So this complicates things a bit. A bombshell decision from the Florida Supreme Court effectively says that recording copyrights didn’t exist before 1972. Should oldie recordings enjoy copyright protection? Absolutely not, according to a unanimous decision by the Florida Supreme Court. Effectively, anything recorded before the year 1972 is in the public domain and can be used freely. At least in the state of Florida.

Former president Barack Obama isn’t quite done serving his country. Obama —now a private citizen — plans to perform his civic duty and show up for jury duty in Illinois next month. Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans announced during a budget meeting Friday that Obama would serve, the Chicago Tribune reported. “He made it crystal-clear to me through his representative that he would carry out his public duty as a citizen and resident of this community,” Evans said, according to the Tribune.

The Consumer Technology Association estimated that residents of the United States bought 183 million smartphones in 2016. There are already as many TVs in this country as there are people. That’s a lot of electronics, and these numbers are just going up. On balance, all this technology is probably making our lives better. But there’s a downside, too: The stuff often malfunctions. Unlike the 30-year-old mixer on your kitchen counter that refuses to die, new technology—especially the smart devices with fancy, embedded electronics—breaks more quickly.

Fingerprinting is a valuable police tool for tracking down suspects, but it's not perfect. However, we can reduce the risk of any mistaken identity if we work within the limits of fingerprinting.

On Tuesday, the New York City Council passed a bill that will require employers to allow victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other “family offense matters” to take paid time off from work. As the New York Daily News reports, the newly passed bill expands the city’s paid sick days law, allowing for five days off per year for court appearances, moving away from an abuser, meeting with law enforcement, counseling, and serving orders of protection. AM New York notes that the bill, called Introduction 1313-A of 2016, was passed unanimously.

A local woman says she could face arrest because she can't afford the funeral expense for her late husband. A funeral home storing the man's remains said it may press charges for abandonment of a body. Betty Starnes said she made it clear when her husband’s body was brought to Southern Cremations and Funerals at Cheatham Hill, that she couldn’t pay for it up front.

Federal judge rebuffs claim that pardon entitles Arpaio to have conviction erased.

Thomas Farr will get a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. By Ari Berman.

A new law that would effectively force Muslim women who wear a niqab or burka to uncover their faces to use public services is based on a principle "the vast majority of Canadians, and not just Quebecers" can agree on, Premier Philippe Couillard said. The Liberal government's Bill 62 on religious neutrality was passed Wednesday in Quebec's National Assembly. "We are just saying that for reasons linked to communication, identification and safety, public services should be given and received with an open face," Couillard told reporters.

An estimated one out of three California adults has an arrest or conviction record, according to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project. If employers weed out applicants who check "yes" for the Have you ever been convicted of a crime? question on a job application, they could be preventing millions of Golden State residents from getting a paycheck. These applicants also tend to be people of color, since African-Americans and Latinos are arrested at much higher rates, often for crimes committed in equal numbers by whites.

If rumors leak about a justice’s behavior in conference, it is almost certainly a justice who leaked them.

The Mortgage Bankers Association adds to the growing political momentum in support of a mortgage tax credit.

There’s a law against government officials trying to influence private employment decisions.

Regulator says Microsoft doesn't offer enough information to enable informed consent.

And he is not the only victim of police who have strictly applied the new law. Also a woman cyclist who wrapped her scarf around her face against the cold, and street musicians performing in animal masks.

“You can be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next” – Frank McManus. By Aaron Dabbah.

The Jones Act is no doubt the backbone of our entire industry. A series of laws designed, in part, to make sure any commercial shipping done within American waterways is done on American-made vessels using entirely American crews, the Jones Act is the center of trade, commerce, and employment on the waters of America. And …

What really happened in the trial featured in the new biopic of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

Black man beaten by Charlottesville Nazis has been charged with assault

Federal disability law requires movie theaters to provide specialized interpreters to patrons who are deaf and blind, an appeals court said Friday. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Cinemark, the nation’s third-largest movie chain, in a case involving a Pennsylvania man who wanted to see the 2014 movie “Gone Girl” and asked a Cinemark theater in Pittsburgh to supply a “tactile interpreter.” The theater denied his request.