- Is universal access to reliably functioning electric power better or worse in countries that officially treat access to electric power as a right rather than a private good? [David R. Henderson on Burgess et al., Journal of Economic Perspectives]
- “There’s bad lawyering, and then there’s lawyering so bad that the Tenth Circuit holds the plaintiffs’ lawyer liable for $1 mil in attorneys’ fees. But that’s what you get if you ignore orders not to file ‘any more prolix, redundant, meandering pleadings or briefs.'” [Institute for Justice “Short Circuit” on Snyder v. Acord]
- 1st Circuit: Dept. of Interior broke law when it turned land owned by Mashpee Wampanoag tribe into new reservation land. Feds: okay, we’ll comply and tribe will own land in conventional form instead. Progressive Twitter: settler colonialist shock horror! [WBUR]
- “Supreme Court Agrees to Decide, What is Hacking?” [Orin Kerr on Van Buren v. U.S.]
- “The Second Circuit has upheld the awful decision by [a district court] to sanction a building owner millions of dollars for daring to paint the walls of his own building.” [Cathy Gellis, TechDirt; earlier; Visual Artists Rights Act violation found after building owner permitted graffiti installations, later painted them over]
- “Led Zeppelin wins ‘Stairway to Heaven’ copyright case” [Jonathan Stempel, Reuters]
Posts Tagged ‘music and musicians’
Intellectual property law roundup
- The ethics (and law) of emergencies: heroic efforts to shore up medical equipment on the run, such as using 3-D printing to supply a missing ventilator valve in an Italian hospital, can run into knotty problems of IP rights [Jay Peters, The Verge]
- “Plaintiff recognizes that the community is in the midst of a ‘coronavirus pandemic.’ But Plaintiff argues that it will suffer an ‘irreparable injury’ if this Court does not hold a hearing this week and immediately put a stop to the infringing unicorns and the knock-off elves…. The world is facing a real emergency. Plaintiff is not.” [Lowering the Bar on federal Northern District of Illinois case]
- As churches scramble to shift their worship services online, a gnawing question: are you sure you have the right to stream that song of praise? [The Gospel Coalition] Beating hasty retreat, Disney apologizes for having sought $250 licensing fine against arents at California school who’d screened “Lion King” video to entertain kids during PTA event [Nat Orenstein, Berkeleyside; Isabel McCormick, ScreenRant]
- “It’s still early in 2020. But this is my vote for most annoying copyright complaint so far: a map (thin copyright!) shown (apparently only in passing; I haven’t watched yet) in the background of a movie that not only flopped but did so 8 years ago” [Zahr Said on coverage by Kyle Jahner, Bloomberg Law]
- Jury awards $1 billion to music labels against cable and internet giant Cox, after claims it didn’t do enough to combat infringement by its users [Chris Eggertsen, Billboard]
- “Newspaper Can Talk About ‘Derby Pies’ Without Infringing Trademarks–Rupp v. Courier Journal” [Eric Goldman; my Cato podcast on that subject with Caleb Brown back in 2016]
- “Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain” [Samantha Cole, Vice “Motherboard”]
Gig/freelancer economy roundup
In an emergency that has made trucking, logistics, and home delivery uniquely important, fractured the schedules of countless parents and caregivers, and sent the services sector reeling, it would be nice if California and other states were not making war on the work arrangements needed for the situation. That’s why California’s AB5 fiasco (earlier here, here) along with similar moves in New Jersey and elsewhere, come at the worst time.
- “Lisa Yakomin, president of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers… said the California bill is expected to cost tens of thousands of truckers their jobs.” [Dana Rubinstein, Katherine Landergan and Anna Gronewold, Politico; Deborah Lockridge, TruckingInfo; California independent trucker coalition] Operating in New Jersey trucking under an independent contractor model “is becoming incredibly risky,” as the state assumes power to shut down alleged violators by issuing stop work orders [David Kim and Salvador Simao, Ford Harrison]
- Jugglers unite: “My full-time job is being a mother, my second is cleaning houses. New Jersey please keep it that way.” [Antonette McKay, Star-Ledger]
- Musicians on the ropes as venues shut down. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could look forward to returning to an existent gig industry? [Fight for Freelancers NJ, Brian Ralston et al., Kim Kavin, Daily Kos (“The state could argue that by hiring you to play your French horn two nights a week, the theater violated prong A of the ABC test”), Michael Tanner (Lake Tahoe Music Festival), Ravi Rajan, Orange County Register]
- What hope for legal challenges to AB5? [Stephen Melnick, WLF]
- Audio/video: Reason video with John Osterhoudt on the California mistake; “State regulators and the gig economy” [Federalist Society teleforum with Alexander MacDonald]
- Getting services distributed to dispersed at-home locations is going to create a host of new communication challenges, but good luck with that: “The California legislature designed AB5 in a manner that completely disregards how professional translators and interpreters work.” [Philip Shawe, Crain’s New York]
P.S. Related Cato post now up. Truckers especially have many more problems than this right this moment responding to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, read about some of them here (and help if you can!) They have begun getting direly needed removals of regulations. But don’t let this one slip off the list.
February 12 roundup
- Did the Supreme Court err in Employment Division v. Smith when it ruled that the Free Exercise Clause provides no exemption from burdens on religious conscience resulting from neutral and generally applicable laws? [Federalist Society Rosenkranz Debate with Michael McConnell and Philip Hamburger] Will the Court revisit Employment Division, as four Justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) recently suggested? [Eric Baxter on Ricks v. Idaho Contractors Board]
- Maryland: “Don’t suspend drivers’ licenses over fines/fees unrelated to road safety” [my new Free State Notes]
- “A motley group of powerful companies have their knives out for Section 230, which shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by users.” [David McCabe, New York Times; Gigi Sohn on Twitter]
- Did U.S. Customs destroy an African musician’s uniquely crafted instrument, or was it damaged in transit? Stories differ [Isobel van Hagen and Sarah Kaufman, NBC News; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- R.I.P. David N. Mayer, emeritus professor at Capital Law and constitutional scholar who did important work on the views of the Founders and on the Contracts Clause [Roger Pilon, Cato]
- Another Emoluments suit fizzles for lack of standing, as I predicted three years ago [Megan Mineiro, Courthouse News (suit on behalf of individual members of Congress); sage advice from Grover Norquist]
AB5: California’s much-predicted freelancer disaster
“California’s new employment law has boomeranged and is starting to crush freelancers” [Elaine Pofeldt, CNBC; Kerry Flynn, CNN Business] “As with many of my colleagues today, because I live in California, I was just told that I can no longer hold a paid position with SB Nation.” [Rebecca Lawson, Mavs Moneyball; Whitson Gordon thread on Twitter] “Separately, there’s some bit of irony in the fact that just a few months ago, Vox itself had a headline celebrating AB5 calling it a ‘victory for workers everywhere.’ Except, I guess, the freelancers who worked for Vox.” [Mike Masnick, Techdirt] “These were never good jobs,” claims the measure’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), but lots of freelancers have made clear they disagree [Billy Binion] “Mainstream politicians and pundits love to cite ‘unintended consequences’ when their preferred policies cause harm in the exact ways libertarians said they would.” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, earlier]
More: impacts on music, theater, and the performing arts make AB5 a creative-unfriendly law [Joshua Kosman and Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle]
The Boston squeeze
Earlier this month a federal jury found two Boston city hall officials guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion after prosecutors proved that they told a concert promoter that unless it hired members of a union that had supported Mayor Marty Walsh, it wouldn’t get a permit for its event. [Jerome Campbell, WBUR, AP/CBS Boston, earlier here, here, here]
So far, so Boston. Even more characteristic of the city’s political culture: ten Boston city councilors put out a statement decrying the verdict. The really perfect touch? “Some 70 nonprofit organizations, representing environmental, LGBTQ, housing, senior, education, and civil rights advocates,” have also denounced the verdict, claiming that it interferes with “democracy.”
Veteran Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi calls it “bizarre” for these groups to “condon[e] threats from city officials as an acceptable standard for doing business in Boston”:
Supporters of Brissette and Sullivan argue that the case criminalizes advocacy. Suggesting that concert organizers hire union help might qualify as simple advocacy. But organizers of the Boston Calling concert were basically told there would be no permit unless they hired union labor. That’s wrong, and Brissette and Sullivan knew it. Joe Rull, the city’s former chief of operations, who testified under a grant of immunity, told the court that when Brissette wanted to employ that hardball tactic during a previous disagreement concerning the use of nonunion production workers he told him, “You can’t do that, it’s not legal.”
More from Josh McCabe:
In case you were wondering, here's the full list of organizations that took it upon themselves to defend extortion and corruption by taking out a full page ad in the Boston Globe. pic.twitter.com/fL4Q4CDSJF
— Josh McCabe (@JoshuaTMcCabe) August 26, 2019
“Music that changed the law”
“Occasionally, a band or artist will be involved in a lawsuit so groundbreaking and important that it will set a precedent… Here are some of the songs or albums that helped move the law.” [Victor Li, ABA Journal]
June 19 roundup
- Gorsuch: “A free society does not allow its government to try the same individual for the same crime until it’s happy with the result.” And yet he and Ginsburg were the only dissenters from the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision Monday in Gamble v. U.S. to allow consecutive state and federal prosecutions over the same conduct, the so-called dual sovereignty exception to double jeopardy protection [Reuters, Ilya Shapiro, Cato brief (with ACLU and Constitutional Accountability Center) that had urged an end to the exception; and a conspiracy theory about Kavanaugh that wound up having absolutely no predictive value]
- “When Should Plaintiffs Be Able to Sue Anonymously?” [Eugene Volokh]
- 77-year-old antitrust consent decrees were designed for a music business that long since faded into history, DOJ’s decision to reconsider is welcome [Federalist Society podcast with Kristen Osenga and Mark Schultz, Osenga blog post]
- Clarence Darrow once boasted a cult following among American lawyers. His manipulative speech in the Leopold/Loeb case leaves you to wonder whether much will outlive the hype [Bryan Caplan]
- Federal aid-to-state programs have exploded in recent years, a good way to redistribute money and power into the hands of political elites with little taxpayer or voter accountability [Chris Edwards, Cato, new study and blog post]
- Dear Caterpillar: do you think there is much likelihood of consumer confusion about whether this coffee shop t-shirt is promoting earth-moving machinery? [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
“‘Blurred Lines’ on Their Minds, Songwriters Create Nervously”
Four years after a shocker outcome on music and copyright: “The aftereffects of the “Blurred Lines” decision — which was upheld on appeal last year — have been felt most acutely by rank-and-file songwriters, who work in obscurity even as their creations propel others to stardom. The ramifications for them have been inescapable, affecting royalty splits, legal and insurance costs, and even how songs are composed.” [Ben Sisario, New York Times] Earlier on the case here and here.
Frontiers of the ADA: must live-entertainment vendors stage sensory-friendly versions?
Claim: Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) obliges live-entertainment vendors such as Broadway shows to offer “sensory-friendly” versions for autistic customers as “a civil right.” [Whitney Ellenby, Washington Post/Taunton Gazette]