That has been a concern. Luckily, Firefox has a for-the-masses option to hide that pesky white bar thingy, so (for hypothetical example) my wife won't accidentally type "khols" instead of "kohls" and land on a phishing site and give them her cell and I have to go and shut down her texting account so she isn't inundated with .20 MMS every hour. (Nice brand-management, Kohls - even after an email alerting you it's still up.)
Too bad Chrome doesn't have that hide-the-white-bar-thingy feature. Guess I'll prep for jail ... even jail is safer than IE.
So, like, there's this long white bar at the the top of the browser that is usually filled with letters and numbers and often full words, and tells you where you really are. What's that thing called again...
I think the organic farmers got what they could out of this - repeated representations by the other Evil Empire that they won't sue organic farmers is not in a federal court record.
The Court had little choice on how to rule ... ripeness and all.
They were using an automated process to file documents that by statute have to be attested to as true under penalty of perjury (and, while corporations are people in politics now, they can't sign declarations under penalty of perjury either -- it takes a person). Remember those nutty bad robo-signed mortgages? Even those were generally signed by people.
So, frankly, no amount of apologizing is enough. And the reminding is for the rest of 'em.
This would be a great case study; see how the DMCA provisions for wrongful takedowns play out. Couldn't be better subject matter. (Damages may be problematic; but getting returned to the search index does require time and effort, and even attorney fees for donated lawyer time might be recovered - reasonable value.)
Too bad one of the *AAs didn't yank it ... what a watershed that would be.
17 USC §512(f)
(f) Misrepresentations.— Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section—
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
And by the Hammer of Thor don't do a silent video longer than 4:33 or you'll run afoul of of the John Cage Estate for infringing on his seminal composition 4'33".
... and on the other hand, one can get virtually all federal case filings directly from the gubment Pacer site for .08 a page.
That in itself creates a sort of de facto public domain government mandate that will be an interesting issue for the plaintiffs to argue themselves out of.
Legal briefs can be difficult and agonizing to draft; and the creative ones get read more closely = win more motions.
There are really only two basic reasons to read some other lawyers' brief. 1) As a jumping off point for how to approach a particular matter the attorney has not dealt with extensively; or 2) to steal -- er, copy -- the brief and the other lawyers' work.
And while the lawyer who wrote the brief was really incentivized by his duty to his client, a good brief is certainly a creative effort.
Westlaw et al. subscriptions are insanely expensive ... like moderate access to databases of case law, statutes, and a few practice guides in your region only can still be $500-1000 per month, per user. Access to the briefs and filings on a case comes at additional cost. If you don't pay extra for the briefs, you get this in a popup:
This document is outside of your subscription. Click "Continue" to view this content. To cancel this request, click "Cancel.
So the way to solve the problem is for Westlaw et al. to provide the briefs as part of the regular subscription (i.e., free, sort of). Or, a mechanical license similar to CDs, of say .10 per download, would not kill Westlaw, would compensate the author, and might even be a fair result.
Sum: This is a difficult question with good points on both sides. Terribly interested to see how it turns out.
...I believe the European Commission has a responsibility to provide our parliamentary representatives and the public at large with the most detailed and accurate information available. So, a referral will allow for Europe’s top court to independently clarify the legality of this agreement.
My understanding was the problem is not the legality of ACTA, but the potential for abuse and concomitant collateral damage; as well as the subsequent inability of countries to change their own laws afterward.
If that is the case, then this whole thing is a smoke-screen, so the EU Commission can come back and say, "Hey, the EU Court of Justice says ACTA's perfectly legal? So what's your problem?"
In the same vein, if I were to register the TM "Streisand Effect" for services (or for clothing: "Streisand Affect") you can bet that Streisand would get the mark over whomever coined the term ... er, Mike.
Just checked USPTO. There are currently five pending applications and all but one are 1B "intent to use" apps, with one of the first two reported being a 1A (use in commerce) application (meaning he didn't know what he was doing, or had already printed the t-shirts). Most are for apparel; one for sports player management.
It's not really a matter of who coined the term, but rather who was first to use it in commerce in a particular field to identify their goods or services (so theoretically, the jewelry and sports management and one of the apparel applicants could all use the mark if they didn't intend to expand into other fields).
After that, it gets complicated and grey, and there are areas of TM law (like domain cybersquatting) that statutorily recognize personal names as a basis for rights to the mark.
So in the end, my guess would be it will boil down to a "Dude... seriously" test, the "seriously" being that Jeremy Lin is the dude gets to use the mark after it all shakes out -- he being the subject and all.
My refusal to use emoticons to relay sarcasm does bite back at times. Let us not forget that stories like these spread as well, so old-school scarcity ploys like this are more likely to backfire. (Especially for a film that truly, deeply, sucks.)
And it's still available on Netflix as a physical DVD, but in the queue it is labeled, Very long wait. Is this scarcity a result of complicity with Netflix? ... one has to wonder. [Emoticon.]
(And it's not OPEC, it's the Republican Machine -- run by big oil -- that's driving up the gas prices to stop economic growth during the election cycle ... so says my socialist wife.)
