This semester we have received several warnings from our Internet service provider that copyrighted movies and TV shows are being downloaded illegally via our wireless network. The Information Technology office is now ascertaining who is doing this. Once we have names of the individuals involved, we intend to give them to the copyright holders for enforcement purposes.
This stance proved unpopular with BLS students, as well as ATL readers. In a poll, about 75 percent of readers answered “yes” when asked, “Should Brooklyn Law School do more to protect its students from being sued for illegal downloading?”
It seems that Brooklyn Law School has had a change of heart. Check out the email that went out this afternoon, plus selected reader comments, after the jump.
Today we received this e-mail from the administration, which is causing quite an uproar among the student body.
The gist of it seems to be that, contrary to the practice of other schools, BLS will begin actively investigating [illegal] downloading and proactively providing names of people to media [companies] so [the individuals in question] can be sued.
I believe the typical practice at other schools (graduate and undergraduate) and institutions is to wait for a subpoena and either cooperate or fight the subpoena, not to go out of their way to inform on their students.
The total cost of attendance at Brooklyn Law for the 2009-2010 academic year, for full-time students not living with their parents (God forbid), is a shade over $66,000. Shouldn’t that buy BLS’s silence?
Or is the law school in the right here? Shouldn’t law students, i.e., future lawyers, know and follow the law?
What should be done to protect fashion designers from copycats? Law professor Gerard Magliocca would probably say nothing, but other observers are more sympathetic to the designers. Law profs Scott Hemphill (recently married) and Jeannie Suk (half of celebrity couple Feldsuk) propose what they call “the squint test.”
Although fashion designs don’t currently enjoy copyright protection, designers who feel they’ve been ripped off do have other options. They can try suing under a theory of trade dress infringement, which is exactly what some of them have been doing.
Trade dress litigation over fashion designs seems as ubiquitous this season as thigh-high boots. Alexander McQueen recently sued Steve Madden, claiming that Madden’s Seryna peeptoe bootie is a ripoff of McQueen’s Faithful model (see for yourself here). Meanwhile, Forever 21, the fashion retailer known for cheap knock-offs, umm, affordable interpretations of designer fashion, has settled a lawsuit brought by Trovata, the Newport Beach clothing company. Trovata claimed that Forever 21 was copying its striped tees, sweaters and blouses.
You can read more, compare the designs, and comment, over at Fashionista (links below).
You learn a few things when you survive a major outbreak of alleged racism before you even graduate from law school. One thing you learn is that you don’t have to step aside quietly when million-dollar judgments go against your client.
Last month, we reported that Jammie Thomas-Rasset — who is represented by K.A.D. Camara — was hit with a $1.92 million judgment for illegally downloading 24 songs. When we spoke to Camara about the verdict, he expressed his belief that the high penalty could be problematic for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA):
I think a verdict this high may backfire against the RIAA. It makes clear that there’s a problem with the statute. And there are many grounds for appeal in Jammie’s case.
The problem is that Jammie Thomas-Rasset has already been tried twice.
But that isn’t going to stop the law firm of Camara & Sibley. Threat Level reports that Camara has asked U.S. District Judge Michael Davis to set aside the $1.92 million verdict, declare the Copyright Act unconstitutional, or at least order a new jury trial to assess damages.
Put another way, we’ve gotten to the “kitchen sink” point of this litigation.
* What is up with judges behaving badly? There was Nottingham, Kent (who sexually harassed court employees) and that judge who was taking bribes to send innocent juvenile delinquents to jail! Now, New York Judge James M. Peck was arrested for hitting his wife, who called 911 from their Park Avenue apartment. Get it together guys. [The New York Times]
* A New York judge threw out a lawsuit accusing “Family Guy” of copyright infringement for spoofing “When You Wish Upon a Star” with a song entitled “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein” about hiring a Jewish person to help with the family finances. The song may be anti-Semitic, but the judge said copyright does not protect against parody. Sorry guy. [The Associated Press]
* Did Madoff swindle you? You probably won’t get your money back, but you can get some free veal osso bucco. Restaurant Nino’s 208 in New York a few blocks away from Madoff’s office is giving away free meals—customers must show the restaurant manager monthly statements from Madoff to cash in. [The New York Times]
* Protesting lawyers were ecstatic yesterday when Pakistan agreed to re-instate an ousted Supreme Court Justice. [The Associated Press]
* Some laid-off lawyers and law students whose offers have been rescinded have found jobs in public works. [CNN.com]
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:30 PM - By Kashmir Hill
Stanford law professor Larry Lessig had an editorial in the Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition, “In defense of piracy.” Lessig starts off hating on the lawyers who went after the mother in the dancing baby/YouTube/Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” case. (Background here.)
