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FCC Caught by (not in) the Web

This post was written by Judith L. Harris.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down a unanimous decision in the case of Comcast v. the FCC, holding, in effect, that the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) could not use its ancillary jurisdiction under Title I of the Communications Act to exercise broad oversight over the activities of Internet service providers (“ISPs”). The case involved a 2008 decision under prior FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, seeking to enforce 2005 “net neutrality” principles by banning Comcast’s blocking or slowing of traffic from broadband subscribers using BitTorrent, an online peer-to-peer file-sharing technology. You can download and/or read the entire case here Comcast v. FCC.

 At first blush, the ruling appears to be a total victory for Comcast but,as no one knows better than Comcast itself, nothing in the Nation’s capital is ever that cut and dried. Thus, Comcast was wise to respond in a conciliatory fashion: “We are gratified by the court’s decision today to vacate the previous FCC order. Comcast remains committed to the FCC’s existing open internet principles, and we will continue to work constructively with this FCC as it determines how best to increase broadband adoption and preserve an open and vibrant internet.” .

After all, Comcast is awaiting the FCC’s judgment on Comcast’s $30 billion merger with NBC Universal. The Commission (along with the Department of Justice) has the power to sideline the deal altogether or to impose conditions that, depending on their severity, could place significant constraints on the business plan of the wanna-be merger partners. Stated another way: Comcast knows that its time for customer golf. Moreover, and possibly even more significant, the only options now available to a highly motivated FCC appear to be far more draconian to the ISP community than the relatively innocuous exercise of power that Comcast successfully challenged in court. The old adage “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind.

Not that any of this leaves the FCC smiling. From their perspective, the court’s ruling could cast a long shadow over the FCC’s ability to proceed with its pending rulemaking designed to codify even bolder net neutrality policies across all broadband platforms, including wireless. Moreover, the issue of the reach of the FCC’s jurisdiction over Internet services could constrain the FCC’s ability to deliver on President Obama’s promise of universal broadband access at high speeds and reasonable prices, and the FCC’s marquee project: implementation of the National Broadband Plan. That plan was released to Congress by the Agency just a few weeks ago (March 16), amid much fanfare and after a year’s worth of intensive effort involving no less than 36 public workshops, nine field hearings, and 31 public notices that produced 75,000 pages of public comment!

But, soldiers march forward. Only two days after the court’s decision, the FCC announced its “Broadband Action Agenda,” explaining the purpose and timing of more than 60 rulemakings and other proceedings recommended for action by the FCC in the plan, and quoting FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski defiantly proclaiming: “We are putting the National Broadband Plan into action,” immediately adding, “The court decision earlier this week does not change our broadband policy goals, or the ultimate authority of the FCC to act to achieve those goals.” Well, maybe not.

The ISPs will undoubtedly act with all deliberate speed to nail down the Comcast victory by vigorously lobbying Capitol Hill to oppose any effort by the FCC (and potentially other providers such as Google and Amazon.com, and tech companies such as Apple), to entreat Congress to mandate network neutrality or to enact legislation giving the FCC clear authority to regulate broadband. From the ISP perspective, even worse could be an effort by the FCC to unilaterally reclassify broadband transmission as a Title II telecommunications service, empowering the FCC (at least until the next court challenge) to regulate with impunity. This latter action, often referred to around town as the “nuclear option,” would only require an affirmative vote by three of the five Commissioners, a low hurdle given the unrestrained, unambivalent public reactions of all three of the Democratic Commissioners (including the Chairman) in the immediate aftermath of the court’s pronouncement.

This week (on April 14), Chairman Genachowski is scheduled to be the only witness at a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. That hearing was originally planned to focus exclusively on the National Broadband Plan. But now, in addition to examining the FCC’s substantive proposals, the hearing will likely focus on its power, in light of the Comcast decision, to move forward with its implementation plans. With lobbyists swarming the halls of power, expect fireworks. Hopefully, all-out war won’t be the only avenue considered. The public and private stakeholders would do well to take a deep breath and earnestly consider an immediate, good-faith attempt at serious industry self-regulation, with agreed-upon standards of conduct and meaningful enforcement mechanisms.

