roads – robots with human payloads. But how will we know they’re safe?</span></div>
345. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
346. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Google’s answer at <a href="http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/autonomous/prevavwrkshp.htm">DMV workshops</a> in <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/california-mulls-regulate-driverless-cars-144624790.html">March</a> <a href="http://www.govtech.com/transportation/California-Preparing-for-Self-Driving-Cars-by-2015.html">2014</a> and May 2013 was, essentially, “trust us” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&feature=youtu.be&t=54m30s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&feature=youtu.be&t=1h07m50s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2WWRzbLsw8&feature=youtu.be&t=50s">video</a>). The company’s representative, Ron Medford, said Google would “self-certify” the car’s roadworthiness and then the DMV could take it for a test drive (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h08m32s">video</a>) akin to what a human driver undergoes today (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h14m55s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h20m46s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h46m02s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&t=18m28s">video</a>). “That the company … [is] ready to submit its vehicle for [DMV] testing is kind of the proof that it’s ready,” he said, and argued against any more detailed scrutiny than that (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&t=28m40s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&feature=youtu.be&t=49m57s">video</a>).</span></div>
347. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
348. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the same Google that so betrayed customers’ trust that it’s under <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">twenty years</i> of outside privacy monitoring, imposed by a consent decree which it later allegedly violated (leading to a record multi-million dollar settlement). Yet the company’s answer is to supplement “trust us” with nothing more than a simple road test – even though computer experts agree that such testing is no way to verify safety-critical software.</span></div>
349. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
350. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Chrysler representative, Steve Siko, also endorsed self-certification (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTzPYlueGg8&feature=youtu.be&t=9m45s">video</a>). “It’s not like any manufacturer is trying to skirt around some safety rules,” said another Chrysler rep, Ross Good (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2WWRzbLsw8&feature=youtu.be&t=7m06s">video</a>). From VW, Barbara Wendling also sang the self-certification tune (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&t=30m01s">video</a>), and said she had “no worries that anybody in the industry is going to put an unsafe product into California or any other state” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h43m20s">video</a>).</span></div>
351. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
352. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Really?</span></div>
353. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
354. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That comment ignores GM’s defective ignition switch that may have <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/general-motors-plans-to-offer-a-broad-payout-1403652655">killed 309 people</a> (the company says it’s 13) – almost 15 million vehicles recalled to-date amid criminal probes and possible cover-ups – and Toyota’s deadly accelerator pedals (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/business/26toyota.html">89 fatalities</a>, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), to name only two of the unsafe products automakers have in fact put on the market in recent years.</span></div>
355. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
356. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.dmvnv.com/autonomous.htm">Nevada</a> accepted Google’s “trust us” gambit (<a href="http://www.leg.state.nv.us/register/2011Register/R084-11A.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 13) but like that state’s slot machines, it’s a bad bet. Google’s approach is not good enough, because the tech company and automakers have already demonstrated they’re not trustworthy and because experts acknowledge that complex software can’t be adequately verified simply by testing it. That’s especially true of safety-critical hard real-time systems. “Hard” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing#Criteria_for_real-time_computing">means</a> that the system must respond in timely fashion to avoid devastating consequences, like an automobile crash.</span></div>
357. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
358. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed, a mere “road test” is not how validation works in other safety-critical applications like <a href="http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/safety-medical-device-software-questions-and-answers">medical device software</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Avionics-Certification-Complete-Software-Hardware/dp/1885544251">avionics hardware and software</a>. </span></div>
359. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
360. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The Right Way to Validate Software</b> </span></div>
361. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
362. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">Food and Drug Administration</a> says, “<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Typically, testing alone cannot fully verify that software is complete and correct. In addition to testing, other verification techniques and a structured and documented development process should be combined to ensure a comprehensive validation approach. Except for the simplest of programs, software cannot be exhaustively tested. Generally it is not feasible to test a software product with all possible inputs, nor is it possible to test all possible data processing paths that can occur during program execution</span>.”</span></div>
363. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
364. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And who should do the verifying? The <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">FDA</a> addresses this too: “Validation activities should be conducted using the basic quality assurance precept of ‘independence of review.’ Self-validation is extremely difficult. When possible, an independent evaluation is always better, especially for higher risk applications.”</span></div>
365. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
366. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not surprisingly, the agency <a href="http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm089543.htm">requires pre-market submission</a> of <a href="http://www.validatedsoftware.com/medical/medicalfaq.html">very detailed flowcharts, design documents and the like</a> (apparently including <a href="http://www.validatedsoftware.com/medical/medicalfaq.html#potential%20deliverables">source code</a>) for devices that present a risk of death or major injury.</span></div>
367. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
368. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics_software">Avionics</a> is even more stringent. In the U.S., knowledgeable reviewers called <a href="http://www.do178site.com/der_certification.php">Designated Engineering Representatives</a> or DERs are <a href="http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/designees_delegations/designee_types/der/">certified and appointed</a> by the Federal Aviation Administration. Some DERs (Consultant DERs) are independent contractors while others, although they work for the manufacturers (Company DERs), are part of a culture where they are deemed to owe their loyalty to the FAA rather than their employers; in fact, DERs are appointed to represent the FAA and are legally required to maintain objectivity (<a href="http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Order%208110.37D.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 21). Europe uses outside testing labs. </span></div>
369. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
370. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In both jurisdictions, detailed documents govern the certification of in-the-air avionics <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C">software</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-254">hardware</a> (in particular, custom devices like FPGAs, PLDs and ASICs) as well as <a href="http://www.adacore.com/gnatpro-safety-critical/atm/do-278-overview/">ground-based avionics software</a>. Test plans, source code, design documents and more are required to be submitted, and the programming process itself has to meet certain standards. <a href="http://www.validatedsoftware.com/avionics/avionicsfaq.html#DO-178C%20in%20a%20nutshell">Every line</a> of safety-critical software code has to be justified – traced back to its rationale – and has to be executed during testing. </span></div>
371. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
372. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The difficulty with the avionics approach is that it enormously increases costs and product development time. In the automotive sphere, that would mean people continuing to die from human-caused accidents – which is about </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">95% of the annual 32,000 fatal accidents today (<a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811059.PDF">pdf</a>, see pp. 24-25) – while we waited for (hopefully-safer) driverless cars to emerge from testing. It’s a real issue, but there has to be some compromise between “trust us” and hyper-punctilious verification.</span></div>
373. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
374. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">You don’t have to be a high-tech expert to understand the concept. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Self-certification is not even the way it works when you want to add a roof deck to your house. At least in urban areas, you have to show your plans to the city or county building department first (and the plans are usually drawn up by an architect or engineer who passed a state licensing exam; not so with software). There’s a physical inspection after the deck is built. </span></div>
375. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
376. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Google wants to skip the first step and jump to the second, but why should we regulate robocars less rigorously than roof decks?</span></div>
377. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
378. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Certification of driverless car software and hardware by an independent testing company, coupled with DMV review and multiple test drives, is the best way to give the public confidence that these cars are as safe as can be. I’m well aware – as a former programmer and as a lawyer who has represented software vendors – that source code is sensitive. But so is public safety. Ultimately, meaningful certification will be good for the driverless car industry as well as for the public.</span></div>
379. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
380. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the DMV sessions, a Bosch representative named Soeren Kammel endorsed third-party certification and re-certification when a product is updated (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTzPYlueGg8&feature=youtu.be&t=16s">video</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTzPYlueGg8&feature=youtu.be&t=2m16s">video</a>). A consumer advocate, John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog, focused on privacy issues (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=34m18s">video</a>), which are also critical, but he didn’t explore certification.</span></div>
381. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
382. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Google declined to comment for this article and the DMV told me the issue would be “addressed in the regulations when we release them … later this summer.” They’re writing the regulations now: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you can weigh in by clicking <a href="mailto:LRegulations@dmv.ca.gov,%20LADRegulations@dmv.ca.gov?cc=cars@jhandel.com&subject=Driverless%20car%20regulations">here</a> to email the DMV (and cc me).</i></b></span></div>
383. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
384. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bugs are Inevitable</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></b></span></div>
385. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
386. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bear in mind, there will be bugs in the software and flaws in the hardware, <a href="http://recode.net/2014/05/27/qa-google-self-driving-car-head-chris-urmson-on-building-a-car-from-scratch/">as even Google admits</a> (“should it fail .. we want to reduce the impact”; “there will be some failures,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=22m10s">video</a>). That’s the nature of electronic hardware and especially of software: we’ve been designing and building physical structures for thousands of years – bridges, for instance, for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge#History">3300 years</a> – whereas even the term “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering#History">software engineering</a>” is less than 50 years old and the actual discipline of rigorous programming, in any meaningful sense, is younger still. </span></div>
387. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
388. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">FDA</a> says, “<b>because of its complexity, the development process for software should be even more tightly controlled than for hardware, in order to prevent problems that cannot be easily detected later in the development process.</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">” (They put that in bold, not me.)</span></span></div>
389. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
390. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Programming is still a dicey business, in other words, as is obvious to anyone with a smartphone that crashes, overheats or drains its battery without reason. (And that’s not to mention the prospect of your phone being hacked.) I have just such a phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4, which initially worked <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/samsung-galaxy-s4-review_b_3362246.html">quite well</a>. Now, not so well. It runs on Android software written by Google.</span></div>
391. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
392. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Google engineers and programmers are smart, but they can’t escape humankind’s collective immaturity of knowledge around the task of engineering software that is safe, reliable, error free and resistant to malicious attack. These cars will kill people, albeit hopefully many fewer than the number of people killed today by human drivers. </span></div>
393. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
394. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And sometimes when they do maim or kill, the cars will have to make ethical decisions: if three pedestrians dash across the road one after the other right in front of a car, should the car jam on the brakes knowing it will hit and kill two of them, or should it swerve and kill only the third one instead? In the latter case, fewer lives will be lost but the pedestrian it kills wouldn’t have died had the car not affirmatively decided to swerve. Passively kill two people or deliberately kill a different person? Kill one pedestrian or swerve into another car and perhaps only injure its occupants? </span></div>
395. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
396. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are <a href="http://www.owen.org/blog/7308">many variants</a> of this so-called “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem">trolley problem</a>” and the car’s software will have to make hard choices. These are moral dilemmas that society – government regulators – should at least have input into. They’re not decisions that Google programmers should make alone at their white boards.</span></div>
397. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
398. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Those programmers and their colleagues – engineers, designers, businesspeople and others – are brilliant, and they appear to have the most ambitious goals – and be the furthest along – of any company working on autonomous cars. Google has brought the world some great products, and a commercially available self-driving car, although it will bring <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/2030-may-be-the-year-they_b_5509655.html">enormous</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/28/1302532/-Unintended-Consequences-Driverless-Car-Edition">dislocations</a>, will bring enormous benefits (<a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR443-1/RAND_RR443-1.pdf">pdf</a>) as well, if it’s safe.</span></div>
399. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
400. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Why Google and Automakers Can't be Trusted</b> </span></div>
401. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
402. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Notwithstanding Google’s old “don’t be evil” motto, the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>company has overreached and been slapped for it just like any other large company. In 2010, it deployed privacy-busting features in Google Buzz, which resulted in the FTC imposing an astonishing twenty years of <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/03/ftc-charges-deceptive-privacy-practices-googles-rollout-its-buzz">outside privacy audits</a> starting in 2011. Yet the following year, Google allegedly <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/08/google-will-pay-225-million-settle-ftc-charges-it-misrepresented">violated</a> that already-unprecedented consent decree and ended up paying a record $22.5 million settlement. And in 2008-2010, the company made an allegedly “<a href="http://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/">intentional mistake</a>“ by sniffing personal data from WiFi routers as its cars photographed the streets, and then apparently attempted to conceal this breach of people’s privacy. The <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/document/enforcement-bureau-issues-25000-nal-google-inc">FCC</a> fined Google $25,000 for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/net-us-google-fine-idUSBRE83F00Q20120416">impeding its investigation</a>.</span></div>
403. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
404. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Google is a great company, but it’s a big company, and there isn’t a day since the era of 19th century robber barons that big companies haven’t overstepped and run roughshod, absent determined regulation. </span></div>
405. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
406. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like most large companies, Google aggressively looks after its own interests even at the consumer’s expense. That makes “self-certify” a pretty thin answer when it comes to Google car safety – or, for that matter, privacy, since driverless cars are “<a href="http://m.us.wsj.com/news/interactive/IVSMARTchrt?ref=SB10001424052702304815004579417441475998338">data guzzlers</a>” that will be acquiring 30 to 130 MB of external visual and other sensor data per second when in operation. (Even now, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2014/06/27/autoplay-carplay-race-about-to-begin/11432973/">the race to control the dashboard</a> is on.) And that’s not to mention the GPS data associated with the passengers (i.e., Google will know where you go in the physical world, not just on the Internet) and the likely cameras <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inside</i> the vehicles, at least for those owned by rideshare services such as Uber, in which Google invested over a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/">quarter-billion dollars</a> last year.</span></div>
407. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
408. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0dHwxWsFfdk1F1dHjwnA4LjQRF5LdIOO7yLypzRRMi76OKTwPd26JOuSa3SsY0Rbzi4GZxBb4T7Rb4U-LLh9JHHZd0CvcVzShHI7c_GDSHktoy9TDcF41wv6Mp_Fgk7B2ekS5mmuVxE/s1600/Atlas_frontview_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0dHwxWsFfdk1F1dHjwnA4LjQRF5LdIOO7yLypzRRMi76OKTwPd26JOuSa3SsY0Rbzi4GZxBb4T7Rb4U-LLh9JHHZd0CvcVzShHI7c_GDSHktoy9TDcF41wv6Mp_Fgk7B2ekS5mmuVxE/s1600/Atlas_frontview_2013.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a></div>
409. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
410. </div>
411. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
412. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
413. </span></div>
414. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
415. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That Uber deal is no outlier. As the Internet morphs into the Internet of Things, the company is transforming itself from an Internet giant into an enterprise with access to – and control over – the physical world. In the last seven months, Google has bought both the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/01/googles-3-billion-nest-buy-finally-make-internet-things-real-us/">smart-device maker Nest</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/technology/google-puts-money-on-robots-using-the-man-behind-android.html">seven robotics companies</a> including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics">Boston Dynamics</a>, which makes robots than can gallop at 28 mph or carry heavy payloads. One of them is even in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_%28robot%29">humanoid form</a>. Six feet tall and weighing 330 lbs., it looks like the Terminator, minus the skin. So while Google’s newest driverless cars – which omit steering wheel and pedals – were <a href="http://recode.net/2014/05/27/qa-google-self-driving-car-head-chris-urmson-on-building-a-car-from-scratch/">deliberately designed</a> to look “friendly” and “cute,” this is not your father’s Google.</span></div>
416. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
417. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBiszCoRmURkzlMhuEzRvu9i1XqYlfyLw911ObqGtgylYZsz7rVsBqMj6qN5Tai1niPFBdI17tF6IGQMHo5Ltp5545OuvxLtBqdIUPye9LEf34cB67-1cdcYTWbZaC1XYzulD6WSh4WY/s1600/640px-2014-03-04_Geneva_Motor_Show_1186.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBiszCoRmURkzlMhuEzRvu9i1XqYlfyLw911ObqGtgylYZsz7rVsBqMj6qN5Tai1niPFBdI17tF6IGQMHo5Ltp5545OuvxLtBqdIUPye9LEf34cB67-1cdcYTWbZaC1XYzulD6WSh4WY/s1600/640px-2014-03-04_Geneva_Motor_Show_1186.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
418. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
419. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
420. </span></div>
421. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
422. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And Google, of course, is not the only company developing driverless cars. It's an industry-wide project, yet many automakers have an appalling disrespect for public safety: they fought seat belts, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed#Industry_response">set private detectives</a> to harass and intimidate consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/2013/innovations-issue/#/?part=airbag">lobbied against air bags</a> for years, delaying a mandate until 1998. </span></div>
423. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
424. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile, also in the 1990’s, over 200 people died in crashes linked to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2001/06/20/tireindex.html">failure of Firestone tires</a>, but they weren’t recalled until 2000. Consumer advocates charged that both <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_and_Ford_tire_controversy">Firestone and Ford</a> (in whose vehicles a majority of the deaths occurred) covered up the problem and failed to inform NHTSA.</span></div>
425. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
426. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Present-day behavior is no better: In March of this year, Toyota agreed to pay a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/business/toyota-reaches-1-2-billion-settlement-in-criminal-inquiry.html">record $1.2 billion criminal penalty</a> stemming from charges that it intentionally hid information about safety defects from the public and made deceptive statements to protect its brand image. That was in addition to an earlier <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/PR/DOT-16-11">$48.8 million civil penalty</a> and a litigation settlement of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/toyota-settlement_n_2366720.html">over a billion dollars</a>. All were in connection with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehicle_recalls">unintended acceleration</a>: ultimately, in two separate recalls in 2009 and 2010 totaling nearly 8 million vehicles Toyota acknowledged that its gas pedals could get trapped under floor mats or that the pedals themselves could simply stick, leading to out of control vehicles. Deaths and injury were the result.</span></div>
427. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
428. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even more ominously for driverless cars, a jury in 2013 found Toyota liable for unintended acceleration stemming from a third cause, <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319903&print=yes">alleged software errors</a>. An expert on embedded systems (real-world machinery that incorporates software), <a href="http://embeddedgurus.com/barr-code/2013/10/an-update-on-toyota-and-unintended-acceleration/">Michael Barr</a>, charged that he found 80,000 violations of software reliability programming rules in Toyota’s code (<a href="http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUBBED.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 29), even after an <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/UA">investigation</a> by NASA (on behalf of NHTSA) had <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/PR/DOT-16-11">found no software cause</a> for unintended acceleration but not ruled out the possibility either (<a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nvs/pdf/NASA_report_execsum.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 17; <a href="http://www.sddt.com/files/BARR-SLIDES.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 13); a NASA engineer charged that its team was <a href="http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?SourceCode=20131104tbc&Commentary_ID=140&_t=Software+bugs+found+to+be+cause+of+Toyota+acceleration+death#.U7KJdbHCfoa">taken off the investigation prematurely</a>. The jury awarded $3 million in compensation and was set to consider punitive damages when the case settled.</span></div>
429. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
430. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Toyota is not the only automaker with unintended acceleration problems. Just last weekend, NHTSA <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140628/AUTO0104/306280036/1361/NHTSA-investigates-360-000-Nissan-cars-for-unintended-acceleration">disclosed</a> that it’s investigating 360,000 Nissan cars for the same problem, in this case allegedly caused by improper design of a trim panel. Last month, Ford recalled <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/05/29/317063363/ford-recalls-1-4-million-vehicles-for-various-defects">1.4 million vehicles</a>, for defects including loss of power steering and (as with Toyota) floor mats that can interfere with the accelerator. </span></div>
431. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
432. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That followed a recall by Ford of about <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140509/AUTO0102/305090074/Ford-recalls-more-than-692-000-Escape-SUVs-C-Max-hybrids-safety-issues">700,000 vehicles</a> for software bugs that could cause airbags to delay inflation and – a separate problem on the same vehicles – doors that could come open while the car is moving. Also last month, Chrysler recalled <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/13/183538477/business-news">almost 500,000 SUVs</a> because cracks in a circuit board could lead to a faulty signal that caused the transmission to shift by itself from Park into Neutral. Toyota too had a software recall, in 2010, involving <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehicle_recalls">anti-lock brake software</a> and another last month, involving <a href="http://wot.motortrend.com/1406_recall_2014_toyota_highlander_airbag_software_issue.html">airbag electronic control unit software</a>.</span></div>
433. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
434. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Also on the airbag front, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/business/general-motors-halts-sale-of-cruze-sedan-over-takata-air-bags.html">chemical and mechanical defects</a> have been disclosed in the last several weeks in airbags from a company called Takata, resulting in recalls or halted sales by eight car companies: Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, BMW – and GM, a company which this year has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/business/gm-announces-vast-expansion-of-its-recalls.html">recalled over 28 million cars</a> in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/05/20/gm-recalls-fine-goverment/9329481/">about 30 separate recalls</a>.</span></div>
435. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
436. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most noted of those recalls, of course, have been for an ignition switch problem. In the last five months the company has <a href="http://www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Owners/Consumer+Alert:+GM+Ignition+Switch+Recall+Information">recalled</a> about 14.8 million vehicles (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/18/business/gms-ignition-problem-who-knew-what-when.html">6.6 million</a> in the last several months plus <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/business/gm-announces-vast-expansion-of-its-recalls.html">8.2 million</a> yesterday) from model years 2003-2011 because the ignition switch can turn off while the car is in motion, disabling the power steering, power brakes and airbags. According to the government, GM knew of the problem since at least November 2009, but didn’t tell NHTSA for almost 4-1/2 years. The New York Times reports that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/18/business/gms-ignition-problem-who-knew-what-when.html">GM’s knowledge goes much further back</a>: a GM engineer approved the faulty design in 2002 before the car was released, even though the part maker said the switch didn’t meet specifications. GM investigated later complaints, but closed the inquiry in 2005 because “none of the solutions represents an acceptable business case.”</span></div>
437. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
438. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Four months later came the first death tied to the ignition switch.</span></div>
439. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
440. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The following year, the same GM engineer allegedly <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/gm-recall/document-shows-gm-engineer-approved-ignition-switch-change-n68371">signed off</a> on a redesigned switch intended to be safer, but there was no recall for another eight years. Last year, the engineer claimed under oath in a wrongful death suit that he had not authorized the change (notwithstanding a signed document to the contrary); he told Congressional investigators in May that he didn’t remember. </span></div>
441. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
442. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Also last month, the company paid a record <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/business/us-fines-general-motors-35-million-for-lapses-on-ignition-switch-defect.html">$35 million</a> civil penalty even as the Secretary of Transportation said “what G.M. did was break the law.” According to NHTSA, GM employees were actually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/business/us-fines-general-motors-35-million-for-lapses-on-ignition-switch-defect.html">trained in how to obscure safety problems</a>. Documents released last week by a Congressional panel reportedly show that a current top GM executive <a href="https://www.blogger.com/online.wsj.com/articles/gm-ceo-says-recalls-likely-to-continue-1403785852?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304557404579648100860535262.html">knew of the problem</a> as far back as 2005. Criminal, congressional, SEC and state investigations are ongoing. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed, and a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/business/gms-payout-formula-for-the-dead-1-million-and-up.html">compensation plan</a> was unveiled yesterday that could cost the company billions.</span></div>
443. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
444. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In addition, a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/business/general-motors-halts-sale-of-cruze-sedan-over-takata-air-bags.html">second GM ignition switch problem</a> has emerged: in many of the same cars with switches that could turn off while driving, it was also possible to remove the ignition key while the car wasn’t in Park or while the engine was running. A GM report said that the company knew about this in the early 2000’s but didn’t recall the cars until April of this year. Meanwhile, although NHTSA received the report in April, it <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20140625/OEM11/140629918/key-pullout-another-gm-ignition-flaw-was-quietly-fixed-years-before">wasn’t posted</a> on the agency’s website until a reporter asked for it in June.</span></div>
445. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
446. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These are the sorts of companies that would self-certify their driverless cars.</span></div>
447. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
448. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>What About the Regulators?</b> </span></div>
449. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
450. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not only did NHTSA delay posting the safety report, it seems to have fumbled the GM ignition switch issue from the beginning. The agency received the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/18/business/gms-ignition-problem-who-knew-what-when.html">first complaint</a> in 2003 but didn’t propose an investigation until 2007. Even at that, no recall occurred until 2014. Instead, despite receiving an average of two complaints per month, NHTSA repeatedly responded that “there was not enough evidence of a problem to warrant a safety investigation,” according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/business/auto-regulators-dismissed-defect-tied-to-13-deaths.html?emc=eta1&_r=1">New York Times</a>. Now Congress is <a href="http://time.com/20961/congress-investigates-gms-recall-of-1-6-million-vehicles/">investigating</a> NHTSA as well as GM.</span></div>
451. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
452. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">NHTSA doesn’t only handle recalls; it’s the federal agency that issues automobile safety rules. Under California’s <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=38001-39000&file=38750">self-driving car law</a>, any NHTSA regulations on the subject will preempt whatever the DMV is doing now. </span></div>
453. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
454. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Commenting on the agency’s approach to software, embedded systems expert Barr <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319903&print=yes">said</a>, “NHTSA … needs to step up on software regulation and oversight. For example, FAA and FDA both have guidelines for safety-critical software design within the systems they oversee. NHTSA has nothing.” (See also <a href="http://www.barrgroup.com/files/killer_apps_barr_keynote_eelive_2014.pdf">pdf</a>, p. 44.) There are <a href="http://www.klocwork.com/resources/download.php?file=klocwork-paper-software-on-wheels">techniques</a> to reduce automotive software risks, but NHTSA doesn’t require them.</span></div>
455. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
456. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the agency is <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/U.S.+Department+of+Transportation+Releases+Policy+on+Automated+Vehicle+Development">not currently regulating</a> driverless cars at all.</span></div>
457. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
458. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That leaves the field to the less technically-experienced, more resource-poor state DMVs. It’s not hard to play one state off against another, and that looks like what Google did with California. Although a Stanford report says that self-driving cars were “<a href="http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/publications/automated-vehicles-are-probably-legal-united-states">probably legal</a>” already, the company presumably wanted more certainty, so it got Nevada to pass a driverless car law <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/how-google-got-states-legalize-driverless-cars">to its liking</a> in 2011, then <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443493304578034822744854696">Florida</a>, and then used those statutes to incite California legislators to act. Sacramento, fearful that Google’s car operation would decamp to the home of legalized gambling, passed <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1251-1300/sb_1298_bill_20120925_chaptered.html">legislation</a> requiring the DMV to issue regulations by January 1, 2015, legalizing the cars on California roads. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill at Google headquarters in September 2012.</span></div>
459. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
460. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But a section of the law, <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=38001-39000&file=38750">CVC 38750(d)(2)</a>, requires that the regulations include “any testing, equipment, and performance standards ... that the department concludes are necessary to ensure the safe operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads, with or without the presence of a driver inside the vehicle.”</span></div>
461. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
462. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The only way to even have approximate confidence in the safety of a complex embedded system is for a knowledgeable independent third-party certification authority to review (under confidentiality agreement) the software and firmware source code, custom chip (ASIC) designs, hardware specs, design documents, flowcharts, and other technical documentation. </span></div>
463. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
464. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The Problem with Road Testing</b> </span></div>
465. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
466. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you’re not a programmer, you may still be wondering why road testing is inadequate for driverless cars. Once again, the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">FDA</a> explains, “One of the most significant features of software is branching, i.e., the ability to execute alternative series of commands, based on differing inputs. This feature is a major contributing factor for another characteristic of software – its complexity. Even short programs can be very complex and difficult to fully understand.”</span></div>
467. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
468. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is hard enough to test garden variety software (say, Microsoft Word), whose operation is deterministic and does not require sophisticated judgments, involve real-time sensor inputs or perform safety-critical functions. A word processing program is comparatively straightforward, yet MS Word, for instance, still manages to be buggy. </span></div>
469. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
470. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A robocar’s software is non-deterministic, in that (a) it makes high level decisions (brake? accelerate? swerve? turn? etc.) in real time and (b) it does so in response to huge quantities of extremely complex sensory inputs representing dozens or hundreds of stationary and moving objects that are never the same twice. No matter how precisely you try to replicate a road test, something different will always happen: </span></div>
471. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
472. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● One time the sun will glint off the windshield of an opposing car and blind a sensor, perhaps causing the car the mis-steer – or maybe the sun will be at a slightly different angle that day and the problem will remain latent, ready to affect an unwary consumer. </span></div>
473. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
474. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● Maybe a splash of mud mixed with oil and gravel will fly up past the radar in the front bumper, leading the car to swerve away from an imagined obstacle – or maybe the road will be dry that day, or the mix of oil, mud and gravel just different enough that the software properly processes and ignores it.</span></div>
475. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
476. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● Maybe a journey will be long enough and the number of objects encountered large enough that a heavily-used area of memory referred to as the “stack” will overflow, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Stack overflows can be hard to debug or predict. But perhaps the road test will be too short to trigger the bug, again leaving latent a problem that will only show up when a car crashes in real-world operation.</span></div>
477. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
478. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● Perhaps one day the car will pass by a strong electrical field – say, from a power plant or even a downed wire – that evokes an electric current that modifies memory or triggers a false sensor reading, again leading to a dangerous malfunction not detected during a DMV road test.</span></div>
479. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
480. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● How vulnerable are the car’s sensors to snow, ice and mud? A fair-weather road test won’t answer that question – and we already know from the crash of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447">Air France Flight 447</a> off the coast of Brazil just how deadly the consequences of sensor malfunction can be.</span></div>
481. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
482. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">● Maybe one day the car will hit exactly 32 mph – a binary number that looks like this, 100000 – at precisely the same time a car in the next lane is decelerating and hits 16 mph (10000) and that confluence of zeros and velocity changes triggers some quirky bug that only appears if GPS signal is momentarily lost and a train crosses in front of the car. Of course this is a contrived example (<a href="http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences">here’s one</a> from the real world), but the point is that software can fail for strange reasons in weird and sometimes catastrophic ways.</span></div>
483. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
484. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As the DMV assistant general counsel conducting the driverless car sessions, Brian Soublet, pointed out, there are a large number of traffic maneuvers – in his words probably too many to test (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h47m28s">video</a>). Even worse, there are an unbounded number of driving <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scenarios</i> – combinations of maneuvers, pedestrians, cars, trucks, motorcycles, cyclists, road geometry, stop signs, traffic lights, weather conditions and more. You can’t road test all of them or even any large fraction because the test space is effectively infinite. The only way to probe them is to examine and audit the source code, and also to run the software through simulators – under the watchful eyes of DMV or third-party experts.</span></div>
485. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
486. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a teenager, I managed to halt a “crash-proof” computer by directing it to take input from the display screen and send output to the keyboard, both of which were obviously impossible. It was a simple prank that the programmers somehow hadn’t anticipated. What pranks and scenarios will driverless car companies overlook as they turn their machines loose?</span></div>
487. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
488. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Cybersecurity and More</b> </span></div>
489. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
490. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yesterday’s pranks are today’s cybersecurity threats, of course, and these cars will be vulnerable. Even today, cars are <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/hacker-attack-on-your-cars-computer-could-be-lethal-experts/article4489553/">at risk</a>. Yet, John Tillman of Mercedes, Chrysler’s Good and VW’s Wendling all urged the DMV not to regulate driverless car cybersecurity (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_zxk4JA7Ro&t=7m56s">video</a>). They didn’t feel that DMV was the right agency for the task, but had no alternative proposals.</span></div>
491. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
492. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There will be a lot of pressure for driverless car software upgrades to be transmitted wirelessly over the air (OTA), but this should only be allowed with extraordinary security. OTA mechanisms represent enormous threat vulnerability. Moreover, even under the best of circumstances, software updates are problematic, especially when the initial code is complex. It’s easy to “break something” when you’re in the process of fixing something or adding capabilities. The <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">FDA</a> found that 79 percent of software-related recalls in medical devices were due to defects introduced in updates, not in the original code.</span></div>
493. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
494. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are also legal issues, because adhering to the Vehicle Code isn’t always straightforward. Soublet highlighted a left turn issue which Google acknowledged ruefully (“I can’t believe you’re bringing that up,” said Medford; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tXJ3AhY4Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1h46m50s">video</a>). Soublet also mentioned that obeying the speed limit on a freeway isn’t always the right thing, since it can lead to vehicles traveling too slow for traffic conditions. Here again, the decisions should be made by the DMV, not Google – and certainly not Google alone.</span></div>
495. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
496. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Other legal issues – who’s liable for accidents, who gets the ticket and the points when a self-driving car breaks a traffic law, how will insurance work – were discussed at the DMV hearings but don’t relate to the point of this article.)</span></div>
497. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
498. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adding to the seriousness of all of these issues – safety, ethics, privacy, cybersecurity, legal – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is software monoculture, or the presence of the same software in many vehicles. This means that failures will affect numerous people, just like a bug in MS Word affects millions of people.</span></div>
499. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
500. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can we trust Google or car companies to protect our privacy, ensure our safety, guard against bugs, prevent cars from being weaponized into self-driving human-free suicide bombs, make ethical decisions when crashes are unavoidable, and all the rest? No, not without rigorous oversight and meaningful independent certification. </span><br />
501. <br />
502. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally, we also have to put these cars in context. They're the first safer-yet-dangerous autonomous robots the public will encounter. There will be more -- eventually Honda's ASIMO robot will be released from the lab, ATLAS will come untethered and BigDog and other Boston Dynamics (i.e., Google) robots will be set loose, whether as helpers, packbots, monitors, security bots or more. Will we get the same answer then -- "this technology is a net good, regulators are self-interested, auditors wouldn't catch the bugs, so let the company self-certify and be done with it"? <br /><br />
503. Google plays a long game and a large one. They're aware that they may be setting a precedent for the way robots are regulated, or not. </span></span></div>
504. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
505. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The California DMV regulations – which may set a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/cyberlaw.stanford.edu/wiki/index.php/Automated_Driving:_Legislative_and_Regulatory_Action">national</a> and even international template (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2WWRzbLsw8&feature=youtu.be&t=7m34s">video</a>) – will be out soon. Hopefully, they’ll be adequate to the task. Click <a href="mailto:LRegulations@dmv.ca.gov,%20LADRegulations@dmv.ca.gov?cc=cars@jhandel.com&subject=Driverless%20car%20regulations">here</a> to tell the DMV what you think (and cc me).</span></div>
506. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd; text-align: justify;">
507. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jonathan Handel (<a href="http://www.jhandel.com/">jhandel.com</a>) is an entertainment/technology attorney and journalist in Los Angeles. He does not have clients related to self-driving cars. The opinions expressed here are his own. Images via Wikipedia and do not imply endorsement or affiliation.</span></i></div>
508. </description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-do-we-know-driverless-cars-are-safe.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji6AWXoS9WRD_43WS1XH6LCMFwnqU5KTmlYEvBV6p1MVzWT5WUdq1mh8pRLn84XgGpCzZPj-JVkgVfiA-7NC3pma9wba7X0l2eOFfSN943-pUXZ53dZHSuFQW9y3c6pZd9Dqs-Ln4kIPs/s72-c/596px-Google&#39;s_Lexus_RX_450h_Self-Driving_Car.jpg" height="72" width="72"/></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-1458848947943892545</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 01:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-06-18T20:29:17.221-07:00</atom:updated><title>2030 May Be The Year They’ll Take Your Driver&#39;s License Away</title><description>&lt;br /&gt;
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510. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
511. I was stuck in traffic yesterday, which I didn’t really mind because I have a fun little yellow convertible, and I was thinking about Uber ($17 billion! – that’s the company’s valuation, not the price of a ride) and Google’s driverless cars (development cost unknown), and I decided it was time to connect the dots: once a car learns to drive, there’s no need to own it and there’s no need for a driver. That’s because the car can come when called, take you to your destination, then go off and pick up someone else. </div>
512. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
513. That sounds great and I’m hardly the first to connect those particular dots, but there’s a corollary that seems to have gone largely <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">(though <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/google-driverless-car-morality.html">not entirely</a>) </span>unnoticed: when driving oneself becomes unnecessary, it will eventually become more expensive, less convenient and – ultimately – unlawful, because the cars will do it a lot better than we can. Traditional cars will find themselves in a death spiral, and they’ll be gone in less than – well, not less than 60 seconds, but sooner than you think. </div>
514. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
515. In other words, Google is engineering all of us right out of the driver’s seat. If they manage to get self-driving cars on the market by 2020 – as they’ve said they hope to – then I’d give human drivers another ten years before we all get our licenses pulled and registrations revoked.</div>
516. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
517. Welcome to the Jetsons era of driverless Cars as a Service, or d-CaaS if you will.</div>
518. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
519. Improbable? Not really. Consider how the laws changed around smoking on aircraft. Until 1973, you could smoke anywhere on an airplane. Next came smoking in designated sections and then, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/17/us/smoking-ban-near-on-flights-in-us.html">in 1988</a> – just 15 years later – an outright ban on most flights. It was all motivated by health concerns. Today, with safety issues, shoelace bombers and explosive underwear added to the mix, no sane person would touch a cigarette while aloft. What once was commonplace is now understood to be reckless, and punishable accordingly.</div>
520. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
521. Or consider horses. Once common on city streets such as LA’s <a href="https://hollywoodphotographs.com/detail/1866/sunset-blvd/?c=73&i=1&r=24">Sunset Blvd.</a>, they disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. (Well, <a href="http://laist.com/2012/01/25/why_a_woman_is_riding_horses_throug.php">not completely</a>.) Who at the time could have imagined?</div>
522. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
523. Already, of course, the elderly lose their right to drive when they can’t do so safely enough. But my point is that the definition of “safely enough” will shift: when self-driving cars are safer than human drivers, at some point none of us humans will be deemed safe enough to worthy of a license.</div>
524. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
525. Let’s back up and look at where we are now. Google’s fleet has already logged <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-latest-chapter-for-self-driving-car.html">nearly 700,000 autonomous miles</a>. How smart are the cars? Consider this, from a 2013 New Yorker <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all">article</a>:</div>
526. <blockquote class="tr_bq">
527. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
528. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Google lead programmer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dmitri Dolgov</b>] was riding through a wooded area one night when the car suddenly slowed to a crawl. “I was thinking, What the hell? It must be a bug,” he told me. “Then we noticed the deer walking along the shoulder.”</i></div>
529. </blockquote>
530. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
531. The deer wasn’t even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on</i> the road, but was alongside it. In the dark, in a fraction of a second (one presumes), the car had detected an object, recognized it as a deer, inferred that it could leap onto the roadway unpredictably, released the gas and applied the brakes. Now that’s a smart car, and the night vision is just icing on the cake.</div>
532. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
533. Maybe the deer was the only thing out there that night. Perhaps the car itself turns into a deer in the headlights when faced with complexity? No. Said Google’s project director <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Chris Urmson</b> in a recent <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-latest-chapter-for-self-driving-car.html">blog post</a>, “our software … can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn.”</div>
534. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
535. Now, there is some “trickery” involved: the car is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/all-the-world-a-track-the-trick-that-makes-googles-self-driving-cars-work/370871/">preloaded</a> with extremely high-def maps of the areas it drives in. Far more detailed than Google Maps, these maps are models of the physical world, with information like the height of traffic signals, the position of curbs and more. Those models make it easier for the computer to process sensor inputs, because it knows some of what to expect.</div>
536. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
537. Of course, you and I use the same trick when we drive on familiar roads. And Google is hardly going to be deterred by the need to map the world’s roadways.</div>
538. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
539. That deer story is already more than six months old. The software has probably moved on to recognizing cats and raccoons by now. Meanwhile, on the hardware front, the latest Google cars don’t have steering wheels or pedals. The driver is just another passenger along for the ride. And guess what: in most states, that’s <a href="http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/publications/automated-vehicles-are-probably-legal-united-states">probably legal already</a>. Anyway, those cars are intentionally limited to 25 mph. That may sound kind of limiting, but it’s actually the same as the proposed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/nyregion/bill-to-reduce-speed-limit-to-25-mph-gains-favor.html">New York City speed limit</a>.</div>
540. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
541. The Google team are very clever folks, and they’re not the only ones working on these kinds of vehicles, though they seem to be the furthest ahead. Readers who hate government should note that much of this was spurred by a U.S. government sponsored <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/03/13.aspx">competition</a>; indeed, Google’s Urmson, then at Carnegie-Mellon University, was the <a href="http://www.tartanracing.org/team.html">technology leader</a> of the team that won the government’s 2007 Urban Challenge.</div>
542. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
543. In any case, it’s just a matter of time and determined engineering before autonomous cars become better drivers than people are. (By some measures, says Google, <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520746/data-shows-googles-robot-cars-are-smoother-safer-drivers-than-you-or-i/">they already are</a>.) That will lead to commercial availability. When that happens, the conversation will begin to shift from “is it ok to let cars drive themselves?” to “is it ok to let people drive themselves?”</div>
544. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
545. And the answer we’ll arrive at, soon enough, will be no.</div>
546. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
547. That’s because (as the New Yorker article points out) people are terrible drivers. They’re always distractible, and often tired, preoccupied, drunk, drugged, on the phone or sending a text. They’re emotional, error-prone, drive too fast and react too slow. They have blind spots, can’t see in the dark and usually can’t be trusted to use both feet at once, meaning that in a unexpected crisis even the best driver loses seconds shifting his right foot from the accelerator to the brake. A well-programmed computer, kitted out with cameras, lasers, radars and cameras, will be able to do much better.</div>
548. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
549. When that happens, the <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/NCSA">social cost of human driving</a> will no longer be simply unfathomable – in the U.S. alone, 33,000 deaths, almost 2.5 million injuries, $277 billion in economic losses and $871 billion in total social harm per year – it will become unacceptable. Over 95% of that cost is attributable to <a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811059.PDF">driver error</a> (pdf; see pp. 24-25).</div>
550. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
551. Divide those dollar figures (2010 data, the latest available) by the <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html">adult population</a> and you’ll see that human driving costs the nation the equivalent of $1200 to $3500 per adult per year. Some of that is accounted for by auto insurance rates, but too many people are uninsured or underinsured, and the insurance system <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w6934">arguably doesn’t do a good job</a> of reflecting the true cost of accidents.</div>
552. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
553. So money is probably where the regulation will start. Somewhere between perhaps 2025 to 2030, you might have to pay an annual “human driver” fee if you want to keep driving the old fashioned way. It could be a hefty add-on to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Articles%20and%20Presentations/dmv.ca.gov/dl/fees/driverlicense_fees.htm">present-day license fees</a> – probably not as much as the true social cost at first, but it might increase over time. Or it might take form as an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/01/google-self-driving-pods-end-of-road-car-ownership">increase in car insurance rates</a> for those who insist on driving themselves.</div>
554. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
555. Of course, self-driving cars are likely to be more expensive than the old fashioned kind, at least at first. Would the poor and middle class suffer, forced into a Hobson’s choice between paying more for a license and insurance or paying more for a driverless car or a retrofit kit? Not at all. They’re likely to do neither, and instead use d-CaaS – driverless cars that appear when summoned, ready to whisk you to work, play, restaurants or one of the diminishing number of retail outlets not rendered superfluous by Amazon (with or without flying drones).</div>
556. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
557. And who will provide those cars? Why Uber, of course (there’s a reason Google invested a <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/google-to-use-partners-maybe-uber-in-self-driving-car-release-brin-7000029918/">quarter-billion dollars</a> in the company), and Lyft, Sidecar, ZipCar (owned by Avis), Car2Go, RelayRides, Zimride (owned by Enterprise), and Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, Dollar, Hailo, Taxi Magic, Flywheel, local taxi and limo companies, and, gosh, have I left anybody out? They’ll all be in competition with each other. Some will own fleets, while others will provide financing or monetization for individuals who do buy autonomous cars or retrofit their existing vehicles.</div>
558. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
559. But really, why buy? Americans spend roughly <a href="http://www.lamar.com/howtoadvertise/~/media/7845006D467B432592A4A1867BBFBA7D.ashx">3 hours a day</a> in their cars. That means that about 21 hours a day, the vehicle sits idle. What a waste of money to buy a self-driving car when instead you can use one when you need it and the car can go about its business when you don’t. Do you really want to be in the business of owning a self-driving car, always keeping up with hardware and software updates, cleaning up spilled soda from the backseat and restocking the candy dish? Uber is not going to be about <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/05/29/uber_and_driverless_cars_the_sharing_economy_is_not_the_future_of_labor.html">human drivers</a> forever.</div>
560. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
561. So, a far smaller number of self-driving cars could fill people’s needs than the number of cars owned today. During surge periods – primarily, rush hours – commuting in autonomous cars could involve ride-sharing (at a reduced cost per person) and/or multimodal trips (the car takes you to the train or subway station). Prefer your privacy? That will be available too, but at a cost in money and time too, since you won’t get to use the commuter lane on the freeway.</div>
562. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
563. Fewer cars and less time sitting idle means less need for garages, lots and on-street spaces, and little or no time spent looking for parking. Fewer cars, tighter clustering and greater efficiency translates to less congestion. There will be more mobility for the elderly and disabled. And driverless cars will probably all be electric so that they can just sidle up to a charging station and rejuice without human intervention. So, less pollution.</div>
564. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
565. What happens to all those existing traditional cars? I think the government will get them, and your license too.</div>
566. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
567. That may make you think of gun rights – “they’ll pry my steering wheel from my cold, dead hands” –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>but there’s no Second Amendment for cars, and even today, driving is considered a privilege, not a right.</div>
568. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
569. Anyway, the government probably wouldn’t take your car from you at first. Instead, they’d buy it. The advantages of getting traditional cars off the road will be so great that some states might decide to pay owners to scrap and recycle them – just as California today <a href="http://www.smogcheck.ca.gov/80_BARResources/01_CAP&GoldShield/cap_program.html">pays owners</a> of cars that fail smog check $1000 to $1500 to have their cars dismantled.</div>
570. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
571. And, of course, the other thing they can do is regulate your car’s value away, by pursuing policies that favor d-CaaS. As driving oneself becomes more and more a pastime of the rich, the price of licenses, registration, insurance and gasoline will likely increase, further narrowing the user base – and political constituency – for traditional cars. As demand lessens, gas stations will close up shop, and owning a non-autonomous gasoline vehicle will become unfeasible. That will drive another nail in the traditional car’s coffin – or in its tire. You’ll wish you sold it to the state when you had the chance.</div>
572. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
573. Meanwhile, densely-packed cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco might outlaw traditional cars altogether, or levy a heavy use fee, just as London and a few other cities impose <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing">congestion pricing</a> today, with plans afoot in <a href="http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/06/16/the-move-ny-fair-tolling-plan-is-polling-better-than-congestion-pricing/">New York</a>.</div>
574. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
575. Mothers Against Drunk Driving might rebrand as “Mothers Against Drivers Driving” and maybe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Car & Driver</i> magazine will become <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Car & Operating System</i>, if it doesn’t fold altogether.</div>
576. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
577. Increasingly, those who choose to drive themselves will bear more of the consequences of their risky behavior. The damages awarded in the event of an accidents may skyrocket, not just because the average driver will be wealthy, but also because the accident will be seen as easily avoidable. When the police show up at an accident scene, they might charge a fee, just as ambulances do. Ultimately, the decision to drive oneself might become reclassified as what the law calls “ultrahazardous,” making liability stricter and penalties more severe.</div>
578. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
579. Of course, to take off the rose-colored Google Glass for a moment, it will be a weird and different world when nobody drives, and it’s bound to bring a loss of privacy. There have already been fights over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012%29">driving data</a>; there will be more. Inside the car, you’ll be in a public space: even now, the Google cars have cameras inside as well as out, and we can expect more of that, not less, as time goes on. And talk about a captive audience: at present, there are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work">no ads</a> in Google’s self-driving cars, but <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/21/google-predicts-ads-in-odd-spots-like-thermostats/">that won’t last</a>.</div>
580. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
581. There will no doubt be a loss of autonomy as well. Chinese cars will probably be programmed to avoid sensitive places like ongoing demonstrations, or Tiananmen Square on the anniversary of the massacre. Call it the Great Traffic Cone of China. (Yet countries like China and India might leapfrog the U.S. in the application of d-CaaS technology.) Even in the U.S., people on probation or subject to protective orders will have their mobility reduced. Teenagers might find that self-driving cars refuse to stop at liquor stores and head shops, or won’t stay out after midnight (“Chad,” the car will text an errant teen, “I’m leaving in five minutes.”). Any one of us might be offered a discount on our ride by Google if we <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/google-driverless-car">let the car take us to a restaurant or store the company favors</a>. Today, our attention is bought and sold in the form of advertising; tomorrow, our physical presence will be for sale as well. We might even have to agree to stay at the store for at least 15 minutes in order to get that ride discount.</div>
582. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
583. Then there are the technical challenges. Yes, Google engineers are smart – but how smart? My Android-powered Galaxy S4, which initially worked <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/samsung-galaxy-s4-review_b_3362246.html">so well</a>, now tends to freeze, overheat and run down the battery. And that’s not to mention the prospect of it being hacked. Programming is still a dicey business: we’ve been designing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge#History">bridges</a> for 3300 years but the very term “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering#History">software engineering</a>” is less than 50 years old. As a rigorous discipline, it’s even younger – and it’s subject to little regulation. </div>
584. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
585. One kind of program code that is regulated is <a href="http://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices/deviceregulationandguidance/guidancedocuments/ucm085281.htm">medical device software</a>, and in that context, the FDA makes a point that applies equally well to driverless cars: “Because of its complexity, the development process for software should be even more tightly controlled than for hardware, in order to prevent problems that cannot be easily detected later in the development process.”</div>
586. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
587. Soon, another exception may be mapping apps: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/business/agency-aims-to-regulate-map-aids-in-vehicles.html">wants the authority</a> to regulate those for safety reasons.</div>
588. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
589. So the road ahead for self-driving cars is likely to be studded with potholes. Will we need outside software auditors to reduce error and guard against the sort of cover-up that seems to have afflicted the <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2014/ci.DOT-Announces-Record-Fines,-Unprecedented-Oversight-Requirements-in-GM-Investigation.print">GM ignition switch</a> team and that company’s management? Probably so. Google itself, after all, already operates under the scrutiny of <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/03/ftc-charges-deceptive-privacy-practices-googles-rollout-its-buzz">outside privacy audits</a> imposed by a 2011 consent decree, and the company later paid a record $22.5 million fine for <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/08/google-will-pay-225-million-settle-ftc-charges-it-misrepresented">violating that consent decree</a>. </div>
590. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
591. Can we trust Google or car companies to protect our privacy, ensure our safety, guard against bugs, prevent cars from being weaponized into self-driving human-free suicide bombs, make <a href="http://www.owen.org/blog/7308">ethical decisions</a> when crashes are unavoidable, and all the rest? Not without oversight. Federal regulators are still figuring out the issues (see <a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/Automated_Vehicles_Policy.pdf">pdf</a> of May 2013 NHTSA policy paper), but thanks to Google’s <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/google-got-states-legalize-driverless-cars-052640902--finance.html">lobbying</a>, California is <a href="http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/autonomous/auto.htm">moving ahead</a> on driverless cars even as it <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/16/6482456/viewpoints-dont-stifle-innovation.html">struggles</a> with Uber. Whoever brings us smart cars – whether Detroit, foreign car companies, Google or some combination – will be doing the world (and themselves) a great service, but will also need to be regulated with more technological precision than we usually apply to software. Self-driving cars, after all, are robots with human payloads, and are far more dangerous than Roombas.</div>
592. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">
593. Even with those caveats, self-driving cars are on their way and human drivers on their way out. And even with all the efficiencies gained, I’ll miss my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8879600559/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=8879600559&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">yellow convertible</a>, I will. But I expect that by 2030 I’ll have more than a Roomba to console me. I’ll be holding out for a robocat.</div>
594. <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd; text-align: justify;">
595. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jonathan Handel (<a href="http://www.jhandel.com/">jhandel.com</a>) is an entertainment/technology attorney at TroyGould in Los Angeles and a contributing editor at The Hollywood Reporter.</i></div>
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613. &lt;/style&gt; &lt;![endif]--&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/06/2030-may-be-year-theyll-take-your.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3513510171421968529</guid><pubDate>Sun, 20 Apr 2014 18:13:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-04-20T11:16:11.240-07:00</atom:updated><title>New Website -- jhandel.com</title><description>My new website is up at &lt;a href=&quot;http://jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/a&gt;. It tells everything you always wanted to know (and more!) about my background and entertainment/technology law practice. Give it a look!&lt;br /&gt;
614. <br />
615. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Visit my website (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>), follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel" target=""><i>Facebook</i></a><i> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhandel" target="">LinkedIn</a>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript"><!--
616. amazon_ad_tag = &quot;digmedlaw-20&quot;; amazon_ad_width = &quot;468&quot;; amazon_ad_height = &quot;60&quot;; amazon_ad_logo = &quot;hide&quot;; amazon_ad_link_target = &quot;new&quot;; amazon_color_border = &quot;C7C7C7&quot;; amazon_color_link = &quot;5588AA&quot;; amazon_color_logo = &quot;5588AA&quot;;//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-website-jhandelcom.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-7356123283751080962</guid><pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2014 16:36:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2014-04-15T09:36:22.783-07:00</atom:updated><title>Aereo to Face Uphill Battle in Supreme Court Next Week, Experts Say (analysis)</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt;   &lt;o:RelyOnVML/&gt;   &lt;o:AllowPNG/&gt;  &lt;/o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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635. Next week’s Supreme Court argument will be difficult for cable-competitor Aereo, legal experts agree, as the company faces off against not just broadcasters but also the influential U.S. Solicitor General’s office and the Copyright Office. While it will be a tough fight for the company, the case is so complex and the copyright and communications statutes so intricate that one advocate said the decision could end up as lopsided as 7-1 – in either direction.<br />
636. <br />
637. The only expert willing to offer a prediction, Akin Gump’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pratik Shah</b>, said “I think a majority of the Court will be skeptical of Aereo’s position and thus likely to rule in favor of the broadcast-petitioners,” while another – who spoke on background and supports Aereo – put the odds in the broadcasters’ favor at 60-40 or 70-30.<br />
638. <br />
639. And yet, only two Justices’ votes – those of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ruth Bader Ginsburg </b>and<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Steven Breyer – </b>are predictable with any confidence (“this is not a conventionally political case,” noted Georgetown’s<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Rebecca Tushnet</b>), and even an awkward 4-4 tie is possible, because one Justice, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Samuel Alito</b>, is recused from the case for unknown reasons. That uncomfortable outcome would leave in place a welter of conflicting lower-court decisions, which ratify Aereo and similar services in some parts of the country and outlaw them in others.<br />
640. <br />
641. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Aereo, you’ll recall, is an $8-$12 per month Internet service that lets users watch or record broadcast TV using a PC or cellphone. </span><br />
642. <br />
643. For a detailed analysis, see more at <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/aereo-face-uphill-battle-supreme-696148">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
644. <br />
645. <br />
646. <img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
647. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript"><!--
648. amazon_ad_tag = &quot;digmedlaw-20&quot;; amazon_ad_width = &quot;468&quot;; amazon_ad_height = &quot;60&quot;; amazon_ad_logo = &quot;hide&quot;; amazon_ad_link_target = &quot;new&quot;; amazon_color_border = &quot;C7C7C7&quot;; amazon_color_link = &quot;5588AA&quot;; amazon_color_logo = &quot;5588AA&quot;;//--&gt;&lt;/script&gt; &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2014/04/aereo-to-face-uphill-battle-in-supreme.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-7498213875205656369</guid><pubDate>Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:01:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2013-07-15T11:10:47.493-07:00</atom:updated><title>Joan Rivers Faces Potential Fine, Expulsion in WGA East Trial (Analysis)</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;
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696.  
