Texas Law Bars Workers Comp Lawyers From Saying They're From Texas

from the workers-comp-lawyer-in-that-big-state-in-the-south dept

Ima Fish alerts us to yet another bizarre state law against free speech. John Gibson, a lawyer from Lubbock, Texas, who is an expert in workers' compensation, is suing the state after it sent him a cease and desist letter for having a blog at TexasWorkersCompLaw.com. It turns out that Texas has a law on the books that forbids workers' comp lawyers from saying they're from Texas. Basically, the law forbids the use of "workers comp" and "Texas" together. Gibson, reasonably, finds the whole thing absolutely ridiculous:

Gibson says the words are not the intellectual property of the state, but are in the public domain, that no governmental interest is served by regulating them, and that forbidding their use is an impermissible restraint on free speech.

"For instance, under the terms of the regulation, a physician or medical clinic would be prohibited from advertising that they accept workers' compensation patients in Texas. Any attorney who was board certified would also be strictly prohibited from using the phrase 'Board Certified in Workers' Compensation Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization,' which is the accepted manner and form for disclosing Board Certification in Texas," the complaint states. "These and other unnecessary restrictions on advertising are the result of § 419.002, without serving any governmental interest."

We've seen similar -- if somewhat less egregious -- attempts by states to regulate lawyers' speech, usually under rules designed to limit how lawyers can advertise their services. A few years ago, there were issues about the legality of some law blogs in NY and Kentucky, due to overly restrictive laws. But this particular rule concerning workers' comp attorneys goes way beyond that. It really just seems to be designed as an attack on workers' comp lawyers. It makes you wonder just who was behind getting it passed in the first place.

Filed Under: free speech, lawyers, texas, workers comp

Texas Governor Blocks Reporters He Doesn't Like From Reading His Tweets

from the unclear-on-the-concept dept

It's true that Twitter has a nifty "block" function, if you really want to block someone who is annoying you or who you don't like from reading your tweets -- and I've certainly seen various celebrities use it to block some of their more annoying "haters." However, if you're a politician, it's probably a bit extreme to block the local media who cover you. However, that's exactly what Texas Governor Rick Perry has done. He's blocked a few Texas political reporters from following his account. This seems particularly short-sighted for two key reasons:

1. It won't actually stop them from reading his account. The "block" functionality is pretty simplistic. You're really only blocked if you're logged in, so a "blocked" reporter can simply log out and look directly at the account or just get someone else who can follow the feed to pass along, or even retweet the messages. So it doesn't really block the reporters from following Governor Perry.
2. All it really does is call much more attention to the fact that Governor Perry apparently has a really thin skin around certain reporters -- perhaps not the sort of message he really should be giving out.

In other words, this action does nothing to actually stop those reporters from reading his feed, but plenty to damage the public perception of Governor Perry. It's difficult to see how there's any benefit at all in that for a politician. And, this wasn't just a decision of some political flack, either. Apparently, Perry's office has said that the only person who has access to Governor Perry's Twitter account is the Governor himself.

Filed Under: blocking, journalists, rick perry, texas
Companies: twitter

While Texas Politicians Claim $600 Million 'Lost' In Uncollected Online Sales Tax... It Means $600 Million Texans Saved

from the that-money-doesn't-disappear dept

We've already covered the ongoing dispute between Amazon and the state of Texas over uncollected sales tax for residents there. Apparently, a state politician complained about how the state loses $600 million a year because out-of-state online retailers don't have to collect sales tax. However, as Jim Harper correctly points out, shouldn't people be pointing out that this actually means that Texans saved $600 million per year because of the government's inability to tax them on it?

What happens with the $600 million depends on what you mean by "Texas." If you mean the government of the state of Texas in Austin, why, yes, the government appears not to collect that amount, which it wants to. If by "Texas" you mean the people who live, work, and raise their families throughout the state--Texans--they actually save $600 million a year. They get to do what they want with it. After all, it's their money.

The Texas tax collector is complaining because the last thing state taxing agents want to do is collect money on in the form of use taxes, which means something like going door to door to collect money from voters based on what they bought from out-of-state. Revenuers intensely prefer to hide the process, collecting their residents' money from out-of-state companies.

A good thing to remember in these discussions.

Filed Under: taxes, texas
Companies: amazon

Amazon Announces It's Leaving Texas In Tax Dispute; Governor Blames Comptroller, Says He'll Fix

from the politics-is-about-power dept

You may recall late last year that the state of Texas sent Amazon a tax bill for $269 million. The issue, as always, is the question of whether or not Amazon has to collect sales tax. Technically, e-commerce companies have always said they don't have to collect sales tax in states where they have no physical presence. Of course, Amazon actually has a giant distribution facility in Texas, and also bought Woot (based in Texas) last summer. It's still tried to avoid the tax issue by claiming those are subsidiaries, not Amazon.com itself.