Time’s a-wasting. As the FCC moves to implement the administration’s broadband agenda, over at the Federal Trade Commission, net neutrality and open Internet advocates are undoubtedly pondering how best they can use their own powers to protect consumers from potentially abusive trade practices by vertically integrated ISPs with enormous market power in a world where the FCC might, in the end, have limited enforcement tools. Who knows, the FTC and the Antitrust Division might decide that its time to burnish tried and true antitrust laws as a way of curtailing any anti-competitive conduct. Comcast, to be sure, is ahead at half time but, as  they well know, there is still much more of the game to be played.

Whether you want to stay in touch and in tune with developments, you wonder how “net neutrality” and these skirmishes might affect your business; or if you need legal advice and representation, you need look no farther than our very own Judith L. Harris – she’s the authority, and she graciously contributed this timely and insightful post. Of course, you can always call me, Joseph I. Rosenbaum, or any Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.

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Isn’t Technology Supposed to Help Us? Help Us Work Smarter?

If you have been reading Legal Bytes regularly, you know that Lois Thomson here at Rimon has been one of the primary people supporting my efforts to transform "legal-ese" into understandable English – no trivial task for those of you who are interacting or have ever interacted with lawyers. So it is with great joy that I was not only able to have her write a post for Legal Bytes, but that I also finally got to edit her article. Hopefully she will smile and agree it’s been helpful. So, Lois, thank you, and here is your relevant and very timely note for all the world to see:

"I looked at an email I received from my friend, Robert, and wondered why the subject line was a reply regarding an issue of Legal Bytes that I had proofread for Joe Rosenbaum. ‘Are you aware that you have been sending these to me?’ Robert’s message read. ‘It seems like that might have been a mistake.’

"Ouch! A mistake indeed! You see, when Joe sends his documents to me to review, I proof them and make my suggested changes. I then simply hit the forward button to return them to him. Now as many of you email-program (e.g., Outlook) users already know, to make life easier (that’s ostensibly what technology is supposed to do), once I start to type in "ro," Rosenbaum, Joseph I.’s name should automatically populate the ‘To’ field. Oops. Not this time. Instead, my friend Robert’s name came up, and without looking – as I’m guessing so many of us routinely do – I hit enter and sent it off, pleased I had been so timely and responsive. Unfortunately, I was responding to my friend Robert, who may happily read Legal Bytes, but not, I suspect, the artist’s proof!

"Fortunately, Joe and Robert were gracious about the whole thing and in this case, both felt no harm was done. But what if the message had been from your lawyer or doctor or a rabbi or priest, or was some other communication that was not ultimately meant for public consumption. It was a simple but powerful reminder to me (and one that Joe felt was important enough to ask me to pass it on to you), that while automated tools can make routine tasks like ‘field completion’ simpler, they can also lead to problems if we rely on them without thinking. Hmmmm, now why can’t I remember phone numbers anymore – is it because they are all programmed into every device I own, so that I no longer have to think?"

A helpful reminder that while automated tools are great, they are just that – tools. If we aren’t careful, the tools can work against us and not for us, and can create embarrassment at best, liability at worst. Thank you Lois (and Robert).

Need to know more? Contact me, Joseph I. Rosenbaum, or any Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work. Need proofreading skills? If you don’t work for Rimon, don’t call Lois. She’s busy helping us every day. Thanks again, Lois.

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Are There Clouds in Your Future?

Check out MediaPost’s SearchBlog yesterday (A Dream Cloud Computes The Future), which recounts the conversation Joe Rosenbaum had with reporter and blogger Laurie Sullivan about the future of cloud computing. Need to know more about the legal implications and issues? Call Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.

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Outsourcing Providers Pitching Business? Be Careful What You Wish For.

As far back as May 2005, Legal Bytes reported that Europe was becoming a major outsourcing hub for a variety of reasons (Outsourcing Statistics). Well just this week, the law started catching up.

