Love Boat, Ed Sheeran, Gerrymandering, and Listener Questions

Coming up on the Outlaw Lawyer, we set sail on legal topics.

It's exciting, and yes, it's new. Don't you go anywhere. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. You're locked in to the Outlaw Lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. The managing partners, also pricing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Sandra Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, joining us from the Moorhead City office.

The other offices that you can see, probably from wherever you are, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, and Gastonia. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you've got a legal situation you are facing, you can certainly call the firm, leave a contact number, briefly what that call is about, and someone with Whitaker and Hamer, an attorney, will be in touch. 800-659-1186 is the number to call.

That's 800-659-1186. You can also email your questions to the show, and we will answer those questions on a future broadcast. Ahoy there, legal enthusiasts. Welcome aboard the Outlaw Lawyer Radio Show, where our esteemed hosts, attorneys Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer and Cassandra Nicholas, will take you on a legal journey through North Carolina like no other. Join us as we set sail on our legal adventure, navigating the choppy waters of the law to provide you with answers to your burning legal questions, and bring you the latest legal news in the state. Our legal experts will guide you through the twists, the turns of the legal landscape, with their extensive knowledge and experience, all while entertaining you with their engaging personalities and humor. So sit back, relax, and let the Outlaw Lawyer be your legal compass. Whether you're facing a legal issue or simply curious about the law, our hosts are here to provide you with the information you need. Get ready to set sail with the Outlaw Lawyer.

Welcome aboard, and let's explore the legal world of North Carolina together. Josh? Uh, Morgan, that was fantastic.

You're welcome. I like the, I like the background. Do it again.

Take it from the top. Yeah, let's do it again. I remember that show. I'm a little bit longer in the tooth than you guys, but that was a Saturday night staple. And it was also kind of a, it really kind of launched the Princess line, the cruise line. And all of the actors that were on that show were lifelong ambassadors for cruising. And I tell you, it really took off when that show hit and a lot of people thought it was going to bomb, but it really was very successful. Well, that's the, you know, a good show, a good sitcom, a good, that wasn't really like a sitcom.

It was live action scripted. But, you know, you have to have that premise where you get new characters every show, right? That's why like Cheers was in a bar. They could have new people coming in the bar, night court, people coming into court, love boat. You had new guests every week, right?

So you keep it fresh. You keep it hopping. If you have the sitcoms that are like family based, it's tougher, right?

The kids can have friends and things like that. But like the family ties and the growing pains, these are all dated references, I suppose. I knew that was coming. Joe and Cassandra have no idea. It's like a boat of singers.

What did Cassandra? I haven't seen Love Boat. I've been on a Princess cruise. Have not seen Love Boat. Did you fall in love on your cruise?

Nope. It wasn't really the love boat then. I saw Love Boat in syndication. So that was something that I saw.

Like if I was, you know, if I was sick and I was with my grandma, that was like after the price is right. You got a good threes company, Love Boat. Oh, man. What was the one?

What was the in the heat of the night? That was always on. But threes company. I loved threes company. Yeah.

Yeah. Threes company was good. Threes company watchability. And when you watch these things, you know, now some of them don't really hold up like it's watching threes company. The premise probably doesn't hold well at all.

I was watching. I probably shouldn't say this. We might have to take this out. Don't don't do that, Josh. Don't lead into it like that. Be very careful.

You're a lawyer. I've got a 14 year old. And so I've been I've been carefully letting him watch some of the early South Park's and I handpicked the South Park's. Right.

Because he's right. I thought you were going to say you watch showgirls. I've been letting them watch a few scenes from showgirls.

Like I let him watch the South Park where they're they don't like playing baseball. Right. And they get so good at being bad at baseball. Like all the teams are like. Yeah.

And Randy gets into fights at the stadium. That's pretty bad. That's a pretty clean one. But I'm trying to handpick them because it's, you know, he's 14, man. I was like, when did that show come out? I had to be like 11, 12.

And I was into the deepest of the deep of them. And I turned out fine. It'll be good. Good. But they have they anyway, I've just I've just been letting them watch it.

It just made me think about that for some reason. But I think you got to expose how old your youngest kid again. Charlie's eight. I think you start letting that kid watch NC 17 movies tomorrow. And you just go ahead and be so mature.

The coolest nine year old in his class. Let's mark this date. And in 10 years, let's check on Joe's kids. Let's check on those kids.

Prison, all prison. No, we back in back in my day. That would be juvie back it back in my day. We had video stores. You guys remember those? We talked about that blockbuster.

Yeah. So I my mom on the daycare and I would spend a lot of time there. And there's a video store across the street that I could just walk to. That was back when you could let your kids like walk place.

You have to worry about them just getting abducted. I remember that. So I could go in there.

I mean, the guy was real cool. He let me rent like anything I wanted to. So I got I got to watch a lot of a lot of those are rated movies at the time.

We had that arrangement at a friend's house where you could walk to like a little strip mall. And then, yeah, they would let him rent anything he wanted to. These aren't like blockbusters.

These are like mom and pop. This was video express. Shout out to Gary from Video Express. If you're listening.

Cassandra, do you have one of those? Oh, yeah, Brian, that Waps in video. There you go. I could watch anything I wanted.

