Peter Friedman's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the favorites dept
This week's favorites post comes from Peter Friedman, a professor at Case Western Reserve University school of law, Of Counsel to Hull McGuire PC, and the author of the excellent blog Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity. A lot of the "favorites" posts to date have been just from people who are regular commenters on the site, but the "community" here goes beyond just those who comment, and includes people like Peter, who is one of the lawyers I regularly rely on for insights into the law.
I have my own pet peeve in our society's obsession with property and ownership. More and more it seems people use claims of ownership to extend their desire to control as much as they can. And, of course, there are the legions of theorists who seem to always find a magic elixir for all of society's ills in the creation of new forms of property and "free" markets for them. So I enjoyed the post about "a small antiques shop, called Obsolete, in Los Angeles against the large retailer, Restoration Hardware. The complaint? That Restoration Hardware bought some lamps from Obsolete and then made similar lamps for sale in its own stores." The article Mike linked to in that post asked the following question:
If an independent merchant stakes his reputation to his ability to find rare and compelling pieces of design around the world, and he invests significant time and money to do, is it fair for a larger company to cherry-pick the best discoveries, manufacture lookalike reproductions and undercut the little guy on price?It seems like a loaded question, especially when you consider the implication of considering the practice unfair: elevating the "finding of rare and compelling pieces of design" to ownership of those designs. Mike's comeback is right on the money: "Funny, but I don't see anything whatsoever unethical about buying nice antique lamps and then making newer, cheaper versions for sale to people who want to buy them."
Of course, the desire to assert control appears repeatedly to anyone paying attention. As a Cleveland Cavaliers' fan, I was amused to see that the least of the "3 Kings," Chris Bosh, "is suing the producers of VH1's Basketball Wives for violating his trademark, publicity rights and 'life rights,' because his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child is on the show." She apparently doesn't say very nice things about him. In order to avoid being sued myself, therefore, I'll refrain from any comments regarding Mr. Bosh's teammate and former Cavalier. He can keep his life rights for himself.
But this type of grasping after whatever might be grasped goes on and on. "[T]he Tokien Estate . . . threatened author Stephen Hillard, who has written a bit of historical fiction combined with literary criticism, called Mirkwood, which uses a fictionalized JRR Tolkien as a character." There was the one law professor who apparently believes copyright law should protect brides from having their wedding dresses "stolen." And, finally -- back to sports again -- there's the NHL's threat to a car dealership for having posted decals on its window saying "Go Canucks Go," in cheering on the Canucks in the NHL playoffs. Apparently, the NHL's reasoning goes, the sign constitutes a trademark infringement because it might confuse customers into believing the Vancouver hockey team endorses the dealership. I better get that Browns sticker off my bumper pronto!
A few other favorites from this past week:
The Wall Street Journal�s stab at creating its own version of Wikileaks. Oh, except for that small point about offering no protection of the anonymity of any whistleblower who leaks information to it.
As a lawyer, I love the detailed and pointed requests Mozilla sent the Department of Homeland Security in response to the request from DHS that Mozilla take down from the online list of Firefox extensions one called MAFIAAfire that negates domain seizures by automatically rerouting users to alternate domains. Lawyers often get a bad rap, and often deservedly so, but the best lawyers are willing to stand up and keep their clients from getting run over. It's not always the most obvious thing to ask questions in response to a demand from DHS like this one: "Is Mozilla legally obligated to disable the add-on or is this request based on other reasons? If other reasons, can you please specify."
As a lawyer too, I think it's wise to know what others can find out about you. Mike wrote about the "details of what kind of info Facebook provides law enforcement on the receipt of a valid subpoena." Of course, you don't need to be the target of a criminal investigation to be subject to subpoenas. If you start a civil lawsuit or get sued, your life might become an open book. Legal policies differ across jurisdictions, and your end user agreement with any website might leave the door open regardless of the law that would operate in the absence of that agreement. Money isn't the only price that has to be paid when you sue.
contract?
there are some good reasons to like the narrowness of the opinion
So I wouldn't react the way you do, Mike -- that this is a big "win) for business method patents. It's more like a foul ball. It's only a win in that the patents aren't dead for now. In stating that the law doesn't preclude business method patents, the Court isn't saying that there's a business method that's patentable. It's just not ruling out the possibility. And Stevens' concurrence I think will prove to be persuasive when it comes to lower court consideration of more business method patents.
Do you think there are any business method patents that are sufficiently different than the one rejected by the Court that might cause lower courts problems?
(untitled comment)
judges as critics (as Peter)
the inevitable failure of the big recording companies (as Peter)
I suppose we'll have to replace what else they did offer -- A&R and publicity, but doing those things well do not require the enormous overhead they are saddled with.
why damages are available for copyright infringement without proof of harm (as Peter)
why fan fiction is deemed an infringement (as Peter)
"The Wind Done Gone" was permitted as a parody of "Gone with the Wind." In other words, it was permitted because it constituted a critique of and commentary upon GWTW. Since critique and commentary are, of course, crucial to the maintenance of free speech, parody is a well-recognized form of fair use.
Most fan fiction, however, is not parody. It is, instead, just an extension of the fictional worlds and characters created by the original authors.
I'm not saying that I think the fact characters can be copyrighted is a proper application of copyright law, but it is very well embedded in the existing case law. So much so, in fact, that a car ad without any dialog that had a suavely dressed man making a daring driving maneuver with a beautiful woman in the seat beside him was deemed an infringement of the copyright owned in the James Bond character. Ridiculous, but true.
more than speech is required to "assist suicide", at least in California (as Peter)
Re: You can't contract to wash my car next week? (as Peter)
And we contract away our privacy and liberty all the time. If you don't show up and perform your employment contract, you're in breach even if your reason for doing so is to enjoy your liberty. If you sign away access to your web browsing history, you've forfeited a good amount of privacy. We're not talking forcible extraction; we're talking mutual agreement. The problem is that we treat as mutual agreement situations in which we know it's a pure fiction.
(untitled comment) (as Peter)
I through a fit. These people wanted to be lawyers, and they had to learn that just because people do things a certain way doesn't mean it's the smartest way.
(2) The recording industry and the publishing industry are based on their ability to pay for and control the means of creating and distributing their product. The internet has put those abilities in the reach of anyone with a laptop, so their entire material reason for being what they were is gone. And they're too stupid to recognize that.
culture as our common touchstone (as Peter)
(untitled comment) (as Peter)
Do you think the EFF monitors all the YouTube takedown notices? How do you think this stuff comes to the general public and the EFF's attention? It's thanks to people like Mike.
parody (as Peter)
El Steevo and btr: thanks for concisely and accurately kicking out of the game that frivolous argument that this is nothing but a private actor suppressing speech on its own. How ADM could do it in this case without hiding behind the purported authority of the courts is utterly beyond me.
satire, parody, and criticism (as Peter)
abuse of the law (as Peter)
fair use is a right! (as peter)
(untitled comment) (as Peter)
(untitled comment) (as Peter)
public access (as Peter)
that gay gang (as Peter)
The entire basis of the decision is the genuine threat of irreparable harm to those witnesses. It's total b.s., as the 4 dissenters pointed out.
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