697. <br />
698. <i>The penalties could be severe – but Rivers may have some unexpected
699. defenses.</i><br />
700. <br />
701. With the WGA East sending Joan Rivers off to a trial
702. board for alleged violations related to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fashion
703. Police,</i> the star will be facing what’s likely to be a tough tribunal – and
704. a fine that could be as high as all the money she’s made on the hit show in the
705. last year, plus expulsion from the union.<br />
706. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
707. <br /></div>
708. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
709. What’s more, she may have
710. to face her accusers without an attorney present. The WGAE rules say that a
711. member at a trial board “may be represented by a Current member in good
712. standing,” but there’s no provision for counsel. </div>
713. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
714. <br /></div>
715. <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
716. And yet, as tough a jam
717. as it may seem, Rivers may have some defenses – and might even be able to
718. prevent a hearing from taking place at all. Let’s take a look at the
719. accusations against Rivers, the procedure that comes next and her possible
720. arguments.</div>
721. <br />
722. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fashion-police-joan-rivers-faces-584703">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
723. <br />
724. <br />
725. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="zgmdouroxhgqvjpslrid" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="zgmdouroxhgqvjpslrid" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
726. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span>
727. <script type="text/javascript"><!--
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729. &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2013/07/rivers-faces-potential-large-fine.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Handel)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-9223145687541295576</guid><pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2013-04-24T17:46:16.729-07:00</atom:updated><title>How Talent Loses if Aereo Wins</title><description>&lt;i&gt;Follow the money and discover an unstated reason the Hollywood unions weighed in with briefs opposing the new service.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
730. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
731. <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2013/04/thr_union_losses_a_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2013/04/thr_union_losses_a_l.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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738.  
739. Several weeks ago, Fox, PBS and several other companies were hit with a 2-1 <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/aereo-beats-broadcasters-big-appellate-431988">federal
740. court of appeals ruling</a> rebuffing their attempt to shut down Aereo, a new
741. service backed by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Barry Diller</b>. Last
742. week, they filed a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/tv-broadcasters-petition-aereo-rehearing-440428">petition
743. for a rehearing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en banc</i></a>, in which
744. all thirteen judges of the New York based court would rehear the case and
745. potentially reverse the ruling, resulting in the preliminary injunction that
746. the networks seek while the matter goes to trial.<br />
747. <br />
748. Interestingly the Hollywood unions – DGA, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA and WGA – signed
749. on to an <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/136317211/Paramount-Et-Al-Amicus-Re-en-Banc">amicus
750. brief</a> supporting that petition, as they <a href="http://www.wga.org/uploadedfiles/news_and_events/public_policy/AmicusBrief-Aereo-Lawsuit.pdf">had</a>
751. also done when the original appeal was heard. But why do the guilds care? <br />
752. <br />
753. As a reminder, <a href="https://www.aereo.com/" target="_blank">Aereo</a> is a service that allows users to watch and record
754. local TV for $8/month without a cable subscription. The service is available in
755. New York and, soon, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/aereo-launch-boston-may-15-444662">in
756. Boston</a>. It’s drawn the ire of broadcast networks because it would
757. facilitate cord-cutting, reducing revenue to networks. <br />
758. <br />
759. As a result, News Corp. president and COO <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Chase Carey</b> <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/analysts-aereo-may-eventually-cause-434890">has
760. threatened</a> to make Fox cable-only if Aereo prevails in court. There are <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/analysts-aereo-may-eventually-cause-434890">potential
761. downsides</a> to this, and some analysts are <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/will-aereo-force-fox-become-442313">skeptical</a>
762. that Fox would make the move, but the threat can’t be dismissed out of hand.<br />
763. <br />
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804. <br />
805. <br />
806. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/how-talent-loses-aereo-wins-445834" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
807. <br />
808. <br />
809. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="kviqspnkwqjebkaehhrz" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="kviqspnkwqjebkaehhrz" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
810. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span>
811. <script type="text/javascript"><!--
812. amazon_ad_tag = "digmedlaw-20"; amazon_ad_width = "468"; amazon_ad_height = "60"; amazon_ad_logo = "hide"; amazon_ad_link_target = "new"; amazon_color_border = "C7C7C7"; amazon_color_link = "5588AA"; amazon_color_logo = "5588AA";//</script>-->
813. &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-talent-loses-if-aereo-wins.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3028079009431010719</guid><pubDate>Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:59:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2013-04-01T18:59:52.848-07:00</atom:updated><title>New book - Entertainment Labor: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography</title><description>&lt;br /&gt;
814. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
815. <a href="https://zme-caps.amazon.com/asset/SSE/content/3368648/THUMBNAIL_IMAGE?versionId=3&awsClient=416214191754%3Auser%2FMainsite&urlMethod=GET&expires=1364874460740&sig=815477f7efc655a51de386c083bd3331c39eeaeb1fd177e80e9b97d14f597b33&serial=1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://zme-caps.amazon.com/asset/SSE/content/3368648/THUMBNAIL_IMAGE?versionId=3&awsClient=416214191754%3Auser%2FMainsite&urlMethod=GET&expires=1364874460740&sig=815477f7efc655a51de386c083bd3331c39eeaeb1fd177e80e9b97d14f597b33&serial=1" /></a></div>
816. <br />
817. <span style="font-size: small;">A must-have for academics, union staff and attorneys working in entertainment labor, <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3368648"><b>ENTERTAINMENT LABOR: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography</b></a><b> </b>is a 345 page annotated bibliography of over 1,500 books, articles, dissertations, legal cases and other resources dealing with entertainment unions and guilds and various other aspects of entertainment labor.</span><br />
818. <br />
819. The book is <span style="font-size: small;">the product of hundreds of hours of research and of compilation of search results from almost twenty databases.</span><br />
820. <br />
821. <span style="font-size: small;">Also included are:</span><br />
822. <span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">* Annotations (where necessary to explain the relevance of the book or article)</span><br />
823. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">
824. </span><span style="font-size: small;">* </span>Capsule descriptions of legal cases <br />
825. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">
826. </span><span style="font-size: small;">* </span>Page references (where only a portion of the book or article is relevant)</span></span><br />
827. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">* </span></span></span>URLs (for those full-text articles that are available online at no charge)<br />
828. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">* </span></span></span>A detailed chapter on materials available from the unions and guilds themselves<br />
829. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">* </span></span></span>A 90-page index</span></span></span><br />
830. <br />
831. Email me (jhandel99 at gmail dot com) for sample pages<span style="font-size: small;">, or just <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3368648"><b>click here</b></a> to purchase.</span><br />
832. <br />
833. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="jcsutplpxwlbsdlpmudd" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="jcsutplpxwlbsdlpmudd" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
834. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Subscribe to my blog (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-book-entertainment-labor.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-5006986225615489691</guid><pubDate>Sat, 16 Mar 2013 17:28:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2013-03-16T10:38:52.604-07:00</atom:updated><title>VFX Town Hall Meeting Urges Trade Association and Union</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;
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879.  
880. <br />
881. However, panelists also acknowledged the difficulty of achieving either
882. goal.<br />
883. <br />
884. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
885. <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2013/02/life_of_pi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2013/02/life_of_pi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
886. <br />
887. <br />
888. <div class="MsoNormal">
889. Pi Day – a multi-city international meeting of VFX artists –
890. took place Thursday evening amid rising concern about the state of the
891. industry. </div>
892. <br />
893. VFX vet <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Scott Ross</b> and others
894. outlined a plan that involves the formation of a VFX union for VFX artists and
895. of a trade association for visual effects facilities, all aimed at addressing
896. the troubled VFX business model.<br />
897. <br />
898. “Fear has stopped us because we have six clients [the studios],” Ross told
899. them. “We are fearful of losing our jobs; [but] we are losing our jobs. … It’s
900. going to get worse until we do something.”<br />
901. <br />
902. Ross – a co-founder and ex-CEO of Digital Domain, a former GM of Industrial
903. Light & Magic and a senior vp at LucasArts – also stated that through
904. outreach “almost all” of the major facilities in North America<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“have agreed to investigate the possibilities
905. of a trade association. … They seemingly want to effect change.”<br />
906. <br />
907. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/vfx-town-hall-urges-trade-429245" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
908. <br />
909. <br />
910. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="zfrbditbfgzlkoupkwcb" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="zfrbditbfgzlkoupkwcb" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
911. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Subscribe to my blog (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2013/03/vfx-town-hall-meeting-urges-trade.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-6261733486237835641</guid><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:01:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2013-01-10T20:01:01.579-08:00</atom:updated><title>Canadian Talent Consultant Charged in Alleged Actor Visa Scam</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;
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956.  
957. <br />
958. Actor <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Andrew Boryski</b> was charged
959. with multiple criminal counts for cheating aspiring actors out of thousands of
960. dollars in an immigration visa scam, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office
961. said Thursday in a press release.<br />
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1008.  
1009. <br />
1010. Boryski is charged with 32 counts; “this suspect, who’s an aspiring actor
1011. himself, has landed a role in a real life crime drama” says a federal agent.<br />
1012. <br />
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1058.  