Apparently, that strategy wasn't working, so last week Amazon announced that it was leaving Texas over the issue, making sure to announce that it had planned to hire 1,000 additional workers at the facility. Hearing a major employer leaving the state is generally a pretty bad thing for state politicians and Governor Rick Perry realized that, because it took all of one day for him to throw the state comptroller under the bus and claim that the whole thing was a mistake by the comptroller:

"That is a problem and I would suggest to you that we need to look at that decision that our comptroller made," he said. "The comptroller made that decision independently. I would tell you from my perspective that's not the decision I would have made."

In fact, Perry publicly began to explain why Amazon shouldn't have to pay sales tax on items shipped in Texas:

"You couldn't go in and buy anything out of that store, and that, historically, has been the way we defined whether you pay taxes or not -- if you had a storefront. This obviously didn't have a store front. It was specifically there to manage products that need to be shipped out."

Perry then asked the state legislature to make sure that it crafts some new rules that keep Amazon from leaving. Looks like Amazon just successfully called Texas' bluff.

Filed Under: taxes, texas
Companies: amazon

Photographer Sues State Of Texas For Using Image From His Photograph On Auto Inspection Stickers

from the even-governments-think-it's-ok-to-copy dept

Jon Snow points us to the story of a photographer who discovered that a photograph he took of a cowboy hoisting a saddle is being used as the background image on approximately 4.5 million inspection stickers: According to the report, the state had prison inmates create the stickers, and one simply scanned the image out of a "Texas Parks & Wildlife" magazine and used it as the background image. The photographer tried to get the state to pay up, but it refused, leading to the lawsuit. As Snow notes, this certainly might make you wonder what the statutory damages would be on 4.5 million instances of infringement? Of course, some of this may depend on the terms under which the original photo was licensed for the magazine (and if the magazine is a state run operation). Also, I could see the state claiming "sovereign immunity," which has become popular for state governments when they're accused of patent and copyright infringement claims. You see kids, when governments infringe, it's no big deal. But when regular everyday citizens do so, they should be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars, apparently. Seems perfectly fair, right?

Filed Under: copyright, inspection stickers, photograph, texas

Texas Sends Amazon $269M Sales Tax Bill; Could Woot Have Pushed Texas Over The Edge?

from the that's-one-expensive-bag-o'-crap dept

For years, we've had stories about battles between state governments and Amazon (and, to a lesser extent, other online retailers) over collection of sales tax. Under the law, mail order retailers only have to collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence. In other states, the end users (the buyers) are supposed to report and pay the sales tax themselves, though almost no one does that. Some states, such as New York, have tried to get around this by declaring anyone who's a member of an affiliate program to represent a physical presence, leading Amazon to kill off affiliate programs in certain states. When the legal battle over this happened in New York, a reporter in Texas noted that Amazon appears to have a distribution facility in Texas, and asked lawmakers how come Amazon didn't collect sales tax in Texas. Amazon apparently tried to tap dance around this for a couple years, claiming that the distribution center is owned by a subsidiary, rather than by the e-commerce firm itself (yeah, nice try).

But things appear to have become a bit more complex since Amazon bought Woot at the end of June. Woot, of course, is based in Texas. So, that makes it even harder for Amazon to claim a lack of a presence in Texas... and now, the state has sent Amazon a whopping $269 million bill for unpaid sales tax, going back a few years. Now, it certainly does appear that Amazon was pretty clearly ignoring the law on sales tax here, but it seems like Woot may have to step up how many bags of crap it needs to sell to help cover the bill.

Filed Under: sales tax, texas
Companies: amazon, woot

Texas Attorney General 'Investigating' Google, With Little Basis In Reality

from the not-this-again dept

I'm beginning to think we need a series of posts on "State Attorneys General Gone Wild." We've discussed the insider's view from Topix' Chris Tolles about how state attorneys general grandstand against tech sites, despite having absolutely no legal basis. We've seen it happen over and over and over and over and over again (most recently with Craigslist -- a favorite target).

Late Friday, the news broke that Texas' AG was "investigating" Google for antitrust violations, using the trio of companies that have been mentioned for a while now -- Foundem, MyTriggers and TradeComet -- who have all been making a stink about how Google is somehow violating antitrust laws because those three sites don't like their rankings in Google. All three claim that they're competitors to Google, and Google is somehow trying to hold them down. This is, frankly, ridiculous. As has been explained over and over again, rankings are an opinion, protected by free speech rights. And, furthermore, if Google was really trying to keep competitors down, wouldn't it actually focus on players that actually matter in the space? Besides, if you look on Google, you can easily find highly ranked links to all sorts of Google competitors. It's also worth mentioning, of course, that all three of these companies have some sort of connection to Microsoft.

So, once again, we have some silly grandstanding, and it's not at all clear what Texas has to do with any of this. None of the companies are based in Texas, and Google's not breaking any laws here. It seems like just more grandstanding by a state AG against Google. It'll be interesting to see what happens, because unlike sites like Topix and Craigslist, Google might actually have enough clout to not just give in and settle.

Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan does a nice job summarizing the ridiculousness of this (that's the link above):

My view is the arguments are generally absurd. None of these companies are large enough to pose any threat to Google, to the degree it would be compelled to take such stupid action. Moreover, if Google's going to act to block a competitor, I'd expect it to pick bigger targets -- say like Microsoft.

And for the legal view, we turn to Eric Goldman who sums it up with the title "Are You Kidding Me???":

I'm always amazed by people who forget that Google's organic search and ad ordering are editorial processes fully protected by the First Amendment. Part of this myopia is Google's own fault. It has so successfully sold itself as a technology platform that we forget about the editorial processes embedded in its core business. As a result of those judgments, any legal challenges to Google's search practices runs squarely into serious First Amendment considerations.

I'm also intrigued by the potential role of 47 USC 230(c)(2), a federal law which basically insulates websites' filtering decisions from any state law causes of action (except state wiretapping laws and possibly state IP claims). The interplay between 230(c)(2) and antitrust claims is hardly clear, but it's possible that the Texas AG's efforts are completely preempted by the federal statute.

Goldman also wonders what the actual result would be if Texas AG Greg Abbott "succeeds" in forcing Google to change its ranking process: "Let's assume Texas can actually establish a case against Google's algorithms. Then what? Will Greg Abbott start telling Google how it should run its search engine? It's hard to imagine that the cure will be better than the disease."

Finally, and in a way that no one else can, the folks over at Groklaw has an astoundingly detailed look at how ridiculous this claim is.

Filed Under: antitrust, greg abbott, texas
Companies: foundem, google, microsoft, mytriggers, tradecomet

The Need For Anti-SLAPP Laws: Developer Sues Author, Publisher, Academic Who Praised Book & Reporter That Reviewed Book

from the lawsuit-bender dept

We've been discussing the need for a federal anti-SLAPP law for a while, to protect people against frivolous lawsuits designed solely to get people not to speak up. Citizen Media Law Group is alerting us to a case in Texas that is calling more attention to the issue, and getting lawmakers much more interested in at least improving anti-SLAPP laws in Texas. It involves a book about a real estate project by Dallas developer H. Walker Royall, which Royall apparently did not appreciate:

When Dallas developer H. Walker Royall found out about an impending book digging into one of his projects, he went on a lawsuit bender.

He sued the author, Carla Main, and her publisher, Encounter Books. He sued Richard Epstein -- the prominent libertarian academic -- for a blurb he wrote praising the book. He sued Mark Lardas, who reviewed the book, and the Galveston County Daily News for publishing the review.

Uh, yeah. As someone who has blurbed a couple of books, that seems ridiculous. Suing the person who writes a blurb for the book, or a review of the book, claiming that they're somehow responsible? Blatantly ridiculous. The article notes that Epstein was dropped from the case for jurisdiction reasons, and Lardas and the newspaper "settled" with Royall (which seems like a bad precedent as well). However, the lawsuit against the author and the publisher is still going on, and it's drawing more attention to the need for anti-SLAPP laws.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, carla main, free speech, h. walker royall, slapp, texas

University Of Texas Discovers It Doesn't Get To Control The Words 'Texas' & 'Sports' When Used Together

from the descriptive-domains dept

Michael Scott points us to the news that the University of Texas, who has a bit of a history about claiming ridiculously overbroad intellectual property rights, has been knocked down in its attempt to take over the domain texassports.org. Apparently, UT already has texassports.com, and claimed that whoever registered the .org violated UT trademarks and registered the name in "bad faith." Thankfully, the UDRP panel reviewing the claim found this to be ridiculous, pointing out that you can't have a trademark on a descriptive term, and "Texas sports" seems pretty damn descriptive:

"Texas sports" is geographically descriptive and not protected by trademark. The University does not have the exclusive rights to "Texas" and "Sports." The University does not have a registered trademark for "Texas Sports." There is no likelihood of consumer confusion.

The University did not prove "bad faith." Again, common, geographic terms are not typically going to rise to the level of a bad faith acquisition.

Filed Under: domain names, sports, texas, trademark
Companies: university of texas

Texas AG Looks Into Price Fixing Antitrust Questions Surrounding Ebooks

from the had-to-happen dept

As many of you surely know, earlier this year, there was a bit of a fight between publishers and Amazon over ebook pricing, which resulted in Amazon backing down from its "all ebooks at $9.99" policy, and publishers getting the ability to raise the price on ebooks. The whole thing seemed a bit odd, and smacked of price fixing and antitrust (potentially collusion). Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so. Nastybutler77 points us to the news that the Attorney General in Texas is now investigating the issue. The theory is that it's an investigation into Apple's practices -- which could fit with the Justice Department's own investigation into potentially anti-competitive practices by Apple. But, I'm wondering why the focus isn't more on the book publishers. It used to be that retailers got to set their own pricing, and vendors requiring retailers to set a certain price violated price fixing laws. Recent case law has backed away from that concept, though I'm still not sure I understand why.

Filed Under: antitrust, ebooks, price fixing, pricing, texas
Companies: amazon, apple