In what is certainly a major ruling and quite possibly the beginning of emboldened plaintiff-customers seeking greater accountability from outsourcing providers, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) has lost a case initiated by British Sky Broadcasting Plc (BSkyB) back in 2004, alleging that EDS, one of the leading outsourcing providers in the world, had misled BSkyB about its capabilities and expertise. For those of you who are legal research hounds, the case is cited as HT-06-311, British Sky Broadcasting v. Electronic Data Systems, although I don’t believe it has been fully published yet. The dispute arose over a services contract that was entered into by EDS and BSkyB in 2000, well before EDS was purchased in 2008 by its current owner, Hewlett-Packard (HP), for slightly more than US$13 billion.

To give you the background, BSkyB selected EDS to develop a new customer relationship management (CRM) system for its call centers in Scotland. After almost two years and failure by EDS to deliver, by March 2002, BSkyB ended the contract and took over the project itself – the frustration and events ultimately leading to the legal proceedings filed in 2004 that alleged EDS lied about its ability to undertake and complete the project. On the other side of the case, in its own court documents, EDS alleged that BSkyB simply “did not know what it wanted,” and wanted the lowest cost possible to accomplish “it.” To highlight the disconnect further, the contract with EDS was for £48 million, but according to court documents filed in the case, with all of the delays, budget over-runs, EDS’ failure to deliver, and BSkyB taking over and completing the project itself, costs had mounted to £265 million.

Justice Ramsey, writing for the British High Court, ruled that EDS misled BSkyB in making false and fraudulent misrepresentations in pitching and marketing its capabilities to BSkyB, giving rise to a claim for damages. Further, the court concluded, to the extent these representations were fraudulent, the limitation of liability clause in the contract that would have otherwise limited EDS’ liability for damages should be set aside and does not apply. While damages have not yet been fixed, in theory, if one includes the differential in costs, lost profits and other damages that are now fair game, EDS could be liable to BSkyB for well in excess of £200 million – that’s more than US$315 million at current exchange rates.

This is a major decision not only in the UK, but also for outsourcing deals around the globe, and if the beginning of a precedential trend, it could signal a radical shift in the way outsourcing deals are bid, negotiated and consummated. There is no question that anyone involved in outsourcing knows that the customer does not always have its specifications and detailed requirements buttoned up when discussions begin. Indeed, outsourcing often presents a singularity at which time enhancements, efficiencies and improvements that might have been difficult or impossible internally, can be effected by moving the operations to a third-party provider. The provider, eager to win a lucrative bid, may over-promise or over-represent its experience and capabilities. Smart negotiators know that forcing both sides to diligently and meticulously work through the “devil in the detail,” and making sure expectations, resources and capabilities are clearly set out and unambiguous, is the single most important contribution to be made in avoiding disputes, potential litigation and problems as the work and services unfold. Those of you in marketing know all too well that there is often a fine line between an actual claim and puffery. The former represents actionable representations, the latter . . . well, “you’ve tried the rest, now try the best” on every pizza box in the world.

Are you contemplating a major outsourcing initiative? Are you considering any outsourcing project, even a small one, involving critical operations – customer services, supply chain management, operations, transaction processing? Outsourcing is complicated. Need help? We wrote the book. No really, you can see for yourself: Outsourcing Agreements Line by Line: A Detailed Look at Outsourcing Agreements & How to Change Them to Fit Your Needs, written by none other than yours truly, Joseph I. Rosenbaum. Whether you check out the book or not, if you do need help, our Advertising Technology & Media law team here at Rimon has the help you need to make sure that, even if you are right, you can avoid the costly consequences and angst inherent in any legal proceedings between customers and providers. How can we help you? Call me, Joe Rosenbaum, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.

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When the Fog Lifts, Don’t Be Surprised if You Still See Clouds

“If computers of the kind I have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility . . . The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry.”

                                      — John McCarthy, MIT Centennial, 1961

“Cloud computing” is a term used to describe the use of computer resources not solely as a communications protocol (e.g., the Internet), nor solely as a content or transaction host (World Wide Web), but as an application development and information processing service. To help explain further, to send an email, much like using the telephone, it makes no difference who your provider or host is or which carrier you use. There is a protocol that allows interoperability across networks and processors, and as long as the sender and recipient have an email address and access to an Internet connection, the email gets through. On the web, with access to the Internet and a browser (technology that displays content and functionality hosted at a particular Internet address), you can interact with the website – you can see the material displayed and you can "select" (click) to enable certain features.

