Daily Archives: March 21, 2013

Heavy metal gets attention of the Arizona House.

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PHOENIX—Republican representative Thomas Forese has introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at metal theft.

HB 2261 would amend the criminal code of the ARS 13-1820 concerning the theft of metals. A person would commit metal theft if “without lawful authority” the person knowingly:

1. Controls ferrous metal or nonferrous metal that is the property of another with the intent to deprive the other person of the metal.
2. Obtains ferrous metal or nonferrous metal that is the property of another by means of any material misrepresentation with intent to deprive the other person of the metal.
3. Comes into control of lost, mislaid or misdelivered ferrous metal or nonferrous metal that is the property of another under circumstances providing means of inquiry as to the true owner and appropriates the metal to the person’s own or another’s use without reasonable efforts to notify the true owner.
4. Controls ferrous metal or nonferrous metal that is the property of another knowing that the metal was stolen.
5. Unless acquired in the ordinary course of business by an automotive recycler or a scrap metal dealer, the inferences listed in section 13‑2305 apply to any prosecution under subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section.

Ferrous metal is defined as metals that will attract a metal while non-ferrous metal will not.

For the purposes of prosecution, the value of the metal would include the damage to the property from which the metal was stolen which occurs during the theft.

As an additional means of combating metal theft, the Legislator has also introduced HB 2262 which would amend sections of ARS Title 44 relating to the licensing and record keeping of scrap dealers in Arizona.

Currently scrap dealers are required to register with the Department of Public Safety and keep records of any transactions they make in metals exceeding $25. The new law would require them to keep records of all transactions.

It would also add certain records that scrap dealers must keep. It would also allow cities and counties to add regulations aimed at recovering the cost of enforcing this law.

DPS would also be required to submit a report every two years to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House identifying all scrap dealers in the State of Arizona. All law enforcement officer in the state to register with a free web site that would send detailed descriptions of stolen items to scrap metal dealers and other law enforcement agencies within 100 miles of the theft.

Senate Bill seeks to change vanity plates

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PHOENIX—There are currently three bills for new vanity plates working their way through the Senate.

SB 1116 Creates a disabled veteran special plate if $32,000 is paid for its implementation to ADOT by December 31, 2013.
SB 1343 Creates a Girls’ Youth Organization special plate (GYO plate) if $32,000 is paid for its implementation to ADOT by December 31, 2013
SB 2025 Creates a Fallen Hero special plate if $32,000 is paid for its implementation to ADOT by December 31, 2013.

If Democrat Steve Farley has his way, they will take a new shape. In response to complaints that officers complaining about the difficulty seeing the letters, the Senator has introduced SB 1206. The bill would change 24-2405 to read:

A special plate issued pursuant to this article shall have a standard design with one area on the plate that is a three inch square that is set aside for a logo or message. The department shall determine the standard design of the special plate, and the logo or message is subject to the approval of the department. This section applies to all special plates that are authorized pursuant to this article after the effective date of this section.

The Senator has also introduced SB 1198 which is aimed at preventing obscuring the readablity of license plates with coatings or electronic means. The Bill would add Paragraph D to ARS 28-2354 reading:

Unless authorized by the department, a person shall not apply a covering or any substance to the license plate or use an electronic device or electrochromatic film that obscures from any angle the numbers, characters, year validating tabs or name of the jurisdiction issuing the plate.

While there is a penalty for covering up the name of the State on a license plate, the bill does not appear to provide a penalty for violating the proposed provision.

See Also: Arizona bill targets hard-to-read license plates

Court sides with student in case over textbooks

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that textbooks and other goods made and sold abroad can be re-sold online and in discount stores without violating U.S. copyright law.

In a 6-3 opinion, the court threw out a copyright infringement award to publisher John Wiley & Sons against Thai graduate student Supap Kirtsaeng, who used eBay to resell copies of the publisher’s copyrighted books that his relatives first bought abroad at cut-rate prices.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his opinion for the court that once goods are sold lawfully, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, publishers and manufacturers lose the protection of U.S. copyright law.

“We hold that the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad,” Breyer said.

Had the court come out the other way, it would have crimped the sale of many goods sold online and in discount stores, and it would have complicated the tasks of museums and libraries that contain works produced outside the United States, Breyer said. Retailers told the court that more than $2.3 trillion worth of foreign goods were imported in 2011, and that many of these goods were bought after they were first sold abroad, he said.

Read more at Yahoo! News