Copyright

Never let technology or common sense get in the way of an overzealous copyright claim.

* Want to see a really terrible version of 12 Angry Men? Watch it in Louisiana or Oregon, the two states that allow criminal convictions even when jurors are holding out. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to fix that, let’s see if they will. [Constitutional Accountability Center] * Speaking of 12 Angry Men, this chart of the Dungeons & Dragons alignments of each juror is entertaining. [Imgur] * The judge in the Janice and Ira Schacter kerfuffle invoked Above the Law in her decision as proof that the accusations against Ira Schacter were in the public eye. Thanks for specifically promoting us over the rest of the NY media Justice Laura Drager! [NY Post] * Watch a bunch of law students talk about cats on Facebook. Will it end in douchebag posturing and threats of lawsuits? Of course it will! [Legal Cheek] * “Volunteer Liquor Commissioner” was disciplined for operating a Facebook page for people complaining about the police. He’s suing. Better question is what does a “Volunteer Liquor Commissioner” even do? [IT-Lex] * Allegations that Disney ripped off the trailer for Frozen from an animated short. They should really let it go. [Hollywood Reporter] * Chief Justice John Roberts says he’s a minimalist. He’s wrong. [Election Law Blog] * Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP. The IRS decided to keep going with the old product. So now your tax records are at risk. Enjoy the fruits of budgeting with anti-IRS legislators! [TaxProf Blog]

* Professor Rick Hasen drops knowledge bombs all over the “subtly awful” decision in McCutcheon. [Slate] * Another firm joins the “CV Blind” approach of assessing future lawyers without looking at their grades. So go ahead and blow off that third-year course if this trend continues. [Legal Cheek] * In case law schools needed another study to make them feel better about driving up costs, here’s a new study that says schools that hire hotshot professors improve faculty productivity. [TaxProf Blog] * Med students are mistreated. Boo hoo. At least you bastards get jobs when you graduate. And they were mistreated by the hospitals they worked with? Try a Biglaw firm right before a deadline and then stow your whining. [Chronicle of Higher Education] * Education Department moves to prohibit the practice of colleges barring lawyers from institutional sexual assault hearings. In other news, colleges have been getting away with keeping lawyers out of hearings about potentially criminal acts. [Inside Higher Ed] * The BARBRI public interest fellow contest is now underway! Watch the videos and cast your vote by April 7. [BARBRI] * Strip club company thought it could build a theme restaurant based on the movie Talladega Nights. More after the jump… [Bloomberg]

How did a rap group wind up in front of the Supreme Court? It all started with a song.

Smokey Robinson wants to contort the law to box out his ex-wife. He's hoping for a miracle.

* It’s apparently time to pay your fair share. Obama wants to close the pesky tax loophole that’s allowed rich professionals, like lawyers, to get away with being rich professionals for so long. [Legal Times]

* On this episode of As the Weil Turns, we take a look at the firm’s tumbling gross revenue, profits per partner, revenue per lawyer, and headcount. Don’t worry, Weil’s just “repositioning.” [Am Law Daily]

* The American Bar Association released the dirt on 1L enrollment declines at law schools nationwide, and some schools got totally massacred. Pray yours wasn’t one of them. [National Law Journal]

* “[T]hey’d probably make the school year longer and bring the cost up for each year.” We sure hope these pre-law students aren’t right about the dubious cost factor behind the two-year law degree. [The Hoya]

* Who owns the copyright to the Oscar selfie? Does it belong to Ellen DeGeneres, or Bradley Cooper? If you want to get technical about it (and you do, you’re a lawyer), check out this legal round-up. [The Wire]

* Judge orders guns returned to blind guy. David Sedaris has a great routine where he talks about the few stupid jurisdictions that let the blind participate in gunplay. Well consider Florida stupider: this is a blind guy who previously shot 15 times at his cousin while drunk and has since killed his friend — not only while drunk, but after a “10 a.m. beer run” — and he’s getting his guns back. [Raw Story] * An intrepid, but hopelessly clueless jailhouse lawyer is taking it upon himself to free Gucci Mane. Fight on, you hero! [Global Grind] * Area Man Coasting By On Good Looks, Work Ethic, In-Depth Knowledge Of Virginia Real Estate Law. [The Onion] * It seems Ray Rice took out all the aggression he feels over having Joe Flacco as a quarterback by allegedly knocking his fiancée unconscious. By “allegedly,” I mean, “I’m not saying, but it was in an Atlantic City casino and videotapes show it from every angle.” Anyway, here’s a good primer on the differences between assault, simple assault, and aggravated assault in the state of New Jersey. [The Legal Blitz] * Speaking of Rutgers players, the merger between Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark into Rutgers-Both Law School is on track for 2015. [Philadelphia Inquirer] * So it’s a great time to go to law school! If you thought 2007 was a great time to go to law school that is. [Gawker] * Here’s an innovative way to fight illegal music downloads: the band Gridlink is running a contest encouraging users to upload bogus versions of their songs to gum up the works in exchange for a free, official copy of the latest album. [Handshake Inc.] * The lawyer who may topple Chris Christie is a defense lawyer who stymied the rotund Republican during his tenure as U.S. Attorney. That must be sweet. [Newark Star-Ledger] * Passionate about public-interest law? Here’s your chance to win a paid one-year fellowship with Save the Children. (Our very own David Lat is one of the contest judges.) [BARBRI] * The University of Pennsylvania Law School Entertainment and Sports Law Society is hosting the Penn Law Sports Law Symposium presented by the Heisman Trust this Friday, February 28th from 9:30am-6:00pm at the Law School in Philadelphia. Jim Delaney will be there to talk about how the Big Ten would go bankrupt if one cent of their billions in revenue were diverted. Tickets at the link. [ESLS]

The Olympics are about abusing intellectual property laws and some sports. These athletes are sticking it to the Games.

