At Last, a Moral Use for CD Rippers
January 20th, 2009Get These Precious Materials Back to the Courthouse…for the Children!
I have been listening to CLE (continuing legal education) CDs my dad checked out from the courthouse library. Here is what I have learned. Apparently, there is a law called the Unified Premarital Agreement Act. I think they also said something about child support, but I’m not sure. Wow, how much I have learned from this fine material which the bar has forced me to obtain. I really do play the CDs, and I exaggerate when I talk about how little I’ve learned, but most of this stuff is pretty dull, and there is no possibility that I will ever use it in practice, and it’s not very easy to focus on. Why on earth am I listening to material on family law? Why would I practice family law, when there are so many fine bridges I could jump off instead?
This stuff has to go back tomorrow. I was worried about it. I realized this meant I had to listen to two CDs per day for the remainder of the time period. Yech. Then this morning I remembered…I can rip CDs.
So I am now turning these materials into MP3s which I can enjoy listening to over and over. Oh, rapture. I can return them to the courthouse at my convenience, and when I’m done, I can delete the files.
I heartily advise all attorneys who read this blog to check their local law libraries for materials that can be checked out. I’m saving like $600 by not buying the garbage the approved CLE providers sell. Why pay to participate in a farce?
I have to wonder. Why don’t CLE providers sell books instead of useless CDs? If I had a book, I could read it and absorb at least some of it, and I would have the book to refer to later, if–crazy as it sounds–I found it useful. Also, I read much faster than most people, so I could get my CLE done faster.
I am sure the do-bees and hypocrites would send me emails full of pretend outrage, if they knew I was criticizing our near-holy obligation to do CLE. It’s amazing how righteous lawyers get, when they have an opportunity to grandstand. If you’ve never seen it, you really need to. We make Torquemada look like Larry Flynt. “The sacred halls of justice.” “I am enraged and disgusted as an officer of the court.” “Duty.” “Honor.” “Apple pie.” “Hopey-changiness.” “For the children.”
Funny talk, from people who only practice law because it pays well. Tell these guys they have to work for thirty grand a year from now on, and then see how many of them are excited about law and the sanctity of our professional obligations.
The truth is, I think CLE is wonderful. I mean REAL CLE, though, not this junk. I mean the research lawyers do when they prepare cases, and I also refer to things like printed treatises, which are invaluable. But listening to some self-promoting doofus tell bad lawyer jokes while getting credit for his own CLE? No thanks.
January 20th, 2009 at 5:40 PM
I do practice for not much more than that! Yes, I’m an idiot for doing so.
A good CLE program is good – some have books and/or uselful live gatherings. Most are dreck (like most of everything else in the world). I can’t imagine listening to a CD – and in an area you don’t and won’t practice – being even remotely useful.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:38 PM
what makes you think that this is legal? (Not a rhetorical question, I’m really interested, and you’re really a lawyer).
If I check out a music Cd from the library, am I legally entitled to rip it to my iPod and keep it forever after the return date?
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:13 AM
What makes you think it’s illegal? Make your case.
.
The Florida Bar knows the courthouse libraries buy these materials. Therefore, they consent to people renting them. Other library materials are copied routinely, with no copyright issues. This is why they have copiers at every legal library in the US. As a matter of course, lawyers go to libraries and make copies of printed materials, they keep them forever, and they use them in commercial activity, i.e., the practice of law. Therefore the most logical presumption is that the Bar consents to having these materials copied, at least in part, and I think it’s safe to presume that they have no objection to copying them in their entirety, as long as it’s for the same type of temporary use you get when you listen to the CDs directly.
I’m just copying these CDs so I can listen to them at my convenience; I have no plans to keep my hard drive cluttered with this…wonderful information. And I’m not doing it for a commercial purpose. I don’t practice. I’m just keeping my license active. The use I’m making is nothing like as substantial as the use lawyers make of the books they copy.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:36 PM
IANAL, and I haven’t photocopied anything in a library in years, but when I used to, there were always legal notices on the copiers. I just did a quick google search and it still looks like most libraries post “fair use” and “reasonable portion” notices. As for copying iterms in their entirety, the only exception I found was if the item is not otherwise commercially available.
I don’t think it makes much of a difference if you make yourself a promise that you communicate to nobody to eventually destroy the copy. It’s about taking the whole thing instead of just taking a reasonable excerpt.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:02 PM
The truth about unresearched blog comments concerning IP law is that they’re worth exactly what you pay to read them.
.
And if they’re from laymen…well, they’re about as valuable as my advice on woodworking.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:22 PM
You didn’t reply to any point I made. Seems like if I’m so full of crap you could have just done point by point layups.
(Bet you’re too chicken to post this. You have my permission to post without this parenthetical, and my pledge never to make this parenthetical public.)
January 26th, 2009 at 8:38 AM
You didn’t make a point. You posted wild guesses which you admit are based on your unresearched lay opinion. Yet you expect me to spend time constructing a quality defense. Cheap tactic, typical of blog commenters. Why would you ask me to do what you are clearly too lazy to do? What makes you think my time is worth so little, or that I am in any way obligated to do legal work for you?
.
There are many people–perhaps you are one of them–who spend their days going from blog to blog, posting brief, flippant, unsupported opinions which require lengthy, well-thought-out responses. Then they have the nerve to complain when you refuse to be manipulated by their childish, asymmetrical tactics. Start your own blog, wait until a few of these people show up, and see if you feel like wasting your time arguing with them.
.
I wasn’t “too chicken” to post your comment, but I let me point out that your remark was infantile and unworthy of respect.
.
I assume now you will tell me I’m a bad Christian for criticizing. I’ve heard that one before.
.
When I don’t post your response, feel free to tell people I’m chicken.