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For the last few months California has been charging a fee for civil jury trials. That’s not so unusual as states attempt to close budget gaps but their method of charging makes it harder to take. The fee is nonrefundable even if the case settles before trial. It’s also due much earlier than in most cases. Parties have to pay at or before the initial case management conference. The purpose of the fee seems to be just another way to balance the budget but it may end up costing the state more than it brings in....

If an artificial intelligence writes an article, does it own the copyright? Does an animal have rights to a photo it takes? These are questions a tech writer ponders. Mike Masnick, writing for TechDirt, says lawyers ought to wonder, too. They are not questions for the future; it’s already happening. Evolution of Copyrights? Naruto, the selfie-monkey, answered one copyright question. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said, uh no, animals don’t have copyrights....

Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit made it official: The two child-porn restitution orders for Michael Wright and Doyle Paroline, which made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, are now vacated and remanded [PDF] to the district court. The two defendants were ordered to pay restitution for downloading child pornography featuring the victim, pseudonymously known as “Amy Unknown.” And while the two orders were brief and uneventful, it seems likely that these cases will return at some point....

Recognizing the connection between national security and cybersecurity, China is proposing strong new cybersecurity laws. China is often accused of waging cyberattacks on other governments, including the recent hacking of the Office of Personnel Management’s database which effected the information of 22.1 million Americans. But, the country says it is also a frequent victim of “cyberwarfare,” and its new laws seek to beef up the nation’s defenses. As an added bonus, the new laws will also give the Chinese government increased control over its citizens’ Internet use....

The footwear battle between iconic French fashion labels Christian Louboutin and Yves St. Laurent (YSL) over red shoes is heating up. Since 1992 Louboutin made shoes with a very specific signature: “Chinese red” soles. The designer thought it gave his footwear a specific “energy.” Louboutin sold 240,000 pairs of shoes priced at $1,000 a pop since then. That’s why the company was none-too-pleased when YSL made shoes with the same signature sole....

With all the recent talk of dark money in judicial elections, a Senate subcommittee recently met to discuss the impact of cryptocurrency on political campaigns. Currently, donations of crypto are viewed as in kind donations, much the same as stocks or other assets. Also, just because crypto can be anonymous, the political donation rules require information on the donor to be collected. However, with the rise of Super PACs and the ilk, there are certainly much larger concerns, particularly given what we know about the 2016 presidential election....

It turns out what you don’t know can hurt you, especially if you are on social media. According to New York’s highest court, Facebook could not even challenge search warrants it received for user information in a criminal investigation. The court said only the individuals, not the company, could challenge the warrants – even though the Facebook users never even knew about them. “Indeed, to hold otherwise would be to impermissibly and judicially create a right to appeal in a criminal matter that has not been authorized by our Legislature,” Judge Leslie Stein wrote for the majority....

It seems like South Carolina is out for blood, filing yet another drug lawsuit under the South Carolina Trade Practices Act. The Attorney General’s Office alleges that GlaxoSmithKline misled doctors and patients by exaggerating the effectiveness of its diabetes drug Avandia and hiding the fact that the medication has significantly increased the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death in tens of thousands of people. South Carolina’s lawsuit primarily focuses on GSK’s claims that Avandia was better at reducing blood sugar than any other medication, and that it could actually help reduce the risk of heart attack....

District court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief, convicted of distributing cocaine and for doing so in a public park, is affirmed where: 1) defendant’s arguments that the trial court mistakenly believed that defendant, because he is not Hispanic, could not object to the exclusion of an Hispanic juror is without merit; 2) defendant’s argument that the state courts wrongly ignored the evidence of discriminatory animus toward the African-American jurors in finding no discriminatory animus against the Hispanic juror is without merit; and 3) defendant’s argument that the state courts erred in evaluating the challenges to the Hispanic juror and the African-American jurors separately, as opposed to challenges directed at “minority jurors” as a class is without merit, as defendant has provided no evidence or authority for the proposition that “minorities” constitute a cognizable group for Batson purposes....