How is it that sensible people, people no doubt educated at some of the best universities and law schools in the country, would come to think it a sane use of corporate resources to threaten the mother of a dancing 13-month-old? What is it that allows these lawyers and executives to take a case like this seriously, to believe there’s some important social or corporate reason to deploy the federal scheme of regulation called copyright to stop the spread of these images and music?
The answer: Crazy copyright law.
Lessig goes on to defend others whose creativity is derived from others’ creativity, like Danger Mouse and mash-up artist Girl Talk, whose latest album samples from 300 different songs. No rights acquired.
Midway through, the editorial goes into “Braveheart” mode. There’s a war going on, says Lessig— the “copyright wars.” Kids these days are sharing copyrighted material through peer-to-peer networks, while the art world is embracing a rampant remix culture.
This war must end. It is time we recognize that we can’t kill this creativity. We can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using these tools to create, or make them passive. We can only drive it underground, or make them “pirates.” And the question we as a society must focus on is whether this is any good. Our kids live in an age of prohibition, where more and more of what seems to them to be ordinary behavior is against the law. They recognize it as against the law. They see themselves as “criminals.” They begin to get used to the idea.
That recognition is corrosive. It is corrupting of the very idea of the rule of law. And when we reckon the cost of this corruption, any losses of the content industry pale in comparison.
That’s heavy. Lessig’s suggestions for ending the war, saving our lawless kids, and encouraging creativity, after the jump.
[Ed. note: This post is by SOPHIST, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Sophist’s avatar (at right).]
This is why people hate lawyers. This is why lawyers hate lawyers. Scrabulous was too much fun for lawyers to leave it alone.
Hasbro has a legitimate issue, because Scrabulous is clearly ripping them off. Facebook had no choice but to remove Scrabulous once Hasbro smacked them around with a DMCA notification.
But there are other legal issues that Hasbro would like you to ignore. There are split IP rights for the Scrabble franchise; Hasbro owns the North American rights (licensed to Electronic Arts for online play), Mattel owns the rights elsewhere.
Scrabulous’ real sin is that it allows you to log on in New York and play someone living in York. Hasbro’s and EA’s exclusively North American products can’t compete, and that puts panties in a bunch.
Aside from Facebook-stalking counsel from Hasbro and Mattel, what is the solution? Hasbro’s open contempt for the consumer does nothing to change the fact that they have a solid case. They’ve even offered to pay Scrabulous’ creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla handily just to go away. But as Real Networks CEO Robert Glaser points out, the real problem is that Hasbro and Mattel must merge their rights.
They’d better get on that soon or I’m going to have to go back to anime porn to pass the time.
Several of you brought this sad news to our attention, including one tipster who wrote: “It’s gone! And I had a friggin bingo to put down.”
But we were already aware of the demise of Scrabulous. When we tried to access our games this morning, we received this message: “Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.”
Sigh. Those pesky intellectual-property laws….
P.S. Kash is lucky. She reports that she still has Scrabulous access over in Hong Kong.
Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. It’s all over the news these days due to a spate of lawsuits. If we weren’t so into Facebook, we might be over it. It’s way overexposed.
Anyway, here’s one of the latest suits. This one is near and dear to our hearts, as it concerns one of our favorite procrastination tools Facebook applications: Scrabulous. From the Associated Press:
The Indian creators of a Scrabble knock-off that has become one of the most popular activities on Facebook have been sued by Hasbro, the company that owns the word game’s North American rights.
You might think this will give you the opportunity to break your Scrabulous habit and stop wasting so much time on Facebook. Not so fast — Hasbro conveniently launched its own version and hopes to keep you hooked:
The suit against Scrabulous’s creators comes less than two weeks after the release of an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook.
Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game.
(Lat, let’s not start a new game until they figure this out. I shall savor my recent victory for now.)
More Facebook legal news, and a reason to create a Facebook profile if you haven’t already, after the jump.
We’re not naming names, but many bloggers quote liberally from Associated Press stories. Sharing news from the mainstream media, and then digesting it and editorializing on it, is a big part of what we do. And the AP is a big part of the mainstream media.
So our ears perked up when we read that the AP is meeting with the Media Bloggers Association to discuss “standards for online use of AP stories.” We imagine there will be quite a few lawyers at the meeting, and an extensive conversation about fair use of copyrighted material.
Wendy Seltzer, a legal scholar and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, said it was encouraging that AP wanted to find an arrangement with bloggers to facilitate a mutually agreeable way for them to use AP content.
It sounds like the AP is looking to the future. The AP is likely thinking about new sources of revenue, and charging online outlets for use of their stories could offer the AP a way to make up for cuts from shrinking newspaper budgets.
But [Seltzer] cautioned that the news organization, a not-for-profit cooperative owned by its member newspapers and broadcasters, should not try to go beyond what’s legally permissible.
“If they take those guidelines and start using them to refine the way they make complaints, and if they closely match the law, then it’s helpful — it’s a restraint on their own legal department,” Seltzer said.
“If they were on the other hand to say, you may use 10 words only and any time you use 11 we’ll send a takedown notice, that wouldn’t be helpful,” Seltzer said.
Wendy, next time, could you tighten up your quotes to 10 words or less?
The Wall Street Journal has been writing about Mattel’s lawsuit against Bratz and has a rundown on the upcoming trial on the WSJ Law Blog. Bratz, “the only girls with a passion for fashion,” knocked Barbie from her throne when they hit stores in 2001. At issue in Barbie’s suit is whether the man behind the Bratz concept was at Mattel when he dreamed up the attitude-laden dolls.
Allegedly, the person who broke the news to Barbie about the designer’s possible betrayal is now a blogger at Jezebel. In 2003, when she broke the story, she was writing as Maureen Tkacik at the Wall Street Journal. Now, she’s Moe at Jezebel and she’s ignoring her summons for the trial!
Her Jezebel post starts off, “I’m supposed to be in court in Riverside County, California right now.” She’s totally got the Bratz spirit:
[Mattel] finally convinced me and seven or eight lawyers to show up in a conference room someplace downtown for a few hours of grilling about a story about which I couldn’t have ethically provided any information even if I remembered it, which I of course did not. As we left, my lawyer, the in-house counsel of Dow Jones, marveled at the billable hours that had been assembled for our presence alone. It was enough to fund a reality show-worthy bar mitzvah. And they’d been at this case for years!
Today the case is supposed to go to trial and I am apparently, according to an email from the Gawker office manager, to be there, although I am not, because I don’t leave my house to buy toilet paper if there is perfectly decent newspaper lying around, and the thing is going down in California.
Last year, Viacom filed a $1 billion suit against Google-owned YouTube, asserting widespread copyright infringement. We predicted a smackdown, and that day has come.
Viacom filed an amended complaint [PDF] last month, saying it had found over 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted material on YouTube. In its answer [PDF], Google says YouTube responds properly when made aware of copyrighted content, and said Viacom’s suit threatens our way of life… pretty much. From the Associated Press:
A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube’s ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing site threatens how hundreds of millions of people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, YouTube owner Google Inc. said.
Google’s lawyers made the claim in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the company responded to Viacom Inc.’s latest lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to “an explosion of copyright infringement” by YouTube and others.
The back-and-forth between the companies has intensified since Viacom brought its lawsuit last year, saying it was owed damages for the unauthorized viewing of its programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
It’s sad that MTV no longer has the spirit of rock-and-roll rebellion and has officially become The Man.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:30 PM - By David Lat
Do you have a Scrabulous problem? Are you addicted to the online version of Scrabble, which you can play via Facebook?
We had a Scrabulous addiction for a while, until we forswore the game. We’re finishing up current games; in fact, we just scored a bingo right before posting this (“OPERATED” — see board at right). But we are not starting or participating in new matches.
If you’ve been finding your own productivity impaired by Scrabulous, however, you may not need to give up the application. It may be taken out of your hands, over your protest. From the BBC:
Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble. The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users. Lawyers for toy makers Hasbro and Mattel say Scrabulous infringes their copyright on the board-based word game.
The move has sparked protests by regular fans of Scrabulous keen to keep the add-on running. Scrabulous is currently one of Facebook’s ten most popular applications - little programs that Facebook members can add to the profiles they maintain on the site….
The Scrabulous add-on was not created by Facebook but was built for the site by Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla - software developers based in Kolkata.
Apparently Hasbro and Mattel don’t look kindly on outsourcing to India — unlike, say, lawfirms. We’ll keep you posted about the fate of this game.
Thursday, September 20, 2007 10:35 AM - By David Lat
Sometimes it seems like we talk about the same handful of general practice Biglaw shops again and again. So let’s mix things up a bit. Here’s a suggestion from a loyal reader:
I’m in the field of patent law. It might be interesting to post a Fall Recruiting Thread that discusses both patent boutiques (Finnegan Henderson, Fizpatrick Cella, Kenyon & Kenyon) and general practice firms with a strong IP practice (Kirkland, Irell, MoFo, Jones Day, Ropes & Gray).
