I’m quoted today in the Times (and this site is linked — way to go Times!) in John Schwartz’s piece on Sonia Sotomayor’s opinions in civil litigation, where she comes across as generally on the liberal side, but not an anti-business crusader (see also Adam Liptak’s Times account). Here’s what I said:
Some of the attacks against the judge’s business rulings turn a complex legal record into a caricature, said Walter K. Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative organization, and the editor of a blog, Overlawyered.com. While expressing some qualms about Judge Sotomayor’s views, Mr. Olson said “she will not be as liberal as many of the Republicans are saying — but no one could be that liberal, even if they tried.”
For more of the reasons that enter into this opinion, see my roundup yesterday at the Manhattan Institute’s Point of Law, where I and others have been blogging on many angles of the Sotomayor nomination, with more to come.
Tagged as:
publicity,
Sonia Sotomayor
Self-described as “America’s Lifestyle Coach For Health And Wellness” and “the quintessential, cutting edge fitness advocate leader”, Michael Torchia says he intends to sue Nintendo over the fitness claims it explicitly or implicitly has made for its wildly popular Wii game system, which, as Patrick at Popehat notes, is a bit of a competitor to his own services. The main success of the strained action will predictably be in drawing public attention to Mr. Torchia, a process to which, alas, we appear to be contributing with this very post.
Tagged as:
publicity,
sports,
videogames
In a 23-page opinion, Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York ruled yesterday that confectioner Mars inc. did not violate the right of publicity of well-known Times Square entertainer Robert Burck, AKA the Naked Cowboy.
Mars had run a billboard video of its iconic M&M cartoon character in a variety of NY-centric contexts, including one scene in which the character was “wearing only a white cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and underpants, and carrying a guitar–Burck’s regular get-up.
New York’s publicity law (Sections 50 and 51 of the state’s Civil Rights Code) is among the most stringent in the nation, applying to “any recognizable likeness” of a person used in a commercial context, making the win an especially sweet one for Mars. An M&M in underpants and cowboy hat, said the court, was simply not a depiction of Burck.
The court, however, refused to render summary judgment on the Naked Cowboy’s Lanham Act claim of false endorsement, on the grounds that passers-by might confuse the M&M video for the Cowboy’s (somewhat dubious?) endorsement. (Earlier coverage).
Tagged as:
privacy,
publicity,
trademarks
