“A Chief Illiniwek performance planned for homecoming weekend has been postponed indefinitely after the University of Illinois threatened legal sanction.” [Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette] Update: sponsors plan to proceed anyway.
Posts tagged as:
fans as infringers
- Facing four harassment claims, embattled Philadelphia housing chief files his own suit for $600K+ [Inquirer]
- “Ohio State Abuses Trademark Law to Suppress a Fan Magazine and Website” [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P]
- “Judge Dismisses Baltimore Blight Suit Against Wells Fargo, Will Allow Refiling” [ABA Journal]
- Trial lawyer taking behind-the-scenes hand in Louisiana politics [OpenSecrets via Tapscott]
- “Are hedge funds abusing bankruptcy?” [Felix Salmon and WSJ]
- North Carolina alienation-of-affection law strikes again: “’Mistress Ordered to Pay $5.8 Million’ to Wronged Wife” [Volokh, Althouse]
- “Lawyers take a haircut on a contingency fee in Colorado” [Legal Ethics Forum]
- ADA lawsuits close another beloved eatery [Stockton, Calif.; six years ago on Overlawyered]
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Unauthorized use of “Who Dat?” and a fleur-de-lis. [Peter Finney, Times-Picayune/NOLA] More: and a cartoon.
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Two Chicago grocery store chains, Jewel and Dominick’s, bought full-page ads in “a special commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated magazine dedicated to [Michael] Jordan and his career”. The ads saluted the Chicago Bulls great for his achievements. Jordan proceeded to sue them for trademark infringement. [Chicago Breaking Sports, Tactical IP via Legal Satyricon]
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The famous maker of candies and candy-dispensers is suing the owners of the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia in Northern California, claiming that its venture into Pez homage, which includes a Guinness-record largest replica of a Pez dispenser, infringe the firm’s trademarks and “deceive the public into thinking that the museum is operating under the authority of Pez.” [San Mateo County Times via Doctor Popular/Laughing Squid and BoingBoing] On Pez’s jealousy of its name, see this 1999 post; more on fans-as-infringers here.
More: Ron Coleman is being disrespectful (“You can’t handle a real Pez museum”); Brian Baxter, AmLaw Daily.
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…many commentators, and indeed, many fans themselves, operate on the rueful assumption that fan fiction does in fact infringe copyright.
Undaunted by this, Rebecca Tushnet, a professor of law at Georgetown University, and a keen fan fiction writer herself, wants to take fan fiction out of the legal shadows where it has operated, more or less at sufferance, for decades, and carve out a legal place for it within the US doctrine of fair use. She has recently helped found the Organization for Transformative Use, with the mandate to establish fan fiction within the parameters of legal, non-infringing use.
(Grace Westcott, “Friction over Fan Fiction”, Literary Review of Canada, Jul./Aug., via A&L Daily; our posts on fans as infringers).
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“A Doctor Who fan who gave away knitting patterns which created vague recreations of the programme’s aliens has been threatened with legal action by the BBC for copyright infringement.” (Andy Bloxham, Daily Telegraph, May 14). More: Times Online.
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One of the many things I like about my girlfriend is that she’s the one who wants us to get a bigger television. Of course, if we got too big a television, we might not be able to hold our annual Super Bowl party: the NFL is sending around its annual set of scare letters to anyone offering a public exhibition of the Super Bowl on a television larger than 55 inches. (Jacqueline L. Salmon, WaPo, “NFL Pulls Plug On Big-Screen Church Parties For Super Bowl”, Feb. 1). Yes, you’ve seen this story before: Feb. 3 and Jan. 31 last year.
Update: and at the WSJ ($).
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Initial reports had it that the car company’s lawyers were objecting to fans’ putting out a calendar adorned with pictures they’d taken themselves of their beloved Mustangs. Later, the company said it was fine with the fans’ publishing the photos and calendars so long as they didn’t use the Ford logo. (AdRants, Jan. 14; Culture Garage, Jan. 11).
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“There is a necessary and healthy line between what the initial author owns and what follow-on, or ‘secondary,’ authors get to do, and [author J.K.] Rowling is running over that line like the Hogwarts Express.” With mention of Judge Posner’s 2002 Beanie Baby decision (Tim Wu, “J.K. Rowling’s Dark Mark”, Slate, Jan. 10).
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As a Judge Morris Arnold opinion holds (h/t Slim) baseball players can’t prohibit fantasy baseball players from playing games based on their statistics. Earlier: May 2006; April 2005.
Not only does this post allow me to celebrate one of my favorite judges, but I can also use this platform to note that Kenny Lofton was out: not because he didn’t beat Manny Ramirez’s throw into second base (he did), but because he bounced off the bag afterwards while still being tagged.
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- Hush up with those jokes, now: Lerach Coughlin lawyer hailed as hero after jumping from his BMW to save pregnant woman attacked by pit bulls [ABA Journal]
- The “murky area between zealous advocacy and improper conduct”: Judge Preska sanctions Cleary Gottlieb for litigation abuse [WSJ Law Blog, Lat]
- Out-nannying them all? Edwards says his health plan will legally oblige everyone to go in for checkups with the doc [AP; MagicStats, Howard, Althouse]
- Apparently we missed out on the Aug. 31 celebration of Love Lawyers Day [Giacalone]
- To settle lawsuit by psychiatrist’s family, Augusten Burroughs agrees to call “Running with Scissors” a “book” rather than “memoir” [Althouse]
- Will contest over Maryland judge’s estate has dragged on for fourteen years [Washington Post]
- Recap of Flea fiasco (doc liveblogging his own trial); we get randomly mentioned [American Medical News; earlier]
- “Viacom charges man with violating his own copyright, after he YouTubed their program that used his video.” [Reynolds](but see: Evan Brown via Coleman]
- Is your lawyer a “chicken catcher” or a “chicken plucker”? [KevinMD]
- When if ever should “best interest” custody standard override parent’s right to free exercise of opinion, religion, cultural affiliation, etc.? [series of Eugene Volokh posts]
- Don’t forget to join our new Facebook group with distinctive content [if you're a member]
- New at Point of Law: Texas judge’s son withdraws from odometer class action; what do environmentalist litigators have against whales?; N.Y. Times’s born-yesterday Vioxx coverage (and this from Ted, which is pretty devastating); Dickie Scruggs takes down an insurance commissioner; sexual assault foreseeable when fraternity left in possession of unsupervised motel room? Marshall, Texas dignitaries rally to save their special court; and much more.
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A classic, from TechDirt (Oct. 30):
It appears that Universal Studios recognize that the followers of the cult favorite TV show Firefly would be a great source of viral marketing for the movie based on the show, Serenity. They put together a huge viral marketing campaign…. However, as with so many of these things, it appears that the marketers at Universal forgot to tell the lawyers at Universal, who recently decided to send out cease and desist letters to a bunch of the guerilla marketers they had pushed to promote the film.
More: Tijir, Oct. 28.
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