He wouldn't let me go in like the adult section, obviously. Right. Man, it made me so cool. You know how cool I was? Oh, super cool, man. And you still are, Joe.

Yeah, thanks. You knew you knew all the new swear words. I knew I didn't even I didn't say him. I knew him.

So if someone pulled one out on me, I was like, I know that one. I was watching I was watching Jeopardy last night. I can't remember what night it was. But isn't it literally every day? It is every day.

And we want to talk about it. There's a Jeopardy last night. There is a Jeopardy channel. They had the news on yesterday. I was watching Jeopardy.

And so like I had this dream that I make it. I'm on Jeopardy. And they're announcing like the double jeopardy. Are you naked?

No. Fully clothed, fully clothed. And they're announcing the they're announcing the categories. And one is 80s sitcom themes like recognizing the themes.

And another one is like 80s, 90s per wrestling. But the sitcom themes ones. That's like my bread and butter, man.

If we sit down and there's a YouTube, you can get on YouTube. And there's like a little thing where they just play sitcom themes. And my family enjoys doing that.

Guessing the sitcom themes. But it might not be for everybody. Yeah, they do that. Yes. Yes. My kids like to put the YouTube has like you can just put on a cycle of like guess they got like guess brands, guest themes, things like that. And they dig that, man.

It's way easier than raising them. Just putting that on. Letting it go.

Just putting that on. Yeah. So, Joe, did you see Jerry Springer passed away? Yeah, man. Speaking of speaking of childhood, man, that was a that was a real blow.

That was a real blow to the to the community, man. I have never watched I know it exists and I've seen like clips from the Jerry Springer show. I'd never watched the Jerry Springer show.

Used to come on. And you're a better person for it. I don't know that you are, man. I think I think you're worse for it because you got to get into the weeds of the Springer to really appreciate.

You don't know humanity until you've seen Jerry Springer. He had some bangers, man. Some good ones.

He had some really good ones. I've looked forward to sick days for sure. I you know, I was thinking about this, you know, being an old person. I think I've said this on the show before being an old person.

I like to watch CBS Sunday morning and they always hit you with the people that have passed away that week. Yeah, that's part of the show. And so they threw a cherry.

They threw up Jerry Springer. But I was thinking I was like, you know, usually when you die. Right. You want to have a legacy. Right. When you pass away, you're like, hey, I did this while I was here. We're not here forever. While I was here, you know, I raised the boys, you know, I tried to be nice to people. You want to have this legacy.

Right. And so I was thinking about what his legacy would be. And then I got into this like quantum leak kind of question, like, and this sounds really bad.

And I didn't mean it to sound this bad. But would we be better off as a society if Jerry Springer had never existed? No, I mean, there'd be another one.

Larry Binger. Well, it's like it's like the A.I. guy came out this week and said, you know, he almost feels like his entire life's work was a waste because he's so worried about what's going to happen.

And we were having the discussion here at the office. And it's like, if he doesn't do it, there's going to be somebody else that does it. So Jerry Springer didn't do what Jerry Springer did. I mean, we have the Maury Povich is we have, you know, the Geraldo Rivera's. I mean, they're all out there and they're all kind of doing the same thing at the same time. The A.I. guy, the Google guy, the guy you're talking about, I don't remember his name, but he said, well, his quote was he doesn't see he doesn't see any way to prevent bad actors from using A.I.

in bad ways. And in that Wall Street Journal reporter cloned, quote unquote, cloned herself, but like had the fake video and the fake voice and it fooled her family. You know, the A.I. generated stuff, the deep fakes fooled her family, fooled her bank, fooled her employer.

And they weren't even trying that hard. You know, you know, I saw a thing I saw. I don't remember who it was.

I got no sources, but it was a guy that was basically saying, like all of the people who are freaking out over A.I. right now, it's all an illusion. Right. The programmers have tricked you into a mirage of thinking that it's more capable than it is. And it's really not that capable.

And it's not that big of a deal. But it could have been like A.I. that did that to trick us. Right. Yesterday, where they performed an MRI on someone and had A.I.

technology translate the person's thoughts and they were like super accurate. And that's terrifying. I don't even understand what you said.

No, I will send it to you. Yeah, that's right. So you had an MRI and go ahead. Yeah. And he was thinking about checking his phone to see if his ex had texted him. Oh, so how did he have to understand? Did he consent to this? Yes. Yes.

What are we talking about? Like some kind of neural link? Like it's are you just saying like it just knew enough about him to infer that?

It is individualized technology at the moment per person. So they they first had the person with in in the machine listen to 16 hours of podcasts. So it had already scanned the brain, seeing exactly which point in the brain triggered on each word associated in the podcast. So each time those little spots triggered in the thoughts, it knew what words that spot was associated with. I so I got I went down a rabbit hole this weekend and we use chat GPT for a lot of stuff.

And we joke about it here on the show. And it wrote it wrote Morgan's love boat intro for for us today. But I got tricked and I read this tweet I read I was viewing tweets and I read this tweet thread from this guy. And they talked about how GPT, the fourth version or whatever it is, can use the Internet like you can make it scour certain websites and come up with anyway.