Today, as a general rule, if you wanted to create, edit, spell check, save, send or share most content or information with someone, unless you plan on typing and formatting a very long email, you still need word processing, spreadsheet or presentation software programs to create and upload (communicate or store for display), or to see and use content that you might download. In a cloud-computing environment, all of these functions are resident in the "cloud." Imagine that you no longer needed a desktop or laptop computer processor, and all you had were input and display devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, monitor), which you could either carry or borrow wherever you went. Plug into a universal "outlet," enter your unique pass codes and authentication information, and you have everything you need – where and when you need it. Like telephone, electric or gas service, computing becomes a commodity accessible virtually anywhere and anytime, generally priced by usage, the applications, and the amount and type of storage for which you want and need access.

Cloud-computer services can be sold and paid for using plans not dissimilar to phone service – per call, per minute, unlimited, features, functions – and they disaggregate the user, whether individual or business enterprise, from the procurement, maintenance and operations of the underlying processors and software programs. Clouds can be public – made available to anyone on demand (think Wi-Fi registration based hot spots) or private (large companies can operate or arrange to have someone operate a closed-cloud environment). I summarize the basic characteristics of cloud computing as follows:

  • Flexibility – the user can easily modify use, resources, demand, access and virtually every other resource, without the need to purchase or dispose of any equipment or software, other than input and output devices. Increases or decreases in processing, development, storage or other requirements can be managed easily in real time and on an infinitely scalable basis.
  • Cost – commodity or utility pricing lowers user costs. Capital expenditures can be eliminated, license fees reduced and access fees managed more efficiently.
  • Resources – shared resources enable lower per-user, per-unit pricing, and optimization of peak and non-peak loads across user communities. Resource upgrades and enhancements can be amortized across a broad user base, seamlessly and transparently to the user community. Inter-exchange agreements between cloud providers will enable continuity and recovery, load management, and resource backup capability at optimal prices.
  • Independence – time, space and resource constraints become largely irrelevant to the extent Internet or web access is available.
  • Interoperability – absent unique or customized requirements that can be managed separately by the user, standardized applications, development tools and protocols are simpler to maintain and operate, debug, update and support. 

While security and privacy is always a concern – more so where data, in addition to processing capability and storage, becomes more concentrated and accessible rather than distributed – more users and businesses will have the potential benefit of stronger security measures than are currently affordable or in use, to the extent cloud providers can develop and implement strong security standards and protocols within their service offerings. 

So who are the actual or prospective players? Well lots of prognosticators and labelers are out there, but here is my list in basic categories:

  • Providers are those who procure, create, host and manage cloud resources and then sell access, services, features and functions in a cloud environment – wholesale or retail
  • Users are those who need to use and take advantage of cloud services, features and functions, whether individually or as part of a business
  • Intermediators are those who create intermediation and aggregation opportunities between and among providers. On the one hand, intermediators can bridge gaps between providers and create interface and sharing environments between or among providers. On the other hand, intermediators may begin finding niches in customizing or aggregating services, features or functions for particular industries or in particular regions.
  • Developers and supporters are those who develop utilities, applications, tools, features and functions to enhance the cloud experience, make additional services and applications available, and who maintain and support the efficient functioning of the cloud environment.

There may be others – my list is not intended to be comprehensive or even definitive. I don’t have a crystal ball, so time and experience will determine what we cannot now predict. Four computers, interconnected to respond to the perceived vulnerability of centralized computing, were the origins of the Internet. Distributed computing represented commercial attempts to amortize costs, decentralize institutionalized information, and enable greater redundancy and recovery capability. Networking and web-based computing gave us the ability to communicate, share and store information across multiple processors and devices through share protocols. While it’s still too foggy to tell what the future will bring, cloud computing represents the next big innovative thing in making the power of the computer and the Internet easier to use, more available, more interoperable and more cost-effective.

