“Music blasted over the public address system during Washington Redskins games is part of the entertainment experience, and deaf fans should have access to the lyrics of those songs, a federal appeals court has ruled.” [Leigh Jones, National Law Journal]
A quadriplegic man says Disney took 40 minutes to evacuate him from a stalled ride at its California theme park, prompting dangerous high blood pressure, and that had it followed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards it would have gotten his wheelchair out more quickly. The pain and suffering were exacerbated, the plaintiff says, by “the continuous, ‘small world’ music in the background.” [Orange County Register]
Food Safety Modernization Act, much scrutinized in this space, revived and passed after Senate leadership obtains unanimous Republican consent, now heads for federal statute books [ABC "The Note", Marler, Bader; National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition on amendments aimed at lessening some of the bill's burdens]
Cracked Bell: notorious California city milked small biz, tradespeople through vehicle seizures, fines [LAT] “How the Road to Bell Was Paved” [William Voegeli, City Journal]
“Nothing says Christmas like taking away a child’s treasured toy and destroying it.” [Boston Globe, James Taranto/WSJ on Providence, R.I. program to shred toy guns]
Domain seizures point up shaky legal stance of much music-blogging [Switched]
“Santas have a pretty good chance of getting sued” [six years ago on Overlawyered] And this just in: “Man sues Santa Claus Parade after eye injury” [680News.com, Toronto, Canada; suit alleges frozen candy tossed into crowd caused injury]
It’s resulted in a life-size lawsuit: “Bruce McCandless, the NASA astronaut pictured small and floating in space above the Earth, is now suing Dido, Sony Music, Arista Records and Getty Images for using his picture.” [Eriq Gardner, THR Esq.; Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
Update: “Tax Panel Rejects Lawyer’s Bid to Deduct Spending for Sex” [NYLJ, William Barrett/Forbes, earlier] And: “Musings on laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other ‘vice’ industries” [Meeting the Sin Laws blog]
Mississippi: judge jails lawyer for not saying Pledge of Allegiance [Freeland]
More on much-written-about Israeli “rape by fraud” case [Volokh, more, earlier here and here]
“Tribune bankruptcy talks complicated by emergence of pugnacious hedge fund” [Romenesko; earlier on involvement of hedge funds in bankruptcies]
“A woman who blames illness for her failure on Britain’s Got Talent wants to sue the TV show for discrimination because she felt humiliated by the judges.” Emma Amelia Pearl Czikai says she was jeered after health problems related to fibromyalgia hurt her performance. [Sky News]
Update: Australian judge tells Men at Work to pay 5% of royalties to “Kookaburra” owner, far less than was demanded [Lowering the Bar, earlier here and here]
McDonald’s CEO pushes back vs. ogrish CSPI’s anti-Happy Meal campaign [Stoll, Mangu-Ward] “Milk, Coke and the Calorie Police” [Jason Kuznicki, Cato]
“Lawyer sues basketball star LeBron James, alleging he is his father” [CNN, BLT] Update: judge tosses suit.
Small business tort liability costs estimated at $133 billion [NERA study (PDF) for Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform (press release) via PoL]
Crawlers, robots.txt and fear of litigation: “Some closure on my collision with Facebook” [Pete Warden]
Now what was Citizens United supposed to open the floodgates for, exactly? [Bainbridge]
DOJ “entered into undisclosed agreement with Amex to freeze out the employment of exec who ultimately was cleared of wrongdoing” [Podgor, Kirkendall via Steele]
Easter egg in financial regulation bill could result in new pressure for gender, ethnic quotas across wide sectors of economy [Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Real Clear Politics; Mark Perry with some figures on the degree of gender balance in Dodd's and Frank's committees]
How do you know the popular TV show is fiction? Because if a real-life high school glee club in Lima, Ohio were actually basing its performances on contemporary material without employing a small army of rights-clearers and paying heftily in royalties, it could face copyright damage demands approaching a million dollars:
Defenders of modern copyright law will argue Congress has struck “the right balance” between copyright holders’ interests and the public good. They’ll suggest the current law is an appropriate compromise among interest groups. But by claiming the law strikes “the right balance,” what they’re really saying is that the Glee kids deserve to be on the losing side of a lawsuit. Does that sound like the right balance to you?
“No actual kookaburras could be reached for comment, as they were too busy engaging in howls of derisive laughter at these litigious humans.” [George Wallace, A Fool in the Forest, earlier]
An Australian judge has ruled that a flute riff in Men at Work’s “Down Under” wrongfully used the most famous nursery tune associated with Australia, “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree,” which turns out to be a composition from 1932 still under copyright. [Carton/Legal Blog Watch, Fountain]
Everyone seems to be willing in principle to re-release public-domain Jack Benny shows that are milestones in early TV comedy, but CBS balks at paying for all the lawyering that would be needed. [BoingBoing] More: JackBenny.org.
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