So I was like, man, that's that's really cool. And so I but you had to pay the 20 bucks a month, right? I don't know if you noticed this, if you logged into chat GPT lately, but the firm now has the grandfather to him, brother. I don't know what you're talking about. I paid the twenty dollars. I was an early adopter.

I paid the twenty dollars to get access to the new experimental whatever. It wasn't there. It was just GPT for that what it is.

It's actually before, but it's supposed to be an option. Three. I don't know.

I don't know what it is. But anyway. Hey, we had said anything about anything legal. Hey, we didn't talk about sports either, man.

That's how we normally start to show guys. Do you remember the hurricanes? Cassandra? Yeah. All right. So we are going to talk about legal things. We got our listener questions, as always.

We're going to be answering some listener questions. There's a couple of cases in the news. North Carolina has got a case of their gerrymandering I.D.

felon voting Supreme Court cases that all kind of came down. I figured we'd spend some time talking about that. And yeah, we do have legal stuff to talk about. I suppose we should do that after the break. Exciting and new.

Yes. Outlaw lawyers Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners. Whitaker Hamer law firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Joining us from the Moorhead City office is Cassandra Nicholas. And again, if you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions. You can always contact the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're back right after this. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers, your managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer.

Yeah, the power behind the program. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. Cassandra Nicholas joining us from the Moorhead City offices.

And again, convenient office locations, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Gullsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia along with Moorhead City. And just a reminder, Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in the state of North Carolina, as is Cassandra Nicholas. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always contact the firm. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six will get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact info briefly what the calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and I believe we're going to get into some listener questions. Yeah, we have a we have a healthy mix of questions that we get from our listeners and questions that we get.

You know, we do our firm again. You know, Morgan list out all the offices that we have. We've got a lot of attorneys working with us. We handle a lot of consults on a lot of different legal topics. So we're we're never hurting for legal questions. And so these questions that we get there from real people who have, you know, real problems. Sometimes we pepper in some questions from chat GPT just to keep us keep us on our toes. But Joe's got a list of questions he's going to ask me and Cassandra.

We have not me and Cassandra have not prepared for these questions. So that's can't wait. Yeah. So that's either good or bad, depending on how you.

I'm trying to try to make you guys look like idiots. I think that's what my plan is. All right, Cassandra, you're up first.

This is a real question from a real human being. I'm just going to rephrase it a little bit. I recently started a small business in North Carolina, and I'm not sure if I need to register it with the state. What are the requirements for registering a business in North Carolina? And what are the consequences if I don't? You should register your business.

A page of three hundred dollars for that? Absolutely. So there are different types of businesses. So you should consult with an attorney to find out which one's best for you. But LLC is is one of our go to's and it has your you're going to initiate. You're going to make sure the name you're choosing isn't used by anyone else. So picking your name and finding that out is first. Then you actually register. There's a fee with the North Carolina secretary of state for that. And then each year you'll submit another report.

And if you do not submit those reports each year, at some point you get some warning letters and then they administratively dissolve your business, which you don't really want to happen. No, no, we we see that a lot. You know, we get a lot of these consults and, you know, I usually talk to people about how much money, you know, like what is this business about opening a bar? Are you opening a karate studio? What do you know? Wait a second. Let's put them together. You just come you get drunk and do karate. We talk about your we talk about your risk level.

You know, what do you own personally? You know, it's my goal for for someone, you know, that we, you know, we have we have people that we we help them in all areas of their lives. Right. So we help them with their business stuff. We help them when they buy real property.

You know, God forbid they have divorce, child custody issues. We help them with that. So we have a lot of folks that we've been representing for the past 20 years or so.

And and you know, we just we have to look at what you're trying to accomplish. The LLC, you know, it's a good structure, some protection there, some asset protection. But everybody's got a different appetite for risk.

Joe, that's what I would say. Everybody's got a different appetite for what they're willing to risk, depending on what business activity you're undertaking. I haven't helped with one of these with one of the acts throwing places, but most of them also have bars.

I would be interested to explore their risk profile. So what you're what you're saying is, is there's the karate bar is not that much of a stretch. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like axes are probably more dangerous than karate, right? Mm hmm. Who have you got in there doing the karate?

I guess that's the question I've got. Well, you know, the action jar deadly. I you know, I hadn't thought about the ax throwing with the bar. You know, we we have a bar range rooms. There's no ax throwing, though. I have a bar.

And I know the bar insurance is very tuned in to what we're doing all the time, like promotions. And but I don't I don't think you should consult with your bar insurance folks and ask what it would be additional to add axes. How do we escalate from darts to axes? Darts are for darts.

There's not this is not mainly dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. You got a you ever chucked an ax? You know, you ever chucked an ax, Joshua? No, I've never chucked an ax. I don't make you feel alive. And technically it's a hatchet. It's not an ax. Who right now that's speaking has thrown a hatchet at a board.

Nobody have not paid to do it. I've done it. And let me tell you what you want to talk about living, man. There's just something about adrenaline rush. I don't know, man.

It's a if you're drinking heavily at the bar attached to it, then yes. Have you seen those TikToks where they like the the the girl like throw the accident bounces back because she hits it wrong and it bounces back at her. Have you seen those? That happens apparently. Yeah.

