Author Archive for Bianca Moha

Jake Warner Profile: The Self-Help Legal Trailblazer

Published
by
Bianca Moha
on April 19, 2008
in Lawyers
. 1 Comment

We all know that legal fees are sometimes unaffordable by those with limited income.

We all know some people will not have the capacity to hire lawyers and represent them in every dispute they may find themselves in.

So, placed in a difficult situation, these people turn to free legal aid given by the government. The problem however, is that there are thousands of low-income people needing legal assistance and there are not enough lawyers to go around - the outcome is a long waiting list.

Jake Warner | NOLO Press CEOOne of the problems is that the legal aid system is limited in helping only the poor, which leaves out the middle class income earners who also need the financial help with their legal expenses, which can make these people unable to afford hiring private lawyers to represent them. This is where Ralph “Jake” Warner got his idea when he co-founded Nolo Press in 1971. He believes in reshaping the legal system and makes it easy for everyone to understand. The motto of the company is “Law for All”. Jake Warner believes that law is an integral part of democracy and he is passionate about it. His goal, achieved through Nolo Press, is to reshape the law by putting it in layman terms and make it easily accessible by everyone.

Jake Warner must have been greatly influenced by the prevailing “free living” concept of his era in 1966. The sentiment at that time was anti-corporate and all about communal living and free love. Many of his fellow graduates eschewed the traditional path out of law school of getting into the big law firms and getting big money. His classmates liked the idea of working pro-bono, helping others get legal representation at low costs or even free.

Jake had the dream of making law accessible to all and this goal has driven him to find a way to make it accessible to middle class income earners who were previously not qualified to get help from legal aid. In 1971, Warner and his business partner Ed Sherman, published their first book titled “How to Do Your Own Divorce“. The book was written by Sherman and for quite a long time they lugged cases and cases of this book door-to-door to various bookstores until they found a distributor that was willing to represent them.

Today Jake Warner serves as chief executive for Nolo Press, and they put out dozens of self-help law books a year covering varying topics such as landlord-tenant rights and estate planning. He remains aggressive and passionate about making law accessible to all by publishing books like “Nolo’s Quick LLC: All You Need to Know About Limited Liability Companies” and many more. His company also produces software, like “Quicken Willmaker“, which is a bestseller and they are also launching a bid to sell legal forms and products online.

Thanks to people like Jake Warner, people of limited means now have a choice when it comes to representing themselves in court. While no one will deny that the services of a lawyer are without comparison, NOLO has given people an option and has given many people a taste of the law - perhaps spawning more than a few future law students looking to further their legal education.

Jake Warner received his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from Princeton.

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Eminem Takes On Belgium: Cleanin’ Out My Daydream

Published
by
Bianca Moha
on April 14, 2008
in Copyright Law
. 3 Comments

The 5 year controversy about Eminem’s track “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” and Raymond Vincent’s “Daydream” seems to be nearing the end.

What’s the controversy about?

This particular case has raised questions about the copyright law and its interpretation in Belgium. In the United States, the Plaintiff must prove that the defendant had access to the work and that the works are substantially similar. It is understood that, in the case of music, there will be songs that are alike, as long as the songs aren’t copied and directly lifted from another song.

Eminem | Cleaning Out My ClosetWhat’s unique in this case, due to the fact it centers in Belgium, is that the lawyers have stated that the defendant does not have to prove that they (meaning Eminem in this case) had access to the other song (Daydream), especially when the songs are somewhat alike. The situation is that Raymond Vincent’s “Daydream” was written before Eminem (Marshall Mathers) was born - and on top of that, was written in another country.

In 2002, Raymond Vincent contacted the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers (SABAM) and stated that he believes Eminem’s song had broken the copyright rule and had a portion of Vincent’s song in his song.

In 2003, Vincent again petitions to the SABAM. This time his goal was to block royalties for Eminem’s song. SABAM reviewed the claim. As a result of this, BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated, a collecting society for composers’ copyrights) sends a letter to SABAM noting their opinion of the infringement after they review and comparison of the two songs.

In this letter from BMI, they declare that the song “Daydream” has three different themes. The first theme was composed by Raymond Vincent while the other two themes were inspired by the second movement of a Tchaikovsky string quartet “Swan Lake”. The committee, after deliberation, found that a part of “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” was very similar to a section of “DayDream”. At MIDEM (Marché international de l’édition musicale, the world’s largest music industry trade fair), SABAM’s executive director claimed that his organization offers a service which provides an expert opinion about the music.

In 2005, Raymond Vincent and BMG appeared before the Brussels Regional Court. The court reviewed SABAM’s opinion. In December 2007, the appeals court wrote, “It is very clear that nothing has been borrowed, particularly when the two pieces are superimposed, which makes the difference between the two very noticeable, producing a cacophony,”

The court has also stated that SABAM’s opinion had “no binding value”, that the opinion was “poorly substantiated”, and that the opinion was “not based on any concrete demonstration by the six experts allegedly consulted by SABAM.”

Another interesting point that the court wrote was that Raymond Vincent’s song Daydream’s first theme was also inspired by Tachaikovsky, not just the second and third themes.

Reaction from Eight Mile Style Music

“I was in the studio with Jeff and Marshall,” says Joel Martin of Eight Mile Style Music. “It was absurd that they used any portion of an obscure Belgian song (written) before Marshall Mathers was born. And if rappers were to use old records, they would use the records. They don’t steal a melody.”

Also, Martin says that some societies like JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) had stopped sending accountings and payments as a result of SABAM’s letter. Mentioned was that SABAM believes it was in their rights to send out the letters. In their view, The Belgian Ministry of Economics requires that SABAM protect the right’s of their members around the whole world. They feel that must be strong with their actions, even if it means that they have to go to a face-to-face meeting with another association. They believe they are in the right to withhold the royalties on a song until the dispute about the rights of one of their members is finished and resolved.

What do you feel about this situation? Who was in the right: Eminem and Eight Mile Style Music or Raymond Vincent and SABAM?

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