Digital Law... Its Like Angry Birds!

Digitial Law. Its like playing Angry Birds. Specifically, its like one of the levels where everything is made of concrete and you just keep throwing yourself at it hoping to break through.

For our Digital Law class we are each assigned a case to analyze with a partner which we then present to our classmates. Tomorrow my partner, Tish and I are presenting the U.S. Court of Appeals case of Comcast v FCC concerning issues of net neutrality and regulation. Important issues to be sure... but if you're not getting an MBA in this stuff, read the Wiki version instead - it'll spare you a headache.

OK, as much as I gripe about reading for Law, the truth is, my classmate, Crystal and I were just chatting today about how reading page after page of these court documents is re-shaping how we think about everything we now see. Not just in terms of the law, that's a given... and the promise of becoming issue spotters is already coming to fruition. But, also, really, its strengthening our mental toughness. To break down this FCC case, Tish and I have had to meticulously comb through this case (beginning over Thanksgiving Break... yay!!!) to tease out the issues buried in legal jargon and evaluate the dense assessment of the Appellate Court. To get through it I just pictured myself as a little Angry Bird just busting through the concrete and annihilating monkeys!...sheesh... I am really becoming a Digital Dork!

But, as Crystal and I were discussing today, this understanding of the law is already paying off as a recent digital/copyright case has hit the local news. Botticelli's, a small but popular Austin restaurant, has suddenly become embroiled in a lawsuit with corporate giant, BMI (shout out to my friend Vicky Garza for some awesome reporting!). What strikes me the most about this story, is that the business owner apparently ignored repeated requests from BMI to cease the copyright infringement. If this is true, it seems the Botticellis didn't understand the gravity of copyright infringment and perhaps thought they were too small for BMI to trifle with. But as we're learning in Digital Law, size doesn't always matter (I'm being nice, this is the Wiki version) ... so as painful as it can be at times, it makes me glad I'm learning this stuff... you know, so I can annihilate the monkeys! Yep... Digital Dork.