CASE : Rock ‘N Out

You are an attorney representing a rock group. Recently the group has told you that it
wants to get out of its present recording contract in order to take advantage of a much
better offer. The group's contract is a "new kid" agreement common in the recording
industry. The group complains, and you agree, that the terms of the contract heavily
favor the recording company. For example, although the contract calls for the group
to make eight records, the company can drop the group at any time. In contrast,
however, under the contract, your client (the rock group) cannot terminate the
agreement at will (i.e. whenever it wants to), but instead must stay with the recording
company and make all eight recordings. These could take twelve years to produce,
however.
The rock group entered into the contract, before you represented them, at a time when
the members were all just out of high school. In your opinion, however, had you been
there to represent them, you probably could not have secured a much better deal
because the above kinds of contractual terms are standard throughout the recording
industry. In this regard, record companies say they have to rely upon "new kid"
contracts to balance the financial risks of signing and producing many new artists,
most of whom do not pan out.
A lawsuit requesting a court to release the group from its contract could go on for
years. You know about another legal strategy, however, that could generate the same
result much sooner -- declaring bankruptcy. Under federal bankruptcy law, the courts
may free debtors from contracts the court views as burdensome. The purpose of the
bankruptcy law is to enable debtors to make a fresh start, and not simply to make it
possible for individuals to get out of contracts they dislike. Nonetheless, you realize,
although you have not yet shared this with the rock group, that it might be able to get
out of the contract if the group members all rapidly accumulated large debts that
might convince a judge they are financially bankrupt.


What actions would you take and why?

CASE : Hackers

Many universities today assign internet accounts to applicants who have applied to
the school for admission as a student. The internet account allows the applicant to log
into a web site and check their admissions file. This month, someone on a generic
and public online forum posted a simple procedure that would allow students to
discover the fate of their applications such as whether or not they were accepted.
Basically, once you logged in, you could add a slash and key words to the web
address and view the scoring of your application and whether it was accepted or
denied. And this can be done before the school formally sent the decision letter to the
student.
As it turned out, many who tried this trick simply saw blank pages, but the schools
could tell which students had made the attempts. Shortly afterward, several schools,
including Harvard, announced that any student who had tried to check their status in
this way would be automatically denied admission. Dean Kim Clark of Harvard,
called the students’ behavior “unethical at best – a serious breach of trust that cannot
be countered by rationalization.”


Please comment. For example, one could not call this a major “hack.” In fact, it is
hard to imagine human (or student) nature from passing up an opportunity to know
whether they were accepted or not before a letter comes in the mail. Nor does
knowing affect their application and the decision-making process that had already
been completed. Therefore, does the degree of “hacking” change the behavior from
unethical to ethical? Furthermore, one could hardly call universities the bastion of
ethical behavior. Being the political institutions that they are, can they really demand
such sinless perfection from those who wish to attend? Or are their actions correct
and appropriate for the transgression? If not, is there another way? Could another
answer be found between punishment and forgiveness that would create a win-win?