1059. <br />
1060. The Saskatchewan native allegedly operated a Los Angeles-area immigration
1061. consulting business that sought O-1 visas on behalf of aspiring foreign actors.The O-1 visa is intended for established entertainment professionals with
1062. work pending in the United States – not for newcomers to the business without
1063. actual employment, as was the case with Boryski’s alleged victims. <br />
1064. <br />
1065. <br />
1066. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/canadian-talent-consultant-andrew-boryski-411169" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1067. <br />
1068. <br />
1069. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="ynfrloehmlvhmxyvxudp" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="ynfrloehmlvhmxyvxudp" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1070. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;New! Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; in paperback and Kindle. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Subscribe to my blog (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2013/01/canadian-talent-consultant-charged-in.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-7687553939109531695</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2012 04:21:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-11-29T00:53:20.304-08:00</atom:updated><title>&#39;Hobbit&#39; Affair Still Rankles NZ Unions</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;
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1115.  
1116. <br />
1117. As fans of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hobbit</i> scanned the
1118. red carpet at the film’s premiere in Wellington last night, some New Zealand
1119. activists are still bitter about the outcome of a failed unionization attempt
1120. in 2010, even as NZ Actors Equity is finally making progress in negotiations
1121. with the country’s producers association.<br />
1122. <br />
1123. Meanwhile, the government continues to resist publicly disclosing a key
1124. legal report, despite having apparently provided copies to Warner Bros. and
1125. producer/director <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Peter Jackson</b>’s
1126. Wingnut Films. That stance may change, as government officials are meeting on
1127. the matter December 5, according to a local press <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/121835/information-on-film-worker-decisions-still-withheld">report</a>.<br />
1128. <br />
1129. <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“I’m bloody angry,” said NZAE vice
1130. president <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Phil Darkins</b> at a
1131. conference last week at Victoria University. Referring to New Zealand’s
1132. uniquely non-unionized film industry, he said caustically </span>“New Zealand
1133. is the only English speaking nation on the planet where professional performers
1134. ply their trade at the mercy of their lords and masters. And they are supposed
1135. to do this feeling nothing but enormous gratitude for the fact that there is
1136. even work available.”<br />
1137. <br />
1138. In an email to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.thr.com/">The Hollywood Reporter</a></i>, a NZAE organizer
1139. struck a different note. “We're having productive discussions with SPADA,” said
1140. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anna Majavu,</b> referring to the
1141. country’s Screen Production and Development Association, “and look forward to
1142. reaching a mutually-agreeable conclusion.”<br />
1143. <br />
1144. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/hobbit-affair-still-rankles-new-394944" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1145. <br />
1146. <br />
1147. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="drejssdzithcbakqyecm" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="drejssdzithcbakqyecm" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1148. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>New! Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ABOL9U0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ABOL9U0&linkCode=as2&tag=digmedlaw-20">Amazon</a> in paperback and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.</span>
1149. &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/11/normal-0-false-false-false-style_4083.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-8070951345971641795</guid><pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2012 10:14:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-11-25T02:14:40.509-08:00</atom:updated><title>new book - The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis</title><description>&lt;br /&gt;
1150. <br />
1151. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
1152. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_g2a5jEOv-4t1UaBmfm7Gkiy6y7D4y1uvhZPSelFCI-AlSHU_49vBeBFn1sKmHwuxbNVdM9BfqtT5NmGZXVkHSUWgCFpiD7XIQOhSfNwQsdjXR6jXt1V8FU1W3dT4KABj2EXnDcHnaeQ/s1600/Hobbit+cover+thumbnail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_g2a5jEOv-4t1UaBmfm7Gkiy6y7D4y1uvhZPSelFCI-AlSHU_49vBeBFn1sKmHwuxbNVdM9BfqtT5NmGZXVkHSUWgCFpiD7XIQOhSfNwQsdjXR6jXt1V8FU1W3dT4KABj2EXnDcHnaeQ/s320/Hobbit+cover+thumbnail.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
1153. <br />
1154. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
1155. My new book, <i>The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,</i> is out on Amazon<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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1199. <![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> in paper (<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://amzn.to/SiHUX2">http://<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">amzn.to/SiHUX2)</span></a></span> and Kindle (<a href="http://amzn.to/UG7q7F">http://amzn.to/UG7q7F).</a> Check it out. Here's the description:</span></div>
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1265.  
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1274.  
1275.  
1276.  
1280.  
1283. <span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Essential reading for Hobbit fans and
1284. labor/globalization academics alike, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE
1285. NEW ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS</b> looks back at an attempt to unionize actors on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hobbit</i> that blew up into a national
1286. crisis, driving down the NZ dollar and leading the Prime Minister and
1287. Parliament to dance to a Hollywood tune.</span></div>
1288. <div class="MsoNormal">
1289. <br /></div>
1290. <div align="center" class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">
1291. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">All was not well in
1292. Middle-earth . . .</span></i></div>
1293. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1294. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After the third <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lord of the Rings</i> movie premiered in 2003, fans of the series
1295. eagerly anticipated production and release of its prequel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hobbit.</i> It turned out they had a while to wait, as a series of
1296. troubles delayed production for years: lawsuits, studio bankruptcy, and
1297. ejection of producer/director Peter Jackson.</span></div>
1298. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1299. <br /></div>
1300. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1301. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then, in September 2010, when almost everything
1302. seemed resolved, U.S. and international actors unions issued a public alert
1303. advising their members “not to accept work on this non-union production.” </span></div>
1304. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1305. <br /></div>
1306. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1307. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE NEW
1308. ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS (Hollywood Analytics; Nov. 22, 2012; paper USD $7.99;
1309. Kindle USD $4.99),</b> entertainment attorney and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollywood Reporter</i> journalist <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jonathan
1310. Handel</b> shows how the two-month affair that began with local actors
1311. attempting to organize <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hobbit</i>
1312. ended with a smackdown</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from U.S.-based
1313. Warner Bros.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The studio managed to
1314. . . . well, let’s not spoil what for many will be a surprise. Suffice it to say
1315. that by the end, one member of Parliament said that Warners had “reduced New
1316. Zealand to a client state of a U.S. movie studio” while another said the
1317. country had become victim of a “shakedown.”</span></div>
1318. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1319. <br /></div>
1320. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1321. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But how did an American multinational company
1322. all but subjugate a sovereign nation? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE
1323. NEW ZEALAND HOBBIT CRISIS</b> tells the tale. Warner Bros. <span style="letter-spacing: -.2pt;">threatened to rip the troubled production from the
1324. country</span> and events quickly spiraled out of control. New Zealand plunged
1325. into crisis. Saving the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hobbit</i> was do
1326. or die for the local film industry, and the government scrambled to avoid disaster.
1327. </span></div>
1328. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1329. <br /></div>
1330. <div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
1331. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Protests and rallies erupted and the island
1332. nation’s currency fell on the possibility of losing the half-billion dollar
1333. project. Director Peter Jackson vowed to “fight like hell” to keep the shoot in
1334. New Zealand. But then studio executives flew in from Los Angeles like colonial
1335. masters ready to bring down the hammer. </span></div>
1336. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span></i><br />
1337. <i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">What happened next
1338. was almost unbelievable – and proved, if nothing else, that not all Hollywood
1339. drama is on the screen.</span></i>
1340.  
1341. <br />
1342. <br />
1343. <br />
1344. <br />
1345. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" class="ddankaxqldmeyceibbqs" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" class="ddankaxqldmeyceibbqs" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1346. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Also check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span>
1347. <script type="text/javascript"><!--
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1349. &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-book-new-zealand-hobbit-crisis.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_g2a5jEOv-4t1UaBmfm7Gkiy6y7D4y1uvhZPSelFCI-AlSHU_49vBeBFn1sKmHwuxbNVdM9BfqtT5NmGZXVkHSUWgCFpiD7XIQOhSfNwQsdjXR6jXt1V8FU1W3dT4KABj2EXnDcHnaeQ/s72-c/Hobbit+cover+thumbnail.jpg" height="72" width="72"/></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-6561088641225817245</guid><pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 2012 08:05:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-11-07T00:05:20.983-08:00</atom:updated><title>Lucasfilm Faces New Accusation of Pregnancy Discrimination</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
1350. <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/11/luis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/11/luis.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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1396.  
1397. <br />
1398. VFX artist <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Luis Pages</b> says
1399. Lucasfilm Singapore promised inaccurately that he’d have broad medical
1400. insurance if he relocated to Singapore for a job with the company – but then
1401. fired him without explanation after his wife’s pregnancy turned medically
1402. difficult, and withheld salary.<br />
1403.  
1404.  
1405. <br />
1406. “I think they fired me because of my wife's pregnancy and because of how
1407. upset sending her away made me and my co workers feel,” Pages told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.thr.com/">The Hollywood
1408. Reporter</a>.</i><br />
1409.  
1410.  
1411. <br />
1412. It’s not the first time Lucasfilm has faced an accusation involving
1413. pregnancy: in 2010, the company <a href="http://www.marinij.com/ci_15411939">lost</a>
1414. a pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit in Marin County. A
1415. company spokesman told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THR</i> the case
1416. is currently being appealed.<br />
1417.  
1418.  
1419. <br />
1420. In addition, Pages says he’s heard even worse experiences than his own, of
1421. Lucasfilm Singapore employees going bankrupt due to pregnancy-related
1422. complications that ignite multi-hundred thousand dollar medical bills.<br />
1423.  
1424.  
1425. <br />
1426. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lucasfilm-faces-new-pregnancy-discrimination-386863" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1427. <br />
1428. <br />
1429. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1430. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span>
1431. <script type="text/javascript"><!--
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1433. &lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/11/lucasfilm-faces-new-accusation-of.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3121219371995575942</guid><pubDate>Sat, 27 Oct 2012 04:51:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-10-26T21:51:58.037-07:00</atom:updated><title>Hollywood Sign Owner Cries Foul Over Ad Agency &#39;Infringement&#39;</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
1434. <a href="http://thr2.pgmcdn.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2012/10/bb-hollywood-sign-l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://thr2.pgmcdn.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2012/10/bb-hollywood-sign-l.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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1485.  