When the fog starts to lift, we may see clouds on the horizon. Whether they are storm clouds or fluffy wondrous sights of joy, I leave to your imagination. Stay tuned. But no matter what your visions of the future may be, if you see a cloud and you aren’t sure what the legal implications might be, please feel free to contact me, Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.

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HITECH Means High Stakes in First-Ever State HIPAA Lawsuit

Yesterday, the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut filed suit against the Connecticut subsidiary of Health Net, charging it with violations of the privacy and security requirements of HIPAA. The action, filed yesterday in the United States District Court in Connecticut, comes on the heels of a security breach involving medical records and Social Security numbers. The suit also names United Health Group Inc. and Oxford Health Plans LLC, who acquired Health Net of Connecticut but who were not involved in the data breach.

If you forgot, last year the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), for the first time authorized individual state attorneys’ general to enforce the security and data privacy regulations under HIPAA, and this appears to be the first such action.

The lawsuit claims that Health Net in Connecticut failed to provide adequate security for the medical and financial records of hundreds of thousands of enrolled individuals, and failed to notify them promptly in connection with the breach. The breach, which took place last May, involved the disappearance of a computer hard drive. Health Net eventually reported the breach, posting a notice on its website and starting a staggered process of mailing letters to consumers November 30, 2009, almost six months after the security breach. For those of you involved in the collection, handling, maintenance, or use of personal, financial and medical information covered by HIPAA, new federal rules under the HITECH Act require “timely” notification of certain breaches, rules that have a compliance deadline of February 22, 2010.

Health Net attributed the delay in reporting to its inability to determine exactly what was on the computer hard drive that disappeared, thus not being sure if a notice was even required. One can only surmise that the mere fact that Health Net didn’t know what information was contained on a removable computer hard drive made its reasoning less than satisfactory to the Connecticut State Attorney General. Although Health Net appears to have conceded that the data was not encrypted, it did indicate that the data should not be visible without the use of specific software. However, Kroll Inc., a computer forensic firm retained by Health Net to investigate the breach, reported the data could be viewable with commonly available software.

Privacy, security and data protection of non-public, personally identifiable and sensitive information (e.g., health, financial data) are increasingly subject to stricter rules and regulations. The use of the Internet and web, making digital information more susceptible to undetected duplication, transmission and access – not to mention the obvious fact that carrying millions of pages of records would be impossible, while walking out with a single hard disk or CD-ROM on which the same data and information has been scanned or stored in digital form – can be virtually undetectable.

Do you know of any law firm that has a team of privacy and data security, identity theft and data breach legal professionals? A firm that has health care, financial services and insurance specialists, as well as lawyers steeped in digital technology, information security and e-commerce? A firm that has transactional, regulatory compliance and policy-oriented lawyers who can audit current practices and policies, assist in developing mechanisms needed to satisfy regulatory requirements, and provide legal support to help avoid a legal problem, and also regulatory, compliance and litigation professionals who can represent and defend clients if a problem arises? Now you do – Rimon. If you need more information, contact me, Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum, or Mark Melodia or Paul Bond, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work, if you need legal advice, information or support on this subject.

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UK Sports Minister Proposes Changes to Gambling Legislation

This post was also written by Laura Hicks.

Last week, Gerry Sutcliffe, Minister for Sport in the United Kingdom, announced proposals to make significant changes to the existing legislative framework under which remote gambling is regulated. Following a review of the system of online gambling regulation in Great Britain by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, a consultation is being launched with a view to introducing laws requiring all online operators to apply for a license from the Gambling Commission in order to either advertise or provide gambling services to British consumers. According to the Minister for Sport, the proposed changes were “necessary to ensure the protections in the Gambling Act – to keep gambling crime free, to ensure gambling is fair and open, and to ensure that children and vulnerable people are protected from harm – continue to be afforded to British consumers.”

Under the proposals, a license will be required even if the gambling services are offered to British consumers using remote gambling equipment from outside Great Britain. Currently, only operators based and licensed in the UK are allowed to advertise in the UK, unless the country in which they are based is either a member state of the EEA or on the government’s “whitelist.” More information on the “whitelist” is available on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website, but to give you some insight, territories currently on the list are Antigua and Barbuda, Tasmania, the States of Alderney and the Isle of Man. “Whitelisting” is the process used by the UK Ministry to assess the regulatory framework for gambling in any jurisdictions outside the EEA that apply for permission to advertise their services within the UK.