Why you sign a waiver, bud? Yeah. That only happens to the people that don't because you come in, man, and they got a guy, usually a guy who's like open carrying that works at the place. That's the guy. And he comes in and he trains you. He shows you.

He gives you a brief training lesson. And he's like, don't it's like don't walk in front of the ax when people are throwing. That's rule number one. Sure.

And that's not a whole lot of other rules, brother. So you got to hold it. You like hold it and you like fling it. That's a good timing. You stick that ax.

It feels pretty good. Very similar to that. Register your ax throwing business with the state so that you don't get personally sued when somebody's hand gets trapped. Why are we talking about ax throwing business? This was supposed to be about a karate bar. OK, what what what kind of entity should I form my karate bar as?

How about that? That's my second question for you. I think we already addressed that question. No, you didn't, because we'll see a corporation. You know, what does it limits your liability? It separates you as a person from your business. Corporations are great, too, but there are some additional requirements with the state. You are required to have a yearly meeting and produce minutes for that. The LLC is a little bit more streamlined if you don't have anything super complex going on.

Then ownership structure wise, that has you know, you're issuing essentially stock for that, whereas LLC is just membership interest. What's that? What's another risky business we could think? Risky? Yeah.

Risky. Rage rooms. I really. Rage rooms? Yes.

There's one near the Moorehead City office, if anyone's coming out this way. Wait a second. You know what those are, right, Joe? You just you just go. Is it the rooms where you just go in and you just. Yeah, they have things in their hands. You can buy stuff. You're paying for breakables. Yeah. We just recently had the county clean up and the rage room folks were out like gathering all the free stuff to make us pay for it, to break it later.

I dig that, man. I want to start a business called risky business, but I don't know what it would do. I think you go axe throwing karate in a rage room all in one with a bar.

Yeah, just do it all. Yeah, the bar makes it bar makes it difficult. Bar at bar adds levels of risk because that's what we do as attorneys. We just analyze, you know, this is this could get you sued.

This is how you should respond. You still decided to open a bar, adding adding that that liquor element. While it may make whatever you're doing more fun, but arguably it's going to add that risk to man.

It's going to add that right here. The people who are who are really drunk don't make always make the best decisions. I read that in the newspaper.

That's what I hear the Yeah, no, that's tough, man. And you insurance, you know, insurance is tricky when you when you have alcohol involved. I know a lot of the like, you know, race car places and things like that, you know, they have waivers, but alcohol definitely makes it a riskier proposition. But an LLC can protect you, right? You organize your business properly.

You run it properly. You do all the things you're supposed to. You would shield yourself from potential liability. You'd shield your personal assets, but you got to have good insurance in place. You got to you got to treat the business as a business.

You got to do all the things that you're supposed to do to get that protection. And there's other things you can throw some trust in there. You can double layer companies and entities. There's there's there's other tricks of the trade, but you hit the nail on the head, man. You got to form the business properly or else it's it's pointless.

Right. And a lot of people skip out on that expense. It is an expense.

It's not an overwhelming expense. But when you're just getting started and you don't have a lot of capital, it's it's something that people skimp on. And it's it's hard to go back and do it the right way.

It's one of those things. If you don't do it right from the outset, it's really hard to go back and get everything the way it needs to be. Yeah. If you botch your business set up for your ax bar and someone catches an ax in the face, that's not the time you want to go back and have to fix everything. Right.

Because you can't take the ax out of the face to do it. Question and answer portion of the program, the outlaw lawyers. Nice job, Cassandra. With that answer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Of course, the firm, the power behind the program. Cassandra is also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer and Josh and Joe are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices conveniently located.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you have questions, you can always call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email a question to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer those on a future broadcast.

We're back right after this. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located. Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and joining us from the Moorhead City office. Also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer, Cassandra Nicholas. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We hit the legal topics each and every week. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always contact the firm. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with answers to those questions. And you can always send your questions to the show.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer them on a future broadcast. Josh. All right.

I wanted to talk about the what? Pronounce this guy's name for me. Sharon, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. It's not Sharon is the same thing. Sharon, Sharon, Sharon.

Anyway, anyway, so he's getting he's getting sued, if I if I recall correctly. So Marvin Marvin Gaye, God rest his soul. Everybody loves Marvin Gaye had a co-writer to the song.

Let's get it all in town. And I can't remember his first name. And it's a great song. It's the descent is the descendants of Townsend, who are suing Ed, Ed, you know, Ed, suing Ed.

And for. Well, Cassandra, tell us about it. So it's for an alleged, you know, copyright violation of the primary chord progression being the same or similar between let's get it on and thinking out loud. So and Sharon's thinking out loud is not new.

It's like a decade old. So I think it's interesting that this is coming up now, but he is still making money on it. So it's still it's a continuing violation for as long as he's making money on it and could be brought up whenever. So they didn't settle, though. I'm sure this was going on for a while and they they never settled. It made it to a jury trial.

And I think that's really interesting. They put Ed Sheeran on the stand and he was allowed to take his guitar up with him and play the song and walk the jury through his process for writing songs and song creation. And like, how is a jury going to vote against Ed Sheeran? They've spent a week sitting in front of him, like four feet away with him, just serenading them on his guitar. So I'm not familiar.

