First off, as a law student, i believe everyone should have an attorney on retainer.
Seriously, it really depends on what you do, and the type of actions that you may be served with. For criminal actions, you should retain an attorney to see if your actions are legal. And if you do get arrested, have the number handy when you get charged formally. For civil actions it depends on what you're doing. To sum it up and give a generic legal answer: "It depends."
Just remember that language changes with the time. If not we'd still be talking in Old English.
With that said, I'm not supporting what the kids are doing; they need to learn proper grammar and spelling. However, people trying to crack down on l337 speak in all forms should keep in mind that we don't use Shakespear's English anymore.
Ok, here's a quick lesson in Con. Law. Most likely Congress is using it's broad power to regulate commerce Article I Section 8 Clause 3. Congress has used its Commerce power from every thing to commerce regulation to teh 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Now, you're probably asking yourself, "what does violent videogames have to do with commerce?" Good question. I won't bore you with the history
In Morrison v. Lopez, the Supreme Court held that a Federal Law that made it illegal to possess guns in schoolyards. The Court said that there is nothing commericial about guns in schools; Congress didn't do enough fact-finding to support the law under it's Commerce power.
That was 1995. If this bill is passed, and depending on the amount of Congressional Factfinding, the law could be struck down. Let's just hope that Congress hasn't learned it's lesson from Lopez.
For more on the Congress's Commerce Clause power or Constituttional Law in general, a good treatise is "Understanding Constititional Law" by Erwin Chemerinsky. It saved my butt in my Con Law final this semester.
My guess is that other nations with strong music lobbies (European Union, Japan, Taiwan) will want to settle this. The interesting countries to watch out for will be the "developing" ones. The People's Republic of China probably won't sign on because they make money off of boot-legging. With China having many computer's, it will only be a matter of time before a Chinese Napster steps up and gives the people what they want. Also, China probably won't extradite to the US, EU, or Japan over something like this. Especially since the US, EU, Japan keeps playing hardball on other topics ("human rights")
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First off, as a law student, i believe everyone should have an attorney on retainer. Seriously, it really depends on what you do, and the type of actions that you may be served with. For criminal actions, you should retain an attorney to see if your actions are legal. And if you do get arrested, have the number handy when you get charged formally. For civil actions it depends on what you're doing. To sum it up and give a generic legal answer: "It depends."
Just remember that language changes with the time. If not we'd still be talking in Old English. With that said, I'm not supporting what the kids are doing; they need to learn proper grammar and spelling. However, people trying to crack down on l337 speak in all forms should keep in mind that we don't use Shakespear's English anymore.
Ok, here's a quick lesson in Con. Law. Most likely Congress is using it's broad power to regulate commerce Article I Section 8 Clause 3. Congress has used its Commerce power from every thing to commerce regulation to teh 1964 Civil Rights Act. Now, you're probably asking yourself, "what does violent videogames have to do with commerce?" Good question. I won't bore you with the history In Morrison v. Lopez, the Supreme Court held that a Federal Law that made it illegal to possess guns in schoolyards. The Court said that there is nothing commericial about guns in schools; Congress didn't do enough fact-finding to support the law under it's Commerce power. That was 1995. If this bill is passed, and depending on the amount of Congressional Factfinding, the law could be struck down. Let's just hope that Congress hasn't learned it's lesson from Lopez. For more on the Congress's Commerce Clause power or Constituttional Law in general, a good treatise is "Understanding Constititional Law" by Erwin Chemerinsky. It saved my butt in my Con Law final this semester.
My guess is that other nations with strong music lobbies (European Union, Japan, Taiwan) will want to settle this. The interesting countries to watch out for will be the "developing" ones. The People's Republic of China probably won't sign on because they make money off of boot-legging. With China having many computer's, it will only be a matter of time before a Chinese Napster steps up and gives the people what they want. Also, China probably won't extradite to the US, EU, or Japan over something like this. Especially since the US, EU, Japan keeps playing hardball on other topics ("human rights")