On the post: UK Trying To Censor Parody Video About The 2012 Olympics
Re:
On the post: Feds Continue Crackdown On Poker... By Seizing The Wrong Bodog Domain
Re: Re: Nameotomy
Too bad Chrome doesn't have that hide-the-white-bar-thingy feature. Guess I'll prep for jail ... even jail is safer than IE.
On the post: Feds Continue Crackdown On Poker... By Seizing The Wrong Bodog Domain
On the post: Company That Issued Bogus Takedown Says It Was All A Mistake, Apologizes
Re: Re: Re: Imagine if
*imaginary or not
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
Re: This was actually a success ... of sorts
On the post: Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
This was actually a success ... of sorts
The Court had little choice on how to rule ... ripeness and all.
On the post: Yahoo Going Patent Troll: Threatens Facebook Over Patent Infringement
Re: Re: Geocities
I will add this link to my list of nostalgic indulgences (e.g., Big Macs, Zingers, DOS commands, frames).
On the post: Company That Issued Bogus Takedown Says It Was All A Mistake, Apologizes
Re: Imagine if
On the post: Company That Issued Bogus Takedown Says It Was All A Mistake, Apologizes
Re: Re: Re:
So, frankly, no amount of apologizing is enough. And the reminding is for the rest of 'em.
On the post: Key Techdirt SOPA/PIPA Post Censored By Bogus DMCA Takedown Notice
A Most Awesome Case Study...
Too bad one of the *AAs didn't yank it ... what a watershed that would be.
17 USC §512(f)
On the post: Guy Gets Bogus YouTube Copyright Claim... On Birds Singing In The Background
Re:
On the post: Westlaw And Lexis-Nexis Sued AGAIN Over Claims That They're Infringing On Copyrights Of Legal Filings Themselves
Re: Re: A few problems...
That in itself creates a sort of de facto public domain government mandate that will be an interesting issue for the plaintiffs to argue themselves out of.
On the post: Westlaw And Lexis-Nexis Sued AGAIN Over Claims That They're Infringing On Copyrights Of Legal Filings Themselves
Re: A few problems...
Legal briefs can be difficult and agonizing to draft; and the creative ones get read more closely = win more motions.
There are really only two basic reasons to read some other lawyers' brief. 1) As a jumping off point for how to approach a particular matter the attorney has not dealt with extensively; or 2) to steal -- er, copy -- the brief and the other lawyers' work.
And while the lawyer who wrote the brief was really incentivized by his duty to his client, a good brief is certainly a creative effort.
Westlaw et al. subscriptions are insanely expensive ... like moderate access to databases of case law, statutes, and a few practice guides in your region only can still be $500-1000 per month, per user. Access to the briefs and filings on a case comes at additional cost. If you don't pay extra for the briefs, you get this in a popup:
So the way to solve the problem is for Westlaw et al. to provide the briefs as part of the regular subscription (i.e., free, sort of). Or, a mechanical license similar to CDs, of say .10 per download, would not kill Westlaw, would compensate the author, and might even be a fair result.
Sum: This is a difficult question with good points on both sides. Terribly interested to see how it turns out.
On the post: ACTA Approval On Hold While EU Commission Asks EU Court Of Justice To Weigh In
Smokescreen?
My understanding was the problem is not the legality of ACTA, but the potential for abuse and concomitant collateral damage; as well as the subsequent inability of countries to change their own laws afterward.
If that is the case, then this whole thing is a smoke-screen, so the EU Commission can come back and say, "Hey, the EU Court of Justice says ACTA's perfectly legal? So what's your problem?"
On the post: NSA: 'Anonymous Might One Day Hack Power Grids!' Anonymous: 'Huh?!?'
Stock comment ...
If so, please make mine: Unbefuckinglievable.
On the post: DOJ 'Streisands' Its Own Prosecutor By Requesting His Name Be Removed From An Unflattering Court Opinion
Re: Re:
On the post: Jeremy Lin Joins The Linsanity Trademark Scrum, Files His Own Application
On the post: Jeremy Lin Joins The Linsanity Trademark Scrum, Files His Own Application
5 Applications, 4 "Intent to Use"
It's not really a matter of who coined the term, but rather who was first to use it in commerce in a particular field to identify their goods or services (so theoretically, the jewelry and sports management and one of the apparel applicants could all use the mark if they didn't intend to expand into other fields).
After that, it gets complicated and grey, and there are areas of TM law (like domain cybersquatting) that statutorily recognize personal names as a basis for rights to the mark.
So in the end, my guess would be it will boil down to a "Dude... seriously" test, the "seriously" being that Jeremy Lin is the dude gets to use the mark after it all shakes out -- he being the subject and all.
On the post: Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]
Re: Re:
And it's still available on Netflix as a physical DVD, but in the queue it is labeled, Very long wait. Is this scarcity a result of complicity with Netflix? ... one has to wonder. [Emoticon.]
(And it's not OPEC, it's the Republican Machine -- run by big oil -- that's driving up the gas prices to stop economic growth during the election cycle ... so says my socialist wife.)
On the post: Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]
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