A copyright loophole conspires to keep vulnerabilities unpatched increasing the risks to all of our computers.

The expansion of copyright protection, in one image.

* D.C. litigator Bruce Klores is living a double life as a Grilled Cheese restaurateur. He’s planning some politically-themed sandwiches, like the Boehner: “maybe if someone orders it, we’ll just say no.” [Washington Post] * Bryan Garner took to Twitter to announce that three neologisms by David Lat are joining Black’s Law Dictionary (affiliate link). Check out which terms made the cut for the 10th edition. [Twitter] * Oklahoma is chasing its proposal to ban all marriage with a bill to issue tickets electronically. Where’s the human touch of being harassed by the cops? [Overlawyered] * Here are the best suitcases for an overnight business trip. [Corporette] * We already pointed out that Quentin Tarantino is heading to court over the leaked script to The Hateful Eight. Here’s a quick rundown of the complaint. [IT-Lex] * A riveting account, by lawyer turned journalist Adam Teicholz, of the brutal murder that shook the gay community in a small Louisiana town. [Vanity Fair] * Crude oil is transported by rail, and those railroads have safety regulations. [Breaking Energy] * RIP Pete Seeger. I know he was a folk singer rather than a lawyer, but he wrote a song called “New York J-D Blues,” which sums up Biglaw in this town. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

* Opera singer who can’t sing without farting sues for $2.5 million. She should try blaming it on the phantom. [Gawker] * Speaking of Gawker, Elie has an article up about last night’s Grammy ceremony over at our new outpost in Gawkerville, the ATL Redline. [ATL Redline] * Amazingly, adding Elie’s perspective wasn’t the worse thing to happen to Gawker this week: Quentin Tarantino has decided to sue them for publishing copies of his latest script, The Hateful Eight. [Grantland] * Everyone’s favorite Harvard Law transcript forger cum insider trading defendant, Matthew Martoma, just can’t catch a break — the government is trying to get a couple of key defense experts tossed. [The Expert Institute] * Should bloggers out pseudonymous commenters? No, because… free speech? Whatever, bloggers aren’t the government. [Ramblings on Appeal] * The ABA’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education thinks schools should cut costs and prepare students for legal careers. Welcome to the ATL Family! [Chronicle of Higher Education] * It’s an old adage but it bears repeating: if you want to win a negotiation, be prepared to go to trial. [Katz Justice] * An update on Stephen Glass, the plagiarizing journalist applying for admission to the California bar. Want to know what happened to his application? Click on…. Spoiler alert: He doesn’t get in.

Once upon a time copyright was meant to encourage learning -- now it encourages ripping off taxpayers for fun and profit.

* A pimp is suing Nike for not labeling its shoes as dangerous weapons after the sex work entrepreneur used his Jordans to beat the holy hell out of a john. Good luck with your suit, Superfly! [USA Today] * Tattoo artists are suing over their artwork getting featured in media without getting compensation. So add “because shooting ink through a damn needle into your skin” as a reason never to get a tattoo. [Infringe That!] * There was a dream that was the law clerk hiring plan. Well, it’s dead now. [OSCAR] * Comparing strippers to lawyers. Makes sense. [Miami Herald] * Across the Pond, a Cambridge College masturbator gets punished. I see what you did there, you clever headline writer, you. [The Tab] * Boston has stopped using license plate scanners to probe the question, “Are these even worth it?” That’s the sort of question they might have wanted to explore before spending all that money. [IT-Lex] * A Pennsylvania lawyer was busted for selling wines out of his wine cellar without a license. God, liquor laws are stupid. [Philly.com] * Congratulations to the LGBT Bar Association’s 2014 Community Vision awardees: Mary Bonauto, Brian Ellner, and Credit Suisse. [LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York]

Which "out of control" celebrity just got super-snarky in responding to a cease and desist letter?

A number of classics should have entered the public domain on Wednesday. Well, a number of classics and Atlas Shrugged.

Ed. note: Happy New Year! We will resume our normal publication schedule on January 2nd. See you next year. * A guy got pantsed twice. He then secured a six-figure judgment! And now he’s appealing that judgment!?!? God, this is exactly the kind of guy who deserves a wedgie. [Lowering the Bar] * Professor Campos takes on George Will’s claim that the team name Redskins isn’t offensive because “Oklahoma” basically translates to “Redskin” too. Hey, I could get behind banning Oklahoma. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * A pro se inmate sues the state. The reporter tries really hard to treat the complaint seriously until the very end. [Times-Picayune] * A Las Vegas judge (and son of a former mayor) suffered head wounds indicative of an assault. When asked about why LVMPD didn’t tell marshals that a judge had been attacked, they basically said, “Why would we?” Yeah, why alert a judge’s security team about a possible, persistent threat related to his job. [Las Vegas Law Blog] * With Netflix about to purge a number of movies off its system, this is an interesting look back at a time when Hