Plausible-looking copyright takedown complaints have demanded that site operators take down particular posts on the grounds that they are not original, but reprint the copyrighted work of a journalist that had earlier appeared elsewhere. The posts tend to be ones that are critical of someone’s reputation. But it’s hard to establish that the journalists exist, and the demands cite backdated links on fake news sites apparently created for the purpose with names that sound like legitimate media outlets. [Patrick Coffee, AgencySpy/AdWeek; Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
Are libertarians a center party?
A little more political than my usual fare here: my new Reason piece on Gary Johnson’s candidacy and the rise of a libertarian middle.
August 17 roundup
- Upcoming evening panel on the Olympics and aggressive trademark/copyright policing, with Jim Harper, Julian Sanchez, and me, Kat Murti moderating [at Cato, August 24]
- “We are drowning in law.” New reform project from Philip K. Howard’s Common Good [Take-Charge.org]
- “Extremely Rare Deadly Balloon Tragedy Leads to Familiar Calls for More Regulation” [Scott Shackford, Reason]
- FTC, reversing its administrative law judge, asserts widened authority over data security practices in LabMD case [James Cooper, earlier here, etc.]
- Baltimore police matters, gerrymandering, historic preservation and more in my latest Maryland roundup at Free State Notes;
- “Shark-Attack Lawsuit Raises Interesting Questions, Like What Were You Doing in the Ocean to Begin With” [Lowering the Bar]
Proposed Intimate Privacy Protection Act
Billed as a federal remedy for so-called revenge porn, the proposed Intimate Privacy Protection Act is hailed by Peter Thiel in Monday’s New York Times as a “step in the right direction.” For contrasting views, compare Mark Bennett at Defending People and Scott Greenfield (“poorly drafted and ill-conceived”).
Jury convicts Pennsylvania Attorney General
“Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted Monday of perjury, obstruction and other crimes after squandering her once bright political future on an illegal vendetta against an enemy.” Kane has thus far refused calls to resign from office, although her law license has been suspended [Philly.com] We’ve covered her ethical travails for some time, which included this excerpt from a post two years ago:
Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane dropped a longstanding corruption “sting” probe that had snagged several Philly officials. The Philadelphia Inquirer raised questions about her decision in its reporting, which contributed to a public outcry over the episode. Then Attorney General Kane brought a prominent libel litigator with her to a meeting with the Inquirer editors, and that lawyer announced that Kane was exploring her options of suing the paper and others that had reported on the matter, and that he was going to do the talking for her.
That was extraordinary behavior for a sitting public official — and, as we now know, indicative that underneath the bad appearances were some bad realities.
Wage and hour roundup
- Refuting wage czar David Weil: “Employer Concerns About The New Overtime Exemption Rules Aren’t A Myth” [Bill Pokorny, Wage and Hour Insights] Federalist Society podcast on overtime rules with Tammy McCutchen and Elizabeth Dorminey;
- “The Customer Service Downside to the New Federal Overtime Rules” [Coyote] The “mass reclassification that will have to take effect by December 1 has the makings for an employee morale nightmare.” [Robin Shea, Employment and Labor Insider]
- “A $15 minimum wage will crush the retail industry” [Nicole Gelinas] “$15 minimum wage shutters old-school Brooklyn diner” [New York Post] “Minimum-wage increase sinks Roseville bookstore, owner says” [Sacramento Bee]
- Service sector even more susceptible to automation than manufacturing [McKinsey vs. Arnold Kling]
- Employers such as nonprofits that can call on the services of volunteers should not expect that to rescue them from new overtime mandate [Daniel Schwartz]
- “A worker-scheduling bill would be bad for business in D.C.” [Washington Post editorial; see also Seattle, February]
“Why is a dog such a liability bomb?”
Daniel Fisher looked into the issue of dog bite liability after a utility worker’s suit charged him with failure to confine his dog (which was in fact confined by an electric fence) setting off a scramble at insurance renewal time to find a way both to keep his house insured and not lose his beloved pet.
Why is a dog such a liability bomb? Blame lawyer-friendly state laws that make it almost impossible to contest a dog-bite claim, especially when there are only two witnesses to the incident and one of them isn’t talking. Dog bite claims now account for a third of homeowners’ insurance liability payouts, according to the Insurance Information Institute, at more than $530 million a year, up more than 75% since 2003. Some of the most devastating claims don’t even involve bites: A $100,000 “dog bite” claim might stem from someone running from the dog and tripping in your driveway. Dog-human contact is not required.
OSHA: unlawful for employers to have rule requiring drug tests after accident
Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog:
Buried in OSHA’s impending final rule on electronic reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses is this little nugget. OSHA believes that you violate the law if you require an employee to take a post-accident drug test. Let me repeat. According to OSHA, you violate the law if you automatically drug test any employee after an on-the-job accident.
Allow me to pause while this sinks in.
The agency concedes that employers might still lawfully do some post-accident testing on a case by case basis so long as they are willing to develop evidence pointing to, e.g., a given employee’s drug use as an accident cause. Of course it is precisely such effectively accusatory, singling-out testing that is most likely to provoke litigation for having unfairly cast suspicion on an individual employee.
Free speech roundup
- New, much-anticipated documentary Can We Take a Joke? When Outrage and Comedy Collide [on demand, Greg Lukianoff] More on the fining of comedian Mike Ward by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal [Guardian, earlier]
- “It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!” [@donaldjtrump Sunday on Twitter] 25 years ago in my stump speech on lawsuit reform I criticized Trump for his use of legal threats to silence critics. More reportage on that history, a familiar topic around here [Frances S. Sellers, Washington Post, earlier here, etc.]
- Eighth Circuit: Nebraska regulators improperly retaliated against financial adviser over (inter alia) his criticism of Obama [Eugene Volokh]
- Nine senators (Boxer, Durbin, Franken, Markey, Reid, Sanders, Schumer, Warren, Whitehouse): we demand 22 right-of-center think tanks open their donation records to us [Carolina Journal]
- “Copyright infringer issues bogus DMCA over someone calling him out. Then denies all of it” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Lawsuit demanding R ratings on films with “tobacco imagery” deserves to be hit with SLAPP sanctions; “suing the MPAA to force censorship raises the stakes.” [WSJ Law Blog, Scott Greenfield]
“Hamilton” and progressive constitutionalism
Will the runaway Broadway success “Hamilton,” by repositioning our nation’s origin story, reinvigorate progressive originalism in constitutional law? [David Post, Volokh Conspiracy]
Bonus: Alexander Hamilton’s role in the development of truth as a defense in libel law [Eugene Volokh]