The mobile-game industry can be lucrative. Mobile games ' which can be downloaded to cell phones and other mobile devices ' can be cheaper and easier to develop than games created for platforms like PCs or game consoles, where users expect higher production values. What also makes mobile games attractive to developers and entrepreneurs is the potential market of consumers who already carry and use cell phones ' estimated at 207.9 million nationwide and 2 billion worldwide. Mobile games present huge brand opportunities as well: Celebrities such as hotel heiress Paris Hilton, rapper 50 Cent, skateboarder Tony Hawk and poker champion Phil Hellmuth have each licensed their names and images to mobile games. Tom Cruise, notoriously shy of associating his name with videogames, lent his name exclusively to a Mission Impossible III mobile-phone game.
Can a layman's opinion on the environmental impacts of a development project serve as a basis for a court to find that a mitigated negative declaration (MND) (CEQA ' 21064.5) is inadequate? That was the question posed in <i>Landwatch Monterey County v. County of Monterey</i>, 55 Cal.Rptr.3d 34 (Cal.App 76 Dist., 1/23/2007) (Rushing, P.J.), when plaintiff offered opinions from two people who, at first glance, appeared to have some expertise on the subject of water resources.
The California Supreme Court, in its recent 6-1 decision in <i>Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova</i>, 2/1/2007, concerning the Sunrise Douglas Community Plan, raised the number of hoops developers must leap through to ensure that their large-scale developments' future water needs will be met without too great an impact on the environment. The decision in <i>Vineyard Area Citizens</i> not only put a hold on a huge development planned for Rancho Cordova, but also placed other developers in the state on notice that certain shortcuts in water-use planning will not be accepted by the courts when challenged.
'Disconnect Between In-House and Outside Counsel is a continuation of the discussion of client expectations and the disconnect that often occurs. And although the outside attorneys should be pursuing how inside-counsel actually think, inside counsel should make an effort to impart this information without waiting to be asked.
Online ticket reseller StubHub faces lawsuits over allegedly unrefunded event tickets in California, after a federal judicial panel ordered that similar cases from jurisdictions in multiple states be coordinated.
For some time now, the brick and mortar side of the retail industry has been in financial distress. In 2015 and 2016 alone, brand-name companies such as Sports Authority, RadioShack, Aéropostale, American Apparel, Eastern Mountain Sports and City Sports sought bankruptcy protection. A common question in these cases is how to treat holders of unredeemed gift cards. Are they near the back of the line with other general unsecured creditors, or are they entitled to “priority” payment status under the Bankruptcy Code?