Yes, it might. So here’s that post — an open thread in which people can talk about firms that specialize in or excel at intellectual property law.
(Last month we had a post dedicated to discussion of compensation issues at IP firms. But this open thread is intended to be broader, to go beyond pay to discuss quality of life, strong practice areas, type of work, etc. Enjoy.)
(In preemptive response to those of you who are sick and tired of this story: relax. It’s on its last legs. But if the New York Times writes about us, of course we’re going to acknowledge it. Capice?)
For those of you were on vacation last week — and we know many of you were, based on all the “Out of Office AutoReply” messages we received — you missed a fun story here at ATL.
But don’t worry. If you don’t have time to read our voluminous coverage of the Nixon Peabodytheme song, here are some cheat sheets.
You can read this New York Times story, by Michael de la Merced, which nicely summarizes the saga. Or this post, by Peter Lattman, over at the WSJ Law Blog.
Best of all, for those of you who can watch videos — some of you can’t, ‘cause you don’t have a private office — check out this awesome video. It appeared over the weekend, but we’re reposting it, because many of you don’t visit ATL on the weekend (and it would be a shame for you to miss it).
Sadly, the humorless crew over at Nixon Peabody has had their fabulous law firm song — which, mind you, is NOT a theme song — pulled from YouTube. See here.
Even if it’s gone from YouTube, you can still access “Everyone’s A Winner” as a plain-vanilla MP3 file. Just click here. We incorporate by reference all of our prior commentary on the song.
This memorable tune will also live on in the blogosphere. Numerous fine websites and blogs picked up on the story of the Nixon Peabody song controversy. Here are a few links:
We’ve been in touch with representatives of the Nixon Peabody law firm about the musical composition that we posted (mp3) and wrote about this morning. First they sent us a statement by email:
“This song was put together in celebration of Nixon Peabody’s Fortune100 ‘Best Places to Work’ recognition. Nixon Peabody aims to be the best law firm to work with and the best law firm to work for. Fun is not prohibited here.”
Fair enough. But then we spoke with two firm spokespersons by telephone. They called us.
It wasn’t a very “[f]un” conversation. They weren’t happy campers. Even if they may be winners, since “everyone’s a winner at Nixon Peabody.”
They emphasized that the song was internal to the firm and is protected by copyright. They also insisted that it is NOT a “theme song” — in any way, shape or form.
They demanded to know who sent the song to us. We informed them that we don’t reveal our sources, unless served with a subpoena (and maybe not even then — a Judy Miller-style jail stint might be good publicity for ATL).
They asserted copyright over the song and asked us to take it down, from our site and from YouTube. We stated our view that posting and commenting on the song constitutes fair use. It also falls within our newsgathering mission as a media organization.
We explained that our site is all about law firms and the legal profession. They said: “We know what you’re about.”
They claimed the person who leaked this song is “in a fight” with Nixon Peabody, and menacingly stated that they (meaning NP) “don’t intend to let this thing lie.” We informed them that we have no desire to get involved in the firm’s purported dispute with this unnamed individual. And that’s where we left things.
Seventies power-pop band the Rubinoos sues Avril Lavigne, claiming her cheerleader-rock song “Girlfriend” sounds like their 1978 track “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” Curiously, neither Toni Basil nor the Ramones, both of whom the song gloriously does rip off, are party to the suit.
Wondering if the Rubinoos’ suit has merit? You be the judge:
In our opinion, other than the “hey hey you you” part — words that, of course, appear in 27 percent of all pop songs — we don’t think the two works sound that similar. But that’s just our opinion.
Yesterday we reported on this announcement by Brooklyn Law School:
Continue reading "Brooklyn Law Won’t Proactively Rat Out Its Students"
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You learn a few things when you survive a 
Do you have a 
* Happy Birthday, Mrs. President! Scott Shrake conducts an astrological analysis of Hillary Clinton. [
Sometimes it seems like we talk about the same handful of general practice Biglaw shops again and again. So let’s mix things up a bit. Here’s a suggestion from a loyal reader:
Right now some of you are probably thinking: “Enough already about Alberto Gonzales and Michael Vick! Isn’t there anything else you can write about?”
They emphasized that the song was internal to the firm and is protected by copyright. They also insisted that it is NOT a “theme song” — in any way, shape or form.
