- 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]
Posts Tagged ‘music and musicians’
The high (copyright) cost of “Glee”
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?
[Christina Mulligan, Yale Law School Information Society Project via Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] More: Legal Blog Watch, A Foolish Consistency.
Twitter gets a DMCA takedown notice
And pulls the offending Tweet [Jacqui Cheng, ArsTechnica].
Kookaburra, cont’d
“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]
Kookaburra sits on his royal-tee
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]
Can’t clear the copyrights, cont’d
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.
Update: “Apple wins appeal over alleged iPod hearing loss”
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a 2008 lower court ruling throwing out the class action against Apple [Reuters, Food Liability Law, earlier here and here]. More: California Civil Justice.
December 11 roundup
- Key Obama regulatory appointees at NHTSA (auto safety) and FTC [commerce, antitrust] used to work for AAJ, the trial lawyers’ lobby [Wood, PoL]
- “Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: Muscle, Talent, Results, and Terrible Acting” [Above the Law]
- Why so many great folk musicians are barred from U.S. tours [Jesse Walker/Reason, WSJ Law Blog]
- Folks behind venerable Martindale-Hubbell lawyer directory wouldn’t stoop to comment spam, or would they? [Turkewitz and more; related Popehat, Bennett]
- Palestinian sues Baron Cohen, Letterman, others over “Bruno” portrayal [AP/Baltimore Sun]
- A Rhode Island hospital settles a med mal case [White Coat]
- For a “cockeyed caravan” of law stories, follow a certain site (thanks!) [Arthur Charity, NJEsq.net, alas it seems a short-lived venture]
- Santa’s got a sleighful of health and safety problems [Bella English, Boston Globe]
“Subpoenas Target Rocker, Actress as Experts on Alienation”
An already odd binge of litigation has gotten yet odder: the California man who has sued Sony for kicking him off its PlayStation online network, and has sued Nintendo and Microsoft on other grounds, is now suing Activision Blizzard, publisher of the immensely popular online game World of Warcraft, which he accuses of maintaining a “harmful virtual environment” with “sneaky and deceitful practices.” He alleges that use of the game tends to bring on mental health problems, and — the best bit — says he intends to subpoena lyricist Martin Gore of the band Depeche Mode and Hollywood actress Winona Ryder as third party experts on alienation. [GameSpot via Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch; earlier] Update: Estavillo is subpoenaing Bill Gates too [Seattle PI Microsoft blog]
November 13 roundup
- “Jailed Inventor Reveals Details of Patent Troll Settlements” [AmLaw Daily, IP Law and Business]
- Sprinkler law inspired by Great White nightclub disaster could kill off small Seattle music venues [Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times]
- Court tosses law student’s suit against lawyer who boasted on air he’d pay a million bucks if anyone could prove him wrong about his case [Hoffman, ConcurOp; earlier]
- Baseball-anthem case: “The Boston resident who saw his recent copyright claim against Bon Jovi dismissed is appealing the verdict.” [NME, earlier]
- Man who climbed Mount Rainier while drawing workers’ comp pleads not guilty to fraud charge [KOMO; more on Washington workers’ comp here, here and here]
- Senate committee intends to vote next week on OSHA nomination of David Michaels without holding a hearing to air critics’ concerns [Carter Wood, ShopFloor]
- Blawg Review #237 is at Christian Metcalfe’s U.K. Property Law Blog;
- Are you sure you want to open that high-end restaurant in San Francisco given the city’s regulatory climate? [Crispy on the Outside citing SF Weekly interview with Daniel Patterson]