Following up on our Aug. 17 post: “Game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. was ordered to demonstrate an upcoming video game titled “Bully” for a judge to determine whether it violates Florida’s public nuisance laws. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Ronald Friedman issued the order yesterday. The move is a major coup for conservative Miami attorney Jack Thompson, known for his crusades against pornography and obscene rap music, and now the video game industry.” (Mike Musgrove, “Florida Judge Wants To See ‘Bully’ in Court”, Washington Post, Oct. 12; Jeremy Reimer, ArsTechnica, Oct. 13).
Posts Tagged ‘technology’
Web-accessibility suits, revived
In San Francisco, federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel has allowed a lawsuit by the National Federation of the Blind to go forward against the Target Corp., charging that the retailer’s website, Target.com, is insufficiently “accessible” to blind users. Websites are considered accessible to blind users when they (e.g.) include summaries or transcripts for audio/video elements and alt-text for images, while avoiding designs that require users to rely on graphic elements for navigation. Disabled-rights groups had suffered a serious setback a few years ago in their legal campaign to enforce web accessibility, when a court ruled that Southwest Airlines was not liable for the inaccessibility of its online ticket reservation system to some handicapped users. However, Judge Patel (regarded as relatively liberal by the standards of the federal bench) distinguished that case on the grounds that the Target website had more of a “nexus” to physical Target stores than did the airline’s ticketing site. (“Target can be sued if Web site inaccessible to blind, judge says”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Sept. 7; Bob Egelko, “Ruling on Web site access for blind”, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 8; Sheri Qualters, “Discrimination Case Opens Door to Internet ADA Claims”, National Law Journal/Law.com, Sept. 28; Slashdot thread). The ruling, in PDF format, is here (courtesy Howard Bashman, who also rounds up other links).
Longtime readers will recall that I’ve been much involved in the web-accessibility controversy over the years. Some links: my May 2000 column for Reason on the subject; various posts on this site, 1999-2002; my House testimony of Feb. 2000; Jan. 8, 2004. And this site’s earlier coverage of the Target case provoked one of the biggest comments discussions ever (Feb. 28, 2006).
Posting podcasts? Apple’s lawyers are on line 1
“The big question here, of course, is whether Apple’s attempt to own the word ‘pod’ means that we should pick another name for ‘podcasting’ before it’s too late.” (Wired “Listening Post”, Sept. 28). More: Slashdot, The Inquirer, Russell Shaw on ZDNet, and lots more.
“Suit Blames Video Game for N.M. Slayings”
Yes, it’s regular Overlawyered mentionee Jack Thompson (Aug. 17, Jul. 24, Jun. 25, etc.) at it again — how did you guess? This time he wants $600 million from Take-Two Interactive, Sony and other defendants over the rampage by 14-year-old Cody Posey on newsman Sam Donaldson’s New Mexico ranch, which left three members of the youth’s family dead in July 2004. It seems Posey had “obsessively” played the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. (AP/Washington Post, Sept. 25)(via KipEsquire). More: Lattman, Sept. 27.
Patent trolls and Paul Allen
In his New York Times column today, Joe Nocera recounts a battle between a company called Audible.com, headed by Donald R. Katz, and one called Digeo, backed by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame, over whether Audible was infringing on Digeo’s patents. The column is behind the TimesSelect screen (“Tired of Trolls, a Feisty Chief Fights Back”, Sept. 16), but David DeJean at ComputerWorld summarizes some of the relevant content and poses some pointed questions for Mr. Allen (” Patent troll? Say it ain’t so, Paul Allen”, Sept. 16).
World Cup nastygrams, cont’d
Jack Thompson, meta-Bully
Take-Two Interactive/Rockstar, a controversy magnet for its Grand Theft Auto game, has unveiled a new game called Bully, set at a boarding school. Despite the predictions of some anti-game activists that the new production would glorify bullying, a reviewer for the New York Times says it does nothing of the sort: “the entire point of the game is that bullies (noticeable at a distance by their distinctive white shirts) are everyone’s enemies”. (Seth Schiesel, “With Bully, Rockstar Looks to Beat the Grand Theft Auto Rap”, New York Times, Aug. 10). None of which stopped Overlawyered favorite Jack Thompson (Jul. 24, Jun. 25 and many others) from firing off a letter to Take Two and Wal-Mart vowing to file suit to stop the game’s Oct. 1 release unless they provide him with an advance copy to criticize. Bit-Tech has the gory details (Brett Thomas, “Jack is back to beat up on Bully”, Aug. 15). And now it’s reported that Thompson having gotten no satisfactory answer to his demand letter, he’s proceeded to sue under Florida nuisance law to demand such an advance copy (Eric Bangeman, “Jack Thompson sues over upcoming “Bully” title”, Ars Technica, Aug. 16). Update Oct. 14: judge demands to inspect the game.
More: Steve Chapman, as usual, has a relevant observation: “Like adults, who can enjoy murder mysteries without ever feeling the need to commit murder, adolescents apparently can separate the fantasies of mass entertainment from the realities of how they want to live their own lives.” (“Teens’ lives don’t always imitate art”, syndicated/Chicago Tribune, Aug. 10).
“Meet the original patent troll”
“Troll was a derivative of, er, me,” says Chicago patent litigator Raymond Niro, a pioneer of contingency-fee IP practice:
Niro’s former partner Gerald Hosier found fame and fortune turning Jerome Lemelson’s patents on bar code technology into a billion-dollar licensing business. But Niro taught the patent world a more enduring lesson: Lemelson isn’t unique. Like an irritating mosquito that GCs can’t squash, Hosier’s licensing approach could be applied over and over again, on different patents across different industries for huge profits. Niro has extracted royalties on everything from patents covering hemodialysis catheters to wireless technology used to locate items of interest in online maps. In the process, he’s made some serious royalties of his own: a Falcon 10 jet, six Ferraris, acres of land in Chicago, Boca Raton and Aspen, and a $250,000 gift to DePaul University endowing the Raymond P. Niro professorship in intellectual property law…. Love him or hate him, Niro’s methods have become ingrained in the patent world.
(Lisa Lerer, IP Law & Business/Law.com, Jul. 20).
Update: Western Digital hard drives
Reader Mickey Ferguson writes: “I just wanted to follow up on the original message I sent which you posted Apr. 14. On Jun. 20 I was notified that as a result of the settlement of this class action I am now the proud owner of the right to download free (and nearly worthless) hard disk drive backup and recovery software. Woo-hoo! Meanwhile, the lawyers win again. Details here.” More on the case: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, “Attention hard drive manufacturers! Most people believe that a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes!”, ZDNet, Jun. 29.
IP protection for recipes
Peter Lattman and the WSJ have a roundup (Jun. 26).