1486. <br />
1487. Visit the website for The Brooklyn Brothers, a New York ad agency, and
1488. you’ll find a <a href="http://thebrooklynbrothers.com/">splash page</a>
1489. announcing their new Hollywood venture, called BB Hollywood. It’s a snazzy
1490. looking page – a photo of the Hollywood sign with “BB” photoshopped in, to form
1491. “BBHOLLYWOOD” in the iconic white staggered, blocky typeface.<br />
1492. <br />
1493. But it turns out the splash page has already made more of a splash in
1494. Hollywood than the agency intended. When it showed up in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/media/brooklyn-brothers-agency-aligns-with-hollywood-writers-and-producers.html">New York Times</a></i> story identified as the new venture’s logo, at least one
1495. person in LA took notice.<br />
1496. <br />
1497. “I’ve already sent it over to our attorney for a cease and desist (letter),”
1498. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jeff Lotman</b> told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.thr.com/">The Hollywood
1499. Reporter</a>.</i> Lotman is the CEO of Global Icons, a licensing agency that
1500. represents the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The non-profit Chamber, as much
1501. of Hollywood knows, owns a trademark in the <a href="http://www.hollywoodsign.org/">Hollywood sign</a> – and they police it
1502. vigilantly.<br />
1503. <br />
1504. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/bb-hollywood-trademark-dispute-383648" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1505. <br />
1506. <br />
1507. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1508. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=143823385X&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; in pb and Kindle. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Subscribe to my blog (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;script src=&quot;http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/10/hollywood-sign-owner-cries-foul-over-ad.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3068728227254175398</guid><pubDate>Sun, 22 Jul 2012 06:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-07-21T23:46:14.508-07:00</atom:updated><title>Actors Union SAG-AFTRA and Industry Postpone Commercials Negotiations</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDX53Y1W44jDXaNxirsW9iXNDnvndhELqWtpMfJGElyC5A8tLkKVEUY8Q1Xe8qLtf-5oVMMYtyqBnya8a0VjEo5N4pIAcYBJofTYkVzjCAdgdJuAKVwGvgQWWTk5L2lRZ3eANT4IEvTM/s1600/SAGAFTRA1Union_2X0.627_HR.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;100&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDX53Y1W44jDXaNxirsW9iXNDnvndhELqWtpMfJGElyC5A8tLkKVEUY8Q1Xe8qLtf-5oVMMYtyqBnya8a0VjEo5N4pIAcYBJofTYkVzjCAdgdJuAKVwGvgQWWTk5L2lRZ3eANT4IEvTM/s320/SAGAFTRA1Union_2X0.627_HR.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
1509. </div><div class="MsoNormal">SAG-AFTRA and the advertising industry have agreed to postpone their previously-scheduled early negotiations of the union’s commercials agreement, the union announced Saturday. The existing agreement remains in place through March 31, 2013. The parties need more time, said the union, to address “data challenges” regarding a study that may result in a revamp of the commercials residuals system, referred to as Gross Ratings Points (GRP).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><br />
1510. </div><div class="MsoNormal">No date has been set for commercials negotiations, but the calendar makes it unlikely these will occur before mid-January, raising the possibility of a nail-biter. Big issues are likely to be GRP, pension and health contribution levels, and the increase in non-union work.</div><br />
1511. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-industry-postpone-commercials-352780">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1512. <br />
1513. <br />
1514. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1515. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript">
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1519. &lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/07/actors-union-sag-aftra-and-industry.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDX53Y1W44jDXaNxirsW9iXNDnvndhELqWtpMfJGElyC5A8tLkKVEUY8Q1Xe8qLtf-5oVMMYtyqBnya8a0VjEo5N4pIAcYBJofTYkVzjCAdgdJuAKVwGvgQWWTk5L2lRZ3eANT4IEvTM/s72-c/SAGAFTRA1Union_2X0.627_HR.jpg" height="72" width="72"/></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-3030700814571554814</guid><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:10:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-07-12T00:10:05.821-07:00</atom:updated><title>Movie Academy Journeys to Mars and (Far) Beyond at Sold-Out Event</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://thr2.pgmcdn.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog_post_349_width/2012/07/hubble_1083_dpk02261_04.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;http://thr2.pgmcdn.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog_post_349_width/2012/07/hubble_1083_dpk02261_04.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
1520. <div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">“What’s anything without a trip to Mars?,” asked NASA’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Eric De Jong</b> Tuesday night on stage at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No one in the audience seemed inclined to disagree, but many no doubt felt “Why stop at Mars?”</div>The panelists were happy to oblige, taking the audience to the limits of the observable Universe. Hosted by producer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frank Marshall</b>, the event showcased the relationship between NASA animation and Hollywood in such films as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Transformers: Dark of the Moon</i> (complete with a clip of <b>Shia LaBeouf</b>)<b> </b>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hubble 3D</i>.<br />
1521. <br />
1522. <div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: 1.0gd;">On stage were NASA personnel and consultants and such Hollywood veterans as producer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tom Jacobson</b> and visual effects supervisor <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Scott Farrar,</b> while the audience included <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Buzz Aldrin</b>, the second person to set foot on the moon, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">June Lockhart,</b> the co-star of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost in Space</i>.</div>Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/academy-transformers-hubble-nasa-mars-348256">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1523. <br />
1524. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1525. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript">
1526. <!--
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1528. </script> <script src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js" type="text/javascript">
1529. &lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/07/movie-academy-journeys-to-mars-and-far.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-5153096139410393369</guid><pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2012 06:05:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-06-19T23:47:18.620-07:00</atom:updated><title>Unions Investigating &#39;Liz &amp; Dick&#39; after Lindsay Lohan, Crew Allegedly Overworked</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/06/liz_and_dick_lohan_portrait_a_l.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/06/liz_and_dick_lohan_portrait_a_l.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
1530. <br />
1531. Two prominent Hollywood unions are investigating the Lifetime movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liz & Dick,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/Lindsay-lohan-liz-dick-elizabeth-taylor-339543"><span style="color: red; text-decoration: none;">The HollywoodReporter</span></a></span></i><span style="color: red;"> </span>(exclusive) has learned, with the moves coming in the wake of reports over the weekend that star <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lindsay Lohan</b> suffered from “exhaustion and dehydration” from overwork and that two crew members went to the hospital for the same reason. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
1532. <br />
1533. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The producer of the biopic about <b>Elizabeth Taylor </b>and <b>Richard Burton </b>denies any violations or knowledge of union inquiries</span><br />
1534. <br />
1535. <br />
1536. In a statement to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THR,</i> actors union SAG-AFTRA said, “We're looking into this matter, but can't yet provide any verified information.” A spokeswoman added, “our people are on it.”<br />
1537. <br />
1538. IATSE, the union that represents movie and television crew members, declined to comment. However, a source told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THR</i> that “the Business Agents are looking into long hours on the production.”<br />
1539. <br />
1540. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/Lindsay-lohan-liz-dick-elizabeth-taylor-339543">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1541. <br />
1542. <br />
1543. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1544. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript">
1545. <!--
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1547. </script> <script src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js" type="text/javascript">
1548. &lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/06/unions-investigating-liz-dick-after.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-69672710995238233</guid><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:47:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-06-01T12:47:25.489-07:00</atom:updated><title>Musicians Union Pickets Marvel Over Runaway ‘Avengers’ Score</title><description>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt;   &lt;o:RelyOnVML/&gt;   &lt;o:AllowPNG/&gt;  &lt;/o:OfficeDocumentSettings&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:WordDocument&gt;   &lt;w:View&gt;Normal&lt;/w:View&gt;   &lt;w:Zoom&gt;0&lt;/w:Zoom&gt;   &lt;w:PunctuationKerning/&gt;   &lt;w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/&gt;   &lt;w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;false&lt;/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;   &lt;w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;false&lt;/w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;   &lt;w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;false&lt;/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;   &lt;w:Compatibility&gt;    &lt;w:BreakWrappedTables/&gt;    &lt;w:SnapToGridInCell/&gt;    &lt;w:WrapTextWithPunct/&gt;    &lt;w:UseAsianBreakRules/&gt;    &lt;w:DontGrowAutofit/&gt;   &lt;/w:Compatibility&gt;  &lt;/w:WordDocument&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=&quot;false&quot; LatentStyleCount=&quot;156&quot;&gt;  &lt;/w:LatentStyles&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;!--[if gte mso 10]&gt; &lt;style&gt;
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1566. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span> <br />
1567. Details: <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/musicians-union-pickets-marvel-avengers-332195" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.<br />
1568. <br />
1569. <br />
1570. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X"><img border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=143823385X&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=digmedlaw-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=digmedlaw-20&l=as2&o=1&a=143823385X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
1571. <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Check out “Hollywood on Strike!,” available </i></b><b><i>on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=143823385X">Amazon</a> in pb and Kindle. </i></b><i>Subscribe to my blog (</i><a href="http://www.jhandel.com/"><i>jhandel.com</i></a><i>)                                                        for more about            entertainment     labor. You can also follow       me    on </i><a href="http://twitter.com/jhandel"><i>Twitter</i></a><i> or friend me on </i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/jhandel"><i>Facebook</i></a><i>. If you work in tech, take a look at my book</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&tag=digmedlaw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1441475788">How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets</a>.  </span> <script type="text/javascript">
1572. <!--
1573. amazon_ad_tag = "digmedlaw-20"; amazon_ad_width = "468"; amazon_ad_height = "60"; amazon_ad_logo = "hide"; amazon_ad_link_target = "new"; amazon_color_border = "C7C7C7"; amazon_color_link = "5588AA"; amazon_color_logo = "5588AA";//-->
1574. </script> <script src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/ads.js" type="text/javascript">
1575. &lt;/script&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/06/musicians-union-pickets-marvel-over.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-414868268797627951.post-1612797021505944780</guid><pubDate>Sun, 04 Mar 2012 05:41:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2012-03-03T21:41:57.478-08:00</atom:updated><title>SAG/AFTRA Members: Will your dues go up or down? Now you can tell ...</title><description>There&#39;s been a lot of discussion about how dues will change if SAG and AFTRA&amp;nbsp; merge, but no one&#39;s made it easy for you to know exactly what will happen to your own. For a detailed breakdown -- and a graph that encompasses earnings from $0 to $250K, see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sag-aftra-merger-dues-decrease-296663&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;The Hollywood Reporter&lt;/a&gt;. Whether you&#39;re SAG-only or a dual cardholder (or if you&#39;re AFTRA-only or even a broadcaster), the graph will show you exactly what will happen to your dues if merger passes.&lt;br /&gt;
1576. <br />
1577. <br />
1578. <span style="font-size: small;">__________  <b><i> </i></b></span><br />
1579. <br />
1580. &lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Check out my new book “Hollywood on Strike!,” available &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143823385X?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=143823385X&quot;&gt;Amazon&lt;/a&gt; (also in a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004P8JWWK?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B004P8JWWK&quot;&gt;Kindle &lt;/a&gt;edition). &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Subscribe to my blog (&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jhandel.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhandel.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;)                                                        for more about            entertainment     law     and         digital       media        law.                Check      out       my            residuals        chart    there        too.      Go to    the      blog       itself           to            subscribe          via    RSS     or         email.   Or,         follow       me    on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Twitter&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;, friend me on &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/jhandel&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Facebook&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt;, or subscribe to my &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.forbes.com/bizblog/author/jhandel/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Forbes.com&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; or &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Huffington Post&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;i&gt; articles. If you work in tech, take a look at my book&lt;/i&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1441475788?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=digmedlaw-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=1441475788&quot;&gt;How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;</description><link>http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2012/03/sagaftra-members-will-your-dues-go-up.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)</author></item></channel></rss>

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