New system will ‘block’ gambling. Summary

The US Congress enacted a bill in order to reduce and restrict gambling on the Internet.

Because of the bill gambling companies shares have fallen down. The new law should prevent banks and credit cards firms from processing online gaming payments and help to introduce a “coding-and-blocking system”. The bill against the gambling is needed in order to control a “shadow industry”. The bill has clear points about legality of gambling in the US. Some people feel panic because of legal uncertainties in the US. There are two different opinions about the bill.

US politicians support the idea to outlaw gambling because gambling is a serious problem.

SELF ASSESSMENT OF ESP LEARNING

WRITING SKILLS: Once I write a new summary I improve my writing skills. In my opinion my writing skills are not bad, but still there is a room for improvement. I could not say the same about ESP tests. I am not learning words as hard as I should; I just drill them for the test. Sometimes I even don’t know how to use one or another word in the text, because tests don’t give me this opportunity. Dictations help me to improve both my writing and listening skills. It is a good way of learning. Weblogs contributions are an interesting way of learning, but it takes some time to write then to type and put everything to the blog.

SPEAKING SKILLS: I find class discussions useful, because I can hear different opinions from different people and express my own view. I am trying to participate in discussions every time when I have what to say or I have good arguments and understand the topic quite well. Speaking in pairs isn’t as useful as discussions, because my partner isn’t very talkative and sometimes our opinions are the same and we don’t have what to discuss. Presentations are hard for me, because they need a lot of preparation and I don’t like to speak in front of the audience.

LISTENING SKILLS: Listening in class is quite easy for me, even if it is authentic language, because often I am not given the exact task, so I try to catch the main idea, in my opinion I am doing it not bad. It is harder when I have questions or have to do other tasks, it requires more attention. I don’t understand the usefulness of listening to podcasts. It’s hard to find them and it gives no use when I just listen and not doing other tasks.

READING SKILLS: I like home reading a lot and I find it useful. It is better when the text is not long and is interesting for me. Most of the texts I read without dictionaries and try to understand them, if something is unclear I check it in the dictionary. Some texts are too easy for me and give no use, but some are perfect and help to improve my knowledge. Reading comprehension exercises I find the most useful for my studies, but they also have to be high level that I could improve my skills. I find computer tasks not a good idea, because computer distracts my attention and is not good for my eyes. After these tasks I feel not very well.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. SUMMARY

Intellectual property is a work created by people and is saved from copying. The main types of intellectual property are patents and copyrights.

Copyrights protect the work when the work cannot be patented. The creator of the work owns a copyright.

Nowadays laws make people to pay for copying, but do not prevent from copying. The Universal Copyright Convention, the Bern Convention and the Patent Corporation Treaty are international conventions organized in order to enforce intellectual property law internationally. Intellectual property laws require asking permission from the owner of the patent or copyright when people want to copy works. A play, a television program, a tape recording can be recorded only for private purposes.

A trademark is a symbol, used by companies in order to sell products. Law helps companies to keep trade secrets confidential, but puts some limits upon the measure.

To infringe a copyright is an offence and the offender can be forced to pay fine or can be sentenced to imprisonment.