More and more Americans are cutting their cables and ditching their TVs, choosing to consume their video entertainment through online streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. But as online streamers begin to encroach on the realm of cable and broadcast TV, are they entitled to the same treatment as companies like Comcast or Viacom? Not according to the Ninth Circuit. In a ruling this Tuesday, Fox Television Stations v. Aereokiller, the court rejected an attempt by FilmOn, an internet-based TV rebroadcaster, to obtain a compulsory cable license under the Copyright Act of 1976....

When the ride-hailing company Lyft agreed to settle a proposed class action with its drivers, commentators noted that the tech company was getting off easy. For $12.5 million and some small concessions that did not include classifying drivers as employees, Lyft could have escaped a major challenge to its business model. Except, just a few months after the deal was struck, a federal judge rejected the settlement, finding the terms unacceptable to both Lyft drivers and the state of California....

The law allows out-of-state, licensed wineries to directly ship, at most, 12 cases annually to New Jersey residents who are 21-years or older. It is reportedly the 39th state to allow direct shipping. However, the new law doesn’t allow direct shipping from wineries that make over 250,000 gallons of wine annually, which is known as a “capacity cap limit.” Similarly in New Jersey, the majority of the Garden State’s wineries fall way under the capacity cap limit, but 90 percent of outside competitors would be excluded under the new law, according to Wine Spectator....

Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old student, made a clock and took it to school. But it looked like a bomb, his teacher said. The principal agreed and summoned police, who arrested the teenager. It turned out to be a clock, but blew up in a media storm and an invitation to the White House for the baffled “clock boy.” His parents sued unsuccessfully, apparently because there is no case for being smarter than your teacher....

Imagine you are in-house counsel for a large company and its executives have come to you for advice on the current corporate employee rage: wellness programs. What do you tell them? How do you best counsel your client? Wellness programs are a relatively new craze as far as corporate perks are concerned, but some of the laws that control are old and settled. Here are a few things you should keep in mind....

It seems like a pen from the future. Now, Livescribe has gotten even more futuristic with its “Connect” upgrade, which let you set up sharing instructions for the pen while you write your doodle, instead of after you hook it up to your PC. How does this work? Well, you write the instructions down to the pen. For example, if you draw a double line and scrawl out “Facebook” or “Google Docs,” the next time you sync your pen to your computer it will automatically update and share according to your desires....

Talk about a costly mistake: Mark Halpern, a Pennsylvania lawyer, has been found liable for $1.75 million in punitive damages for filing an allegedly meritless lawsuit in a dispute over a family trust. Halpern’s client was hit with $300,000 in punitive damages. The dispute that led to the nearly $2 million award against Halpern started about ten years ago, according to the Legal Intelligencer’s Max Mitchell. In 2006, Lynne Boghossian had a dispute with her aunt, Hilda Kilijian, which lead Kilijian to split their joint stocks and set up an irrevocable trust with Lesley Brown as a co-trustee....

Greetings from a flyover state! (It’s OK. I’m from Missouri. I can say that.) One of the greatest tech innovations of the last decade has been cellular data connections. Ten years ago, you’d be tethered to an Ethernet cable at your office, or hoping that Starbucks would have one of those fancy Wi-Fi networks that would allow you to check your email on the go (at an incredibly slow speed)....

We remember it clearly. Back in June, when the first NSA leaks emerged, we learned that the agency was collecting, en masse, the “metadata” from Americans’ cell phones. What “metadata” entailed was not completely clear, but it was generally understood to include incoming and outgoing call records, but not, definitely not, geolocation data, which the agency claimed that it “chos[e] not to,” gather reports The Wall Street Journal. Six months later, we’d heard testimony that the agency did collect such data domestically, though only as a pilot program....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. Facebook has been in the press recently in terms of perceived privacy problems and apparent attempts by Facebook to try do better in terms of privacy protection. While Facebook may be trying to improve, various public interest groups do not believe that Facebook has done enough, as evidenced by a recent open letter by the groups to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg....

If Robert Frost were a career counselor, he would tell you to take the road less traveled by. It could turn out well, too, depending on your perspective. After all, a poet can sometimes be a prophet. But if you are considering a change in practice areas, then Robert Half Legal might give you different advice. Here are some directions if you are deciding which way to go: 1. Understand and Explain Your Reasons for Changing If you are looking to work for a new firm, you may have to learn entirely different laws and procedures....