Fifth Avenue Forum

Many private organizations (for example, the National Fire Protection Association) develop and copyright suggested technical standards for industries, products, and services. Federal and state gov't's then adopt those standards as binding law. Thousands of them! But often, the gov't's don't actually copy-paste those standards into the law books; they just "incorporate by reference." Is it copyright infringement for a nonprofit to post those legally binding standards online for free? D.C. Circuit: Nope. That's what the kids call "fair use." And it doesn't matter, btw, that the private associations themselves make the standards available online … in non-searchable, non-printable, non-downloadable, non-magnifiable format.

According to the Sept. 11 sanctions order, Buckley had submitted proof of CLE credits in 2023 to reinstate his law license after an administrative suspension. The material showed that Buckley was trying to get credit for two live webcasts that happened at the same time on June 16, 2022.

Buckley said in an initial response he had attended the two programs using a computer and an iPad. He said he didn’t realize that simultaneous attendance was a violation of bar rules.

19 Compl. ¶ 53. It has been pointed out to me that, technically speaking, Hermelin’s
purported dilemma was not a “Hobson’s Choice,” which refers to a choice between that
which is offered or nothing at all; i.e., “take it or leave it.” The term originates from
Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), a Cambridge, England, livery stable operator who, after
realizing that his strongest and fastest horses were more popular and consequently
overused, instituted a rotation of horses whereby he presented his customers with a
choice: take the horse nearest the stable door or none at all.
Hermelin’s predicament, as it were, was instead a “Morton’s Fork”: a choice
between two equally undesirable alternatives. The Morton’s Fork gets its name from John
Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and later Lord Chancellor under Henry VII.
Morton justified taxing the rich as well as the poor on the grounds that subjects living in
opulence could clearly afford to give generously, and subjects living frugally clearly had
amassed savings and could thus give generously.
Neither a Hobson’s Choice nor a Morton’s Fork should be confused with a
“Catch-22,” see JOSEPH HELLER, CATCH-22, at 45-46 (Simon & Schuster paperback
ed. 2004) (describing a rule whereby a combat pilot declared insane by evaluation would
be grounded, but the pilot must have requested the evaluation, and requests for
evaluations were conclusive evidence of sanity because “[a]nybody who wants to get out
of combat duty isn’t really crazy”), or “Buridan’s Ass,” which satirizes moral
determinism by hypothesizing an ass placed precisely between a stack of hay and a pail
of water, where the ass, which is presumed to go to whichever is closer, cannot make a
rational choice and thus dies of both starvation and dehydration.
20 Again, it is unclear whether KV faced only mandatory exclusion under PPACA § 6502
or whether the OIG also intended to pursue permissive exclusion under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1320a-7(b)(8); however, I need not resolve that factual dispute to reach my decision
here.

Can you get pulled over in PA for an expired inspection? My brother did, and I thought for some reason they had to get you for something else first. He just got a warning and it was no big deal but it made me wonder