I'm not familiar with any songs by Ed Sheeran. That's a rock solid legal strategy, man. Yeah, it is.

And that's one of the things. I can't believe it was allowed. He's just sitting there on a concert, right?

Yeah, he's just sitting there charming the jury. Yeah, I read, you know, what was the they did this they did this earlier for. Oh, man, what was that guy's name? He was the son of the guy from Growing Pains. What was that guy's name? Robin Thicke. Yeah, Robin Thicke.

So these guys sued him and won big money for the same. I think it was it wasn't Let's Get It On. I can't remember the name of the Marvin Gaye song.

You know, he has a different kind of charm. Blurred Lines was the Robin Thicke song. So there was there was a big Ed Sheeran, Robin Thicke, different ends of the man's spectrum. I understand that. I'm just saying I understand that.

I'm just saying. But that case, the Blurred Lines case started this big trend. I saw a lot of different people in the industry write about it and talk about how that was a dangerous ruling. That when Robin Thicke lost that that case, that was a dangerous ruling because they were really the argument that they used. And again, there's only a couple of chords and most popular songs and you can't trademark a certain progression.

So it's really like a I can't remember the name of the task, but it's just like a listening test. It's like, you know, and depending on who you're arguing in front of, they might have a very conservative idea of what a copyright infringement would be. And, you know, versus, you know, if you're in front of somebody else, they might have a very liberal construction of that. So it's really open for interpretation. And the Blurred Lines decision really took it in the wrong direction. And it's the same people who have sued Ed Sheeran and probably started about the same time.

And we're just getting to trial. Got to give it up is the Marvin Gaye song that Blurred Lines allegedly copied. But but but that's Ed's point, too, is that this same chord progression was used in like these dozen hit songs. There's more than a dozen, right? Like there's countless.

Yeah, for sure. So are you going to sue all of them? Are they all like does this stifled music progression moving forward? Yeah, the art where we're anytime the art and we've talked about several cases kind of where art intersects the law and usually it's in a copyright infringement type case.

Usually that's what it is. We talked about back in the day when when rap artists were sampling. We talked about Biz Markie.

That was the big case, right, where he got sued for using for sampling songs that already existed in his songs without paying for those songs. And that was right. That's that was a that was pretty clear, right?

Once it once it came into the purview of a court. Hey, if you're using, you know, 28 seconds of Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On in your your new song, then you're copying him. Right. And so that was pretty clear.

But then we've kind of gone from that to where you use these five chords in the same progression. But but Marvin Gaye and the and the guy who wrote a lot of these songs, their attorneys, if you look up their attorney, that attorney has been like the guy pushing for a stricter interpretation of copyright infringement on in songs. And he's won a ton. I mean, it's millions of millions and millions of dollars. And so he's just like pushing this line. His clients and him and his clients are all deceased. These are all the heirs of the deceased folks. And I don't know.

But this was yeah, this was like the perfect Ed Ed. Sharon's the perfect witness, right? Because I guess people like him. I don't know him. I like if you show me his face.

I'm like, hey, that's that guy. But I don't know any of his songs. I don't know what he's well, and he does a lot of his own songwriting. So I think he's a good test case here because he is the face of the music, the person actually singing it and the person actually writing it versus other cases where you've got to bring in the separate songwriters.

And the actual singer is like, I don't know, I just I just sing what they hand me. But this case has not been decided yet. The news yesterday is saying that Ed says that he's quitting music forever if he loses. Did he say that on the stand? What's he gonna do? He's probably all right, right?

Yeah, he's fine. But I'm sure the jury has already heard that now. They've been staring into his eyes.

And now they will be at fault for him never singing again. I wonder if the attorney I think a good question would have been like, Ed, can you write a love song for the jury? He's got one.

It's a closing argument. He's like, sure. Yeah.

And then, you know, the other side objects and the judge is like, I am gonna it's like the judge in the sentence. I'm gonna allow it. You got to respect Ed Sheeran, man. You like you've seen Ed Sheeran, right? Is he the redheaded guy?

Yeah. And like, I'm not a I'm not a handsome man, right? But I'm not a popular pop singer. But when you have like, maybe not the most traditionally, like very attractive, boyish good looks types that have reached this level of superstardom. That's when you know that musical talent man is top notch. You just said not very good looking boyish good looks.

Is that what you just said? Yeah, I mean, he's not like I mean, Cassandra, would you say that Ed Sheeran is like one of the top 50 most handsome male singers on earth? He looks like an adorable, rich high schooler. He's a cute guy. He's not like a Channing Tatum. Yeah, they're different.

I don't think it's interesting that you went with Channing Tatum. That was your go to. Yeah, that was right. Right off the tip of the tongue. Bang.

I mean, there was no hesitation. I always go back to I always go back to Alyssa Milano. No, she's no Alyssa Milano.

It's another outdated. Yeah, Ed Sheeran's no Alyssa Milano. What is Alyssa Milano looking like these days? Oh, I don't know. I'm sure she's doing fine as we age.

