Deck 23: Government Regulation: Securities and Antitrust

Question 1

ETHICS Virtually any TV show, movie, or song can be downloaded for free on the Internet. Most of this material is copyrighted and was very expensive to produce. Most of it is also available for a fee through such legitimate sites as iTunes. What is your ethical obligation? Should you pay $1.99 to download an episode of The Office from iTunes or take it for free from an illegal site?

Answer 1

Downloading music and copyrighted material for free violates multiple parts of the ethics checklist. It takes many people a lot of time and money to produce movies, TV shows, and songs. They deserve to be compensated for their work, whose goal it is to provide entertainment.
Stealing cannot be justified, regardless of whether it's a car, a loaf of bread, or a TV show. Since there are perfectly legal alternatives that allows people to download copyrighted material online for a fee, part of which would go to the producer of the material, it is not ethical to download copyrighted material illegally at no cost.

Question 2

Think of a name for an interesting new product. Check online to see if this name is available as a trademark. Also check to see if it is available as an Internet domain name.

Answer 2

The product I came up with would be a combination vacuum/mop, which would appropriately be called the "vacuumop".
Luckily, this name has not been registered as a trademark yet, so it is free to use. Additionally, the domain names www.vacuumop.com, www. vacuumop.net, and www.vacuumop.biz are also available for use.

Question 3

In the documentary movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed , there is a 15-second clip of "Imagine," a song by John Lennon. His wife and sons, who held the copyright, sued to block this use of the song. The movie is sympathetic to "intelligent design"-the theory that the universe is too complex to have been created by evolution alone. There must have been a god involved. Who will win this suit?

Answer 3

Although John Lennon's wife and child own the copyright for Lennon's music, there are some shades of grey in this lawsuit that allows the use of Lennon's work. Under the doctrine of fair use, copyrighted material can be used without permission for scholarship, criticism, commentary, reporting, or research unless the use will decrease revenues from the original work by competing with it. A fifteen second clip of John Lennon's song Imagine for the purpose of a documentary could hardly be said to compete with the original work. It is likely that the makers of the documentary will prevail if the case goes to trial.

Question 4

For many years, the jacket design for Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary featured a bright red background. The front was dominated by a "bull's-eye" logo. The center of the bull's-eye was white with the title of the book in blue. Merriam-Webster registered this logo as a trademark. Random House published a dictionary with a red dust jacket, the title in large black and white letters, and Random House's "house" logo-an angular drawing of a house-in white. What claim might Merriam-Webster make against Random House? Would it be successful?

Question 5

After Edward Miller left his job as a salesperson at the New England Insurance Agency, Inc., he took some of his New England customers to his new employer. At New England, the customer lists had been kept in file cabinets. Although the company did not restrict access to these files, it claimed there was a "You do not peruse my files and I do not peruse yours" understanding. The lists were not marked "confidential" or "not to be disclosed." Did Miller steal New England's trade secrets?

Question 6

Rebecca Reyher wrote (and copyrighted) a children's book entitled My Mother Is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. The story was based on a Russian folk tale told to her by her own mother. Years later, the children's TV show Sesame Street televised a skit entitled "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World." The Sesame Street version took place in a different locale and had fewer frills, but the sequence of events in both stories was identical. Has Sesame Street infringed Reyher's copyright?

Question 7

Roger Schlafly applied for a patent for two prime numbers. (A prime number cannot be evenly divided by any number other than itself and 1. Examples of primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13.) Schlafly's numbers are a bit longer-one is 150 digits, the other is 300. His numbers, when used together, can help perform the type of mathematical operation necessary for exchanging codedmessages by computer. Should the PTO issue this patent?

Question 8

Babe Ruth was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. After Ruth's death, his daughters registered the words "Babe Ruth" as a trademark. MacMillan, Inc., published a baseball calendar that contained three Babe Ruth photos. Ruth's daughters did not own the specific photographs, but they objected to the use of Ruth's likeness. As holders of the Babe Ruth trademark, do his daughters have the right to prevent others from publishing pictures of Ruth without their permission?

Question 9

Harper Row signed a contract with former President Gerald Ford to publish his memoirs. As part of the deal, the two agreed that Time magazine could print an excerpt from the memoirs shortly before the book was published. Time was to pay $25,000 for this right. Before Time published its version, Nation magazine published an unauthorized excerpt. Time canceled its article and refused to pay the $25,000. Harper sued Nation for copyright infringement. What was Nation 's defense? Was it successful?

Question 10

Frank B. McMahon wrote one of the first psychology textbooks to feature a light, easily readable style. He also included many colloquialisms and examples that appealed to a youthful student market. Charles G. Morris wrote a psychology textbook that copied McMahon's style. Has Morris infringed McMahon's copyright?

Question 11

ROLE REVERSAL Draft a multiple-choice question that focuses on an issue of copyright law.