As well as being obliged to share information about suspicious betting patterns with the UK’s sports governing bodies and the Gambling Commission, foreign operators would also have to comply with British license requirements concerning the protection of children and vulnerable people, and contribute to the research, education and treatment of problem gambling in the UK.

This appears to be a move by the UK government to close a loophole in the laws that protect online gamblers in the UK, and that more closely mirror the more protectionist regime in the United States. If this extension of the licensing regime is introduced into legislation, it will be interesting to see how the regulator intends to enforce the license scheme against gambling companies with no UK presence. In the United States, enforcement has involved a variety of “indirect” mechanisms, from the Department of Justice’s use of the Interstate Wire Act of 1951, which applies to sports betting to assert jurisdiction over online gaming – even though the Fifth Circuit ruled in 2002 that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting – to seizing advertising payments made to broadcast networks by advertisers seeking to promote online gambling considered illegal by the United States. Since 2006, with the enactment of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), the United States has sought to seize assets in financial institutions tied to online gambling, based on what it considers illegal activity, money laundering and a variety of other offenses. It is noteworthy that UIGEA does not make online gambling illegal per se, but rather prohibits any transfer of funds from a financial institution (as defined in the legislation) to an illegal Internet gambling site.

Once you read the UK Sports Ministry’s announcement, if you need more information, contact Laura Hicks, an associate in the Media and Technology team, in our London office. Of course, you can always contact me, Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum in New York, or Gregor Pryor in London, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work, if you need legal advice, information or support on this subject.

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That’s Cloud Computing, Not Smog, Spreading From L.A.

Although reports of dissipating smog may be premature, if postings from Google are to be believed, Los Angeles is officially in the cloud. Google’s online email and collaboration cloud, that is! City employees will now use cloud computing for email and working on collaborative projects together. Google hails cloud computing for the city of Los Angeles as something that “will improve the security and reliability of city email, transitioning from servers in the City Hall basement to hosted, secure data centers.”

Los Angeles isn’t the only place to fall in love with clouds. VISI, the largest provider of data-center and managed-hosting services last month (December 2009), announced a public beta of ReliaCloud – a cloud computing service available to users anywhere. Set up an account online, set up computer servers in one of the VISI data centers, and employee-users can access the service from anywhere – anywhere there’s an Internet browser and connection. Cost? Reportedly, the pricing starts at 5 cents an hour! Welcome to fungible, commodity computing. According to VISI, its cloud service was designed to be reliable, affordable and scalable. The beta is targeted at small- to medium-sized commercial users, and businesses can apply at www.reliacloud.com. And VISI anticipates storage and other services to become available over time as part of a suite of offerings. Just one example among many of companies offering and embracing cloud computing.

The United States isn’t the only country where cloud computing environments are springing up. Back in September, the city of Dongying in China announced a strategic initiative with IBM, where the city is hoping to transform its industrial, petroleum-based environment into a service-driven economy. The cloud will be designed to allow start-up companies to do testing and software development through the web, but will also include electronic government services (e.g., e-services). IBM has also set up cloud computing in the Chinese city of Wuxi, and was recently picked to build another cloud computing platform – Quang Trung Software City – in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam). For you trivia buffs, Quang Trung was an Emperor of Vietnam centuries ago. IBM is another emerging player, along with Microsoft’s Azure, Amazon.com’s EC2, and Google’s AppEngine, to name only a few of the more prominent participants in the growing move to cloud computing environments.

So, if your head is in the clouds or if all of this seems foggy to you, you should consider learning more – especially about the legal implications and issues. And you probably should start doing so BEFORE your IT, Finance, HR, Security, Audit, or Operations people (or maybe even the government regulators), come knocking on the door! Want or need help? Contact me, Joseph I. (“Joe”) Rosenbaum, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work. We’ll help get you out of the mist and back on Cloud Nine!