I'm sure she is doing fine. But anyway, again, I don't know any song this guy's ever sang. But I'm assuming he's had a lot of hits, right?

That's this. Yeah. Yeah, he's had a lot of he's Yeah, he's popular. He's super popular.

And he's like, super. He's like one of those musical savant types, right? Like I heard a story about him where like, he went on stage to perform and like does this whole concert and comes back out. And it's like he had, he created an entire song during what like, while he was doing the concert, he had come up with an entirely new song fleshed out completely.

He says he writes, he writes 10 a day, like 10 a day. He came through one of the shows in England, I believe, where he was part of a group. And it was a TV premise where they they kind of put him together. And he was part of the show.

And he kind of emerged from that show and did his own thing. And obviously, he's been very successful. Alyssa Milano is doing all right, man. Yeah, she's doing it. Yeah. And, well, you know, it's, it's, this is something that everybody, you know, everybody in the legal industry kind of pays attention to who's in that field, you know, copyright, trademark infringement.

And, but they're, they're spending a lot of time and energy trying to protect. Let's Get It On, which is a fine song. Everybody knows when Let's Get It On comes on. Everybody means business.

It's business time. Flight of the Conchords. Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar. I'm vaguely familiar. You know that, you know that show, Cassandra? No.

Ah, bless it. You guys gotta go back, man. I know it's been a minute. That's not even that old. Well, the writers strike just started. That was when I was in high school when that came out.

Gonna have to binge watch the show. I was gonna say, I think it's about 2010, right? Yeah, it's not that old.

It's not that old. They had some good ones, man. They had some good stuff. Yeah, it's still in HBO Max. Yeah. I'll put it, yeah.

Give it, give it a couple episodes. Give it a go, Cassandra. What are you doing? We have more questions coming up, and we'll also hit some of the hot legal topics around the country. The Outlaw Lawyer is Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

Again, Whitaker and Hamer, the power behind the program. And again, the guys are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, as is Cassandra Nicholas, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer. And she's out of our Moorhead City office today. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Now, if you have a legal situation you're facing and you've got questions, you can always call the firm, 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And as always, you can email your questions to the show, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com, and we'll answer them on a future broadcast.

We're back right after this. Welcome back in to the Outlaw Lawyer's. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Managing Partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, offices conveniently located, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. And speaking of Moorhead City, that's where Cassandra Nicholas joins us from remotely, also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer. If you're facing a legal situation, you can always call the firm, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

And you can email your questions to the show, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. Josh? During the break, just now, I'd never heard of this Ed Sheeran song. What was it? What's the name of that song we just listened to? Let's get it on? No.

What was the name of it? Was it Out Loud? Something Out Loud? Yeah, Thinking Out Loud.

Thinking Out Loud, yeah. And you try to slow dance with me, you weirdo. That's very romantic. I have to tell you, I don't want to slow dance.

You don't step on my feet. So we listened to that song. I have heard that song before, so I recognized it.

Very popular weddings. But I listened to it as if I was representing Marvin Gaye, and there was some let's get it on, I got some let's get it on vibes out of there. I was surprised. I thought that was a crazy argument until I just listened to it. No, they're similar, man, for sure. Yeah, they're similar.

But are they similar enough? What an arbitrary line to have to draw for like a for like a jury, you know, and the law is not so anyway. Anywho, luckily, we're not the jury on the Ed Sheeran case because we'd probably all be in love with him by now. Let's listen to the entire album.

And they're deliberating. But did you look into his eyes? He's so dreamy. Did you see when he was licking his lips? His boyish good looks. I don't know, man.

There's cuter boys out there for you, Cassandra. Anyway, there's other cases, right? In North Carolina. In North Carolina, we had a couple of cases come down, you know, North Carolina. There's a lot of discussion, you know, here on this show. I think we're all kind of different political affiliations. We try not to get very political, but in something that's hard to completely ignore it in North Carolina, our Supreme Court is, I guess, dominated by more conservative justices right now. Where in the past it had been more liberal justices. So there's been some reconsidering of past decisions.

Right. And so there's a huge and I haven't followed it well enough to talk about it on the air. But just as the backdrop, you know, there were some accusations of gerrymandering, which is a really crazy word. But gerrymandering, you know, when a party's in control, they have the option to kind of play with districts where people vote for certain offices, state Senate, state representative, things like that. And so I've always been under the impression. I'm not trying to accuse anybody, but I've always been under the impression whatever party happens to be in control, there's probably a little bit of gerrymandering going on. Right.

You know, it's just something that that parties do. North Carolina's got a big case and went to the Supreme Court, got sent back down, and that was kind of the big news. I don't know that we could keep our folks listening engaged with a very deep story about gerrymandering. But the other two interesting tidbits that came out of the Supreme Court was the voter ID.

I don't know if you were following that Cassandra. Yeah, that one is Holmes versus Moore. So that one was also a similar issue where this had already been decided by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and the new slate of justices is reversing the prior court's decision. So yes, voter ID required. The yeah, so that's that's the way it's going to be, you know, and I find newer, you know, as as we get away from kind of the checkered past there, you know, I know there's there's some racial overtones to to voter ID, but I think as the generations get newer and newer, and, you know, most everybody has driver's license IDs, things like that, it becomes less of a less of an issue. I think when I see polls, a lot of people favor having to present an ID at the polls.

