Texas Trade Secrets Law 101 (Remastered)

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Fixing a hole . . .

Why would you redo a masterpiece?

In the case of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, perhaps the most famous rock album of all time, it was mainly because of the technology available when the Beatles originally recorded the record in 1967.

Giles Martin, son of famed Beatles producer George Martin, explained this in an interview with NPR. He identified at least four important limitations of the recording and mixing technology available at the time.

First, stereo was still a new thing, and the Beatles had released most of their albums in mono. This explains why George Martin reportedly spent three weeks on the mono mix of Pepper and only three days on the stereo mix.

Second, you couldn’t sit at a computer for hours mixing all the tracks until you got it just right. As Giles Martin explained, mixing was essentially a live performance where his dad and famed engineer Geoff Emerick adjusted the levels on the fly.

Third, they had to keep the drum levels down, literally to keep the needle from jumping out of the groove of the record. Sorry, Ringo.

And finally, the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper on the four-track technology available at the time. If you know the album at all, you know the songs must have had more than four tracks. This magic was achieved by recording one four-track tape to a single track of another four-track tape.

Voila! Sixteen tracks. But sound quality was lost in the process.

When Giles Martin remixed the classic album in 2017, he was able to avoid all four problems. The result was a version of Sgt. Pepper that was noticeably different—and better, according to most listeners—without sounding too different.

The act you’ve known for all these years . . .

That’s what I wanted for Version 3.0 of my “Texas Trade Secrets Law 101” paper. Stick to the original concept—talk right down to earth, in a language lawyers and non-lawyers can easily understand—but update and improve it.

I had one problem Giles Martin didn’t: the temptation to make the paper longer. Giles wasn’t about to add new songs to the album (aside from alternate takes and songs available on the Super Deluxe version), but I had the ability to add new sections, new cases, new commentary.

To avoid the trap of making the paper longer and less readable, I imposed a limitation on myself: add new case cites where helpful, but keep the paper under five thousand words.

How? I had to count them all. Plus, I got under the limit by deleting some unnecessary citations, trying to tighten up the language throughout, and eliminating some of my personal commentary.

That last part was perhaps the hardest. My personal views gave earlier versions flavor. But sometimes you just have to cut the fluff. And I have to admit, it’s getting better.

After all, the goal of Texas Trade Secrets Law 101 (Remastered) is not to wax philosophical, but to give Texas business people and the lawyers who represent them a practical but substantive guide to the essentials of Texas non-compete law and litigation. You can download it here:

 

As I say in the Conclusion, the paper only scratches the surface, but it’s Texas Trade Secrets Law 101, not Advanced Texas Trade Secrets Law.

You’ll have to wait for the “Advanced” version. It can’t get no worse.

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Zach Wolfe (zach@zachwolfelaw.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at Zach Wolfe Law Firm (zachwolfelaw.com). Thomson Reuters named him a Texas “Super Lawyer”® for Business Litigation in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post (or the paper) as legal advice for your case.

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