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Happy New Year Wishes for 2010

Wishing you health, happiness, prosperity and peace in 2010

In a tradition that started almost 4,000 years ago by the ancient Babylonians – although they celebrated the new year upon seeing the first new moon after the vernal equinox – please enjoy a very happy, safe and joyous new year celebration.  Those of you who look forward to Useless But Compelling Facts can read more about the history of new year celebrations, or how the new year’s festivities, now televised around the world, began in New York’s Times Square.

New Year's Greetings
 
This is the first year we have published in a blog format, and with your feedback – mostly positive and always constructive – and more than 17,000 visitors in slightly less than 11 months, I am grateful and appreciative for your support.  Thank you for reading Legal Bytes.

–  Joe Rosenbaum

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Looking Ahead to 2010: To Boldly Go . . . .

Each year, at the end of the year, I create a Legal Bytes piece intended to be more thoughtful and philosophical than the articles posted during the year. Thank you, in advance, for reading and allowing me to attempt to provide some insight and thoughtfulness to your day, in what I hope is an enlightening and entertaining manner. While my normal postings are designed to bring you news, updates and thoughts about timely events, this is one is longer – and arguably less exciting – and asks you to indulge me in a bit of philosophy, or what passes for an attempt at philosophy about the year past and the year ahead.

This article will contain no hypertext links to distract you; it will not have citations to offer more information about a snippet; nor will it dazzle you with factoids or intrigue you with today’s news. It’s just me philosophizing, my one chance during the year to ramble about where we’ve been and where I think we might be headed – without any credentials, qualifications or expertise to do so. 

So loyal Legal Bytes’ readers, you don’t have to buckle up or fasten any seat belts. Just pull up an easy chair, open your Blackberry, your Kindle, your Droid, your iPhone, PC, Laptop, Netbook, Web-TV, PDA, or whatever your favorite Legal Bytes’ reading device might be; pour a glass of tea (or whatever your liquid of choice might be), sit back and enjoy . . . and again, thank you. So here goes.

*****

I’m a Star Trek fan. I’ve watched all of the television episodes, starting from the day Captain Pike, bound to a wheelchair resulting from his own heroism, is taken to the very first virtual world I can recall being displayed in mass media. I’ve watched all of the Star Trek movies. I confess to being a victim of an "even number" preference, culminating so far in this last Star Trek – certainly among, if not the favorite of all of them. 

Computers that can search for anything and everything. Touch screens and voice commands. Warp speed and instant communication across multiple languages and without regard to geography or time zones. All that with a bit of humor, a bit of clever philosophy and a social network (crew) that have hugely diverse (one might say inter-planetary) ethnic, cultural and racial characteristics, and at the same time work seamlessly together as a team. More than science fiction, Star Trek is really science within fiction, and a fiction that might just be reality if we close our eyes long enough and hard enough. Most of all, to boldly go where most of us have never gone before isn’t really referring to space as the "final frontier," is it?

Now I know not everyone is a Trekkie, and I confess that while I am a big fan, I’m not really obsessed. I don’t go to conventions or wear uniforms, nor do I run around screaming "Beam me up," although I do confess to a feeble attempt at a Scottish accent when I respond "I can’t do it, Captain." So what is it that makes me able to watch over and over again and relish each scene and each episode, and look forward to each new motion picture? It’s not simply because I like science fiction. Nor is it solely because of an ensemble cast, made up of some extraordinarily fine individual actors who work extraordinarily well with each other and with scripts that combine serious science fiction with some tongue-in-cheek individualism, not always in human form.

Let me digress to a personal, but relevant anecdote. Many years ago I had the pleasure of actually meeting Leonard Nimoy. I won’t go into detail, but on behalf of a client, I had contacted Phil Gersh, the gentleman (a true gentleman) who represented Mr. Nimoy at the time, and Mr. Gersh must have relayed our conversation to Mr. Nimoy, resulting in a meeting in New York. It was over lunch, very relaxed and informal, but I admit to feeling an amazing sense of excitement, good fortune and privilege at being able to actually sit down and talk with someone I had long admired as an actor, writer, director and producer.

Continue reading “Looking Ahead to 2010: To Boldly Go . . . .”