Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

“Copyright troll Righthaven finally, completely dead”

Judge Clifton of the Ninth Circuit (via ArsTechnica):

Abraham Lincoln told a story about a lawyer who tried to establish that a calf had five legs by calling its tail a leg. But the calf had only four legs, Lincoln observed, because calling a tail a leg does not make it so,” the opinion begins.

Before us is a case about a lawyer who tried to establish that a company owned a copyright by drafting a contract calling the company the copyright owner, even though the company lacked the rights associated with copyright ownership. Heeding Lincoln’s wisdom, and the requirements of the Copyright Act, we conclude that merely calling someone a copyright owner does not make it so.

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May 10 roundup

  • Electric-car maker Tesla doesn’t get many kind words from free market types, but here’s one [Coyote] More: North Carolina auto dealer lobby strikes back [News & Observer]
  • One lawyer’s selection of the worst lawyer billboards, though they’re far from the worst we’ve seen [John M. Phillips]
  • House hearings on litigation abuse and on litigation and international competitiveness [Judiciary, more, Point of Law]
  • Ninth Circuit cites conflict of interest, throws out credit reporting class settlement [Trial Insider; Daniel Fisher]
  • Private pensions, market-based water rates and more: “Australian travel notes from a policy wonk” [Alex Tabarrok]
  • “Use elevators properly. Riding outside of cars can be dangerous and deadly” [Scouting NY, seen in Bronx apartment building]
  • “It’s long been my view that blawgs, law blogs, are the greatest peer reviewed content ever created.” [Greenfield]

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Unblock international adoption

That’s the objective of a “Step Forward For Orphans March” in Washington, D.C. a week from today, May 17, led by Craig Juntunen of Both Ends Burning, a father of adopted children from Haiti [Daily Beast]. As one Facebook commenter put it: “We don’t really need ‘easier’ adoptions — we need to eliminate corruption, and streamline the bureacratic procedures, making the process more transparent and predictable.” And: “the solution to corruption in international adoption is to target corrupt officials, not to leave children in orphanages.” Perhaps the most appropriate target audience for the D.C. march would be the embassies of foreign governments, transnational organizations in the U.N. system, and well-meaning NGOs that have rationalized moratoria on international adoption; the U.S. government itself, by contrast, has tended to behave in ways friendlier to the practice.

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Pending ADA regulations menace Internet freedom

It’s potentially the biggest regulation in the federal pipeline that most people don’t know about — and it’s aimed straight at the freedom to publish of the Internet. I explain at Cato at Liberty. More: Coyote (“The implications could be staggering, and in certain scenarios would basically force me to certainly close down this site, and likely close down many of my business sites.”)

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Maricopa County settles another Arpaio-Thomas raid case

Taxpayers of the Arizona county are shelling out millions in settlements to compensate victims of the systematic abuses committed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and D.A. Andrew Thomas. The latest settlement, $1.4 million, was to a developer whose office was ransacked as part of a series of raids conducted against Arpaio’s and Thomas’s political enemies, purportedly in search of evidence of political corruption. “Thomas was disbarred for his actions last year, but Arpaio was re-elected to a sixth term as sheriff in November.” When organized lawyers display higher ethical standards than an electorate, I’m not sure it reflects well on the electorate. [Aaron Kase, Lawyers.com, Phoenix New Times; earlier on Arpaio and on Thomas]

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