I forgot about that. I wouldn't vote last time I voted. I just had my driver's license out. I just didn't even think about it. I was like, Oh, yeah, and they don't like that, right?

Because you're not you're not supposed to produce it until now. But now when something happens at North Carolina, you know, you'll need to you'll need an ID or driver's license, there's a cost involved, right? And I think an ID, you know, it's 10 bucks or whatever it is, but there's a cost involved.

And you see a lot of people talking about a voting tax, right? Essentially, because you got to get to the DMV, right? So if you don't drive, you got to get to the DMV, you got to come up with with 10 bucks, and then, and you also have to have your other paperwork in order to get that ID in the first place. So if you, for whatever reason, have lost your birth certificate, Social Security card, there are costs associated with getting new, certified versions of those as well. And that's, I think that's where everybody gets lost in this argument, I think, to a lot of people just make sense, you got to have an ID to buy beer, you got to have an ID to do almost anything, why not have an ID to vote, but then there's a lot of folks who just traditionally have not had one, because, you know, they don't drive, they it's just an added expense, they don't need it, you know, in their daily life and making them get one in order to vote, you know, is that an unfair burden on your on your right to vote? And so people weigh those kind of issues.

And, you know, who knows what's more right or more wrong, I think we'll, I think everybody will eventually get to a to an ID. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm from North Dakota, as I've mentioned on this show. But it's the only state of the 50 that doesn't require voter registration at all.

You can just show up on the day with like a piece of mail with that has your name and address and then you vote as that person, essentially. So I got denied when I applied to register to vote when I moved from North Dakota to Virginia, because their questions were, have you voted in another state? Were you registered in another state? And I said yes, no. So they rejected my application.

And I had to like, call people and explain like, yes, I do come from a state where you do not need to register. I, you know, I kind of get it a little bit, though, because I'm supposed to go I got an appointment. I don't know, I had to make it like eight months out.

But I got an appointment coming up someday this summer. Maybe I'll remember it at a DMV to get my what's the license you have to get so you can get on a plane? It's got the little thing on it. What are we talking about?

Are you talking about like the pen that the captain hands you? No, no, no, it has a real ID. Yeah. So we're supposed to we were supposed to fly to Tampa, and we're not going to fly. We're going to drive now because I haven't gotten my dumb ID that I'm supposed to get. But I was like, look at all the stuff you have to get together.

I was like, that's tough, man. I feel like I've kind of got my life together at this point. You know, like, I'm not. I don't feel like my life's in shambles. But I was like reading all this stuff. Come on, Josh, you're a total mess. Honestly, this is an intervention. This isn't even a radio show, man.

We're not even recording this. What are you doing? But I looked at all the stuff you had to get together.

I was like, I might have to sit down and like open some desk drawers and like put some stuff together. You know, I was like, I think that I think what I'm gonna do is I'm just I'm not flying anywhere anymore. Like I'm gonna I would you man, I'm gonna revolt against boycotting real ideas like the least safe way of travel. That's what I read in the newspaper. Yeah, in the news. I've been reading the newspaper a lot. The but but I'm just I get why like if you didn't if you don't drive and you don't need an ID like it really is.

How many people is that, though? I guess is the question as our society kind of careens on to having to identify yourself more and and our older folks age out. Like I don't know that that is. But I think non drivers becomes more common as denser cities and like public transportation becomes more common. But you just make IDs free because then you then it's still a pain. You still got a chore, but you don't have a cost.

I think that probably be more palatable for some folks. I don't know. What do I know?

Nothing. There is one more case out of the Supreme Court this week that made big news. So it was it was the gerrymandering redistricting and the voter ID. And then the third one is regarding felon voting. And of the three big ones, the other two were reversals of prior North Carolina Supreme Court decision.

This one's not. So this one is essentially striking down a law, though, that had recently come into effect. That allowed felons to vote. But that will not be the case. There are apparently 56000 felons in North Carolina who would be eligible to vote if this had stood. I don't know how I feel about that one.

I thought that went through. I know I definitely felonies are just like such a broad swath of offenses to like maybe we break that up a little bit. I definitely I definitely think as an overarching theme in our society is very hard once you've been incarcerated to, you know, I think they should make it easier for you to leave that, you know, when it's when your time is over and you're back, you're back in your everyday society. I do think as a as a as a society, we need to make it easier for folks who have paid their debt, served their time to to get in, get their rights restored. I know the firearms, you know, a lot of your constitutional rights are kind of suspended or watched more closely and voting. Once you're once you're out, you know, I feel like that's something that should probably come back to you. But yeah, that's a it's interesting because people seem to have is one of those things where people seem to have hard and fast beliefs on it without without really not maybe thinking about it. But that's a lot of action from the North Carolina Supreme Court in one week. Yeah. The outlaw lawyers, we've got time for one more segment.

We'll come back with that again. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and Morehead City. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, as is Cassandra Nicholas, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer joining us from that Morehead City office. If you've got a question, a legal question and you need an answer, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Final segment of the outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, the firm, the power behind the program. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia and Morehead City. And joining us from Morehead City is Cassandra Nicholas, also an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer.

And it's legal ease. We talk at each and every week. If you've got your own situation, you're facing questions possibly. You can always call the firm 800-659-1186, 800-659-1186 and leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. An attorney will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the program. We'll answer them on a future show.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. All right. Short runway. Josh, take it away. You guys know what I did this morning? Oh, boy. No. Joseph, you know what I did this morning? Coffee. It's not like a bathroom thing, right?

It doesn't make sense. I got I bought my Aerosmith tickets. Aerosmith's coming. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I've heard about those guys. Final tour. All right. Right. I hope they can. I don't see how they do it, man. I hope they can hold up. Yeah. They're going to be fine, man. They when you when you're a big star like that, don't you drink like blood and it makes you strong.

Isn't that what they do? And we just got our we just got our Willie Nelson tickets because Willie Nelson's coming back 90th. He's 90. That's pretty sweet.

Really is amazing. Ninety and performing. I mean, doing great. Yeah. I mean, doing good for 90. Wow.

Critical. You just got tickets. I'm trying to see how old Steven Tyler is right now. Seventy five.

That ain't too shabby, brother. That's like what's Rolling Stones. They just perform. Not too long ago. Yeah. I looked that up.

Anybody. Tyler hasn't had any plastic surgery. So these are upcoming concerts. But what about recent?

You've been any other recent concerts that were decent? I saw Willie's son recently. Lucas. Lucas Nelson. That's Willie's son. I just thought it was a guy you knew. What's the name of his band?

It's something the real the real promise. Yeah. Where was he at? He was in Wilmington at the Greenfield Stadium. It's an outdoor thing, but it was it was raining all day and the wind was nasty and they would not cancel. So I showed up.

I wore my poncho. So my yeah. My wife is a real big fan of Willie Nelson, but a real big fan of Lucas Nelson.

I want to like Lucas Nelson. I ain't I ain't quite got there yet. So he's a real person. Yeah. He's got his own songs.

I thought you guys were just making up something. Well, he's got two sons. One of them is going to be the one who's less successful is the one who's going to be with him at the Outlaw. Micah. Yeah. Mick Jagger. Seventy nine, by the way.

So Steven Tyler. Seventy five. Yeah.

And Mick Jagger. Seventy nine. Yep.

That does not sound right. Yep. That'd be a pretty sweet fistfight, brother. I think that'd be a good one. The dance off.

Dance off. But it was the one we got we got coming up. Oh, we got Stevie Nicks.

We got Stevie Nicks. What's that other one we got coming up? Lizzo. I'm not too excited. Lizzo. You're not excited about Lizzo? She's a she's a classically trained musician.

That's what I'm told. She plays the flute. She's one of those popular flute guy. There's one of these popular artists that I just don't know anything about. Like, I didn't know much about Ed Sheeran until we talked about him.

And she's another one of those like you're going to learn about Lizzo. You sound like a really old man. You don't know this Ed Sheeran guy. I'm telling you, everybody I'm going to see in concert is in their 60s and 70s. You know, I got really excited.

Start liking some new music. Yeah. All these people are going to die, brother.

I got some bad news for you. I'm trying to think of the best concert I've seen recently. It's probably Rage Against the Machine. They're old. They're getting up there.

But nah, they're not. They did. I tell you what, they had a lot of energy. A lot of energy.

That good energy. That was in the thick of the COVID too, man. I was like the first time I felt like we were coming out of it. Right.

We were coming out of it because you look down there in the pit and there's people just smashing each other. Yeah. What'd you say Cassandra? Judah and the Lion. I was supposed to see them last weekend, also in Wilmington, and they did get canceled for weather. So like a children's band? Sounds like a Disney movie.

I don't know who that is. It's OK. Is that a popular musical act that the kids like today? It's like modern pop emo. I'm looking at them right now and every member looks like they vape. That's what I can say about them. For sure. Or they're straight edge. It's one or the other.

Ah, maybe they vape like vegetable juices. Exactly. I was excited. I was excited about Aerosmith. I hadn't been that excited about a concert in a long time. What's your favorite Aerosmith song? My first tape that I ever purchased was Permanent Vacation.

Sweet Emotion. Yeah, there's no shortage of decent songs that they've got. So that would be a good one, man.

Hit after hit after hit. There's not been many we've been up to up there. We could say like there wasn't. They can fill basically an entire show with songs that don't suck, man. And there's very few and far between bands we've been to see that we can say that about. I think that's a great promotional to songs that don't suck. Yeah, you've heard these songs.

Yeah, they should just advertise to me. Josh, you've heard these songs like, oh, that's interesting. What if you get there and instead of Aerosmith, it's Judah and the Lion? You can hit the floor like they were at Rage Against the Machine. Just start smashing people.

Get out of there. Another edition of the Outlaw Liars in the books. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Cassandra Nicholas joining us from the Moorhead City office. Again, offices conveniently located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you can always call the firm.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And you can leave your contact info and briefly what that calls about and you will be contacted by an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer and email your questions to the show. Questions at the Outlaw Lawyer dot com.

For the guys and Cassandra, I'm Morgan Patrick. We'll see on the radio next week. Outlaw Lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.