Geography and the Law Exhibit at the Harris County Law Library

This month, the Law Library is exploring Geography and The Law, a new exhibit on display until February 28th. Learn how a treasure map and a Google Earth satellite image played a role in two recent court decisions and how a Story Map is impacting access to justice. 

The following cases are featured in the exhibit.

United States of America v. Paciano Lizarraga-Tirado, 789 F. 3d 1107 (2015)

After a Border Patrol agent recorded the GPS coordinates of a defendant’s arrest using a handheld device, the evidence was questioned as hearsay. The panel of judges in this case disagreed. Google Earth satellite images, like photographs, make no assertion, even when the software identifies a specific location on that image with a tack and GPS coordinates. Tack-coordinate pairs are auto-generated and require no human intervention. As such, images labeled in this way are not hearsay.

Smith v. The Abandoned Vessel, 610 F. Supp. 3d 868 (2009)

Plaintiff Nathan Smith, a self-described treasure hunter, sought title, under the law of finds, to a legendary sunken ship in Refugio County, Texas. To locate the ship, Smith consulted an 1851 county map along with GPS data and satellite images from Google Earth. He cobbled together his own sort of treasure map and felt certain that he had found the long-lost vessel. Unfortunately, his spurious claims and questionable geographic and scientific evidence failed to persuade the court. The case was dismissed.

National African American History Month: Justice Thurgood Marshall Digital Exhibit

In 1925, the historian, Carter G. Woodson, called for a week-long celebration to recognize the contributions of African Americans in the development of our country. Negro History Week was celebrated for the first time 1926 and expanded to a full month in 1976, the year of our nation's sesquicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."

Many notable African Americans have played a role in shaping the law and achieving civil rights. With this exhibit, we honor perhaps the most influential African American lawyer in U.S. history and the first African American to rise to the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court -- Justice Thurgood Marshall.   

An exhibit commemorating the extraordinary life of Justice Marshall, will be on display in the Law Library lobby throughout the month, and a digital exhibit, the subject of today's Tech Tuesday blog post, is available on the Law Library's website. For additional digital resources celebrating African American history and the remarkable life of Justice Thurgood Marshall, please visit the following sites:

Biography.com -- Thurgood Marshall: A Justice for All (VIDEO)

Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture

GIFs and the NFL: IP Considerations

On Sunday, NRG Stadium in Houston will host more than 70,000 football fans for Super Bowl LI. Pre-game events have already drawn thousands of people to the city. Those attending the big game will pay up to $6,000 per ticket, but the millions of viewers watching from home will, arguably, have a much better seat. The vantage point of your sofa will give you many perks: commentary, replays, fun commercials, and better food to name a few. Many fans will capture game video with the hopes of turning a fantastic play or a memorable touchdown celebration into a GIF for all the world to see on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. For its part, the NFL strongly discourages the use of its images, so for those of you hoping to create the next viral meme, let the law be your guide.  

The NFL is notoriously protective of its brand. All text, images, photographs, video, audio, and graphics are tightly controlled, and any use of the NFL's content must comply with the NFL.com Terms and Conditions Agreement. Nonetheless, ripping images or video from television broadcasts is a popular way to create the GIFs and other graphic memes that fill our news feeds, and football replays are some of the most widely shared.

When news outlets use GIFs to enhance a story, they often rely on the fair use defense, but legal experts question the plausibility of such claims. Ricardo Bilton, Staff Writer at Digiday.com, describes the legal murkiness of sports highlight GIFs, saying that fair use may not apply. When publishers rip video highlights and repost them unaltered online, those content providers reap the benefits of increased ad revenue. However, as the popular websites, Deadspin and SB Nation, found out, fair use has its limits, and legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be invoked to support claims of copyright infringement.

Those who appropriate content without paying the rebroadcasting fees that sports leagues, including the NFL, typically require must be careful. As long as the new content is "derivative of the original and does not create economic competition for copyright holders,"  the NFL will evaluate it on a case-by-case basis.

As for the armchair quarterback and amateur image manipulator, the same rules apply. Remixing and repurposing content to parody or critique your favorite plays of the game follows the spirit of fair use. Unless the NFL sends you a takedown notice, your GIF of the game-winning catch, modified for new utility and meaning with no intent to profit, is probably safe. May the best GIFs go viral and may the best team win.

Legislative Histories of Cybersecurity Laws Enacted by the 113th and 114th Congresses

January is Data Privacy and Information Security Law Month at the Harris County Law Library. All month long, we are promoting the data privacy resources in our collection to raise awareness of the need for data security in the practice of law. We are also featuring relevant electronic sources, including the Cybersecurity Law Institute at Georgetown University, and the Cybersecurity Law Report, both of which are freely available on the Internet.

The Law Library's subscription databases provide access to even more good resources, including legislative histories of key cybersecurity laws. HeinOnline has just added several new cybersecurity law resources to its U.S. Federal Legislative History Library. The new collection, Legislative Histories of Cybersecurity Laws Enacted by the 113th and 114th Congresses (William H. Manz, ed.) (2016)  is a compilation of eight laws enacted in 2014 and 2015 including: 

• Cybersecurity Workforce Assessment Act
• Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014
• National Cybersecurity Protection Act of 2014
• Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014

Four additional Acts grouped into the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 are also part of the compilation. The legislative histories include the text and chronology of the Acts, bill versions, related bills, committee reports, congressional debates and hearings, GAO reports, and presidential materials. 

To access these legislative histories and a world of other content, visit the Law Library or access HeinOnline on your mobile device.

Access to Justice: Supported Decision-Making Agreements

With the passage of HB 39 and SB 1881 by the 84th Legislature, Texas became the first state to enact legislation allowing individuals with an intellectual/developmental disability (I/DD) greater autonomy in the making of personal decisions while still retaining their rights. Prior to the passage of the Supported Decision-Making Agreement Act (codified at Tex. Estates Code ch. 1357), individuals with an I/DD were forced to relinquish their rights, and all decisions were then made by the person appointed as guardian, including such choices as where to live, where to work, and which doctors to use. The Act's stated purpose is to provide a less restrictive alternative to guardianship for those adults who require assistance with day-to-day decisions but who are not considered incapacitated for guardianship purposes. Under the Act, an individual with an I/DD may appoint a caregiver to assist the individual with making decisions, including helping the individual understand any consequences of the decision, collecting relevant information to aid in the making of the decision, and assisting with the communication of the individual’s wishes. Note that the agreement may be terminated at any time by either party.

 TexasLawHelp.org, a program of the Texas Legal Services Center, has made available on its website a free Supported Decision-Making Agreement. With this form, a person with an I/DD is able to choose a trusted caregiver, referred to as a “supporter,” to assist with the making of the decisions indicated by the individual. The form specifically states that the supporter does not make the decisions for the individual and allows the individual to identify the types of decisions for which he/she needs the assistance of the supporter.

In connection with the Supported Decision-Making Agreement form, TexasLawHelp.org provides an additional form: an authorization to release confidential information under a supported decision-making agreement. This form allows the supporter to obtain information about the individual with an I/DD that would have been private and otherwise protected.