Owners and players were able to come together to create a new collective bargaining deal to replace the current CBA that expired earlier this year. Negotiations fell apart multiple times, which resulted in weeks upon weeks of games being canceled by NBA Commissioner David Stern. The five month lockout to the NBA season was brought to a close in November and now fans, players, owners and everyone else can turn their eyes towards the court.

Five games are set for December 25th to kick off the 2011-2012 NBA season. Beginning the day at 12pm, the Boston Celtics will travel to New York to face the Knicks. A rematch from the NBA Finals of last season will follow at 2:30pm as the Miami Heat will play the Dallas Mavericks. At 5pm, the Los Angeles Lakers will play host to the Chicago Bulls. The final two games of the evening will feature the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Orlando Magic, while the Golden State Warriors face the Los Angeles Clippers.

The 66-game schedule for the shortened NBA season will run through April 26th of 2012, while the NBA Finals may run to June 26th.

The most important issue is copyright infringement. Artists copyright their music before it is released to the consumer market. With any copyrighted material, it’s illegal to take something lawfully protected for your own purposes, unless the copyright holder allows it. In the case of downloading music, the holder is allowing the recording to be sold online for your own listening pleasure. This said, you may not turn around and burn additional copies of the same recording for sharing with others or selling for profit.

The music industry claims that they are taking a severe loss in revenue because of illegal download and distribution of copyrighted recordings. Both record companies and artists are suing for music piracy, and many people have found themselves in court as a result.

Do not think for one minute that being accused of copyright infringement is a joke. First time offenders, if convicted, can be sentenced to three years in prison and fined up to $250,000. If you repeat the offense after having been convicted once, you could be making a trip to jail that will last for six years. At the same time, a civil suit can be filed against you. If you lose the case, it will cost you at least another $150,000. Neither the court system nor the music industry is joking about this matter.

There is nothing wrong with downloading music, as long as you pay for it or get it legitimately from a free download website. Whatever you do, do not burn CD copies and sell them or distribute recordings over a peer to peer network by file sharing. The consequences of doing so just aren’t worth it.

Planning for sightseeing is a good way of making sure that you will enjoy all your activities to the fullest and actually meet your expectations. As part of the planning, you will need to make sure that you know exactly where you want to go and spend your time. This is important since it assists you in determining exactly how much you are going to spend on the whole trip. It is important to make sure that you stay within an affordable range of your finances so that you can have fun without having to worry about what will happen next. Another important aspect of planning for such outdoor activities is to carry out an extensive research on the place you would like to go and visit.

Once you have done your research and are satisfied that the place you would wish to go sightseeing meets your requirements, you can now think about getting the necessary utilities. In the event that you are going to spend the evening or a few days there, you need to make sure you either check into a hotel or a motel, or alternatively make sure that you have tents or some other plan for spending the evening. Once you have these plans laid down, you can now think about how to get there, and also plan on some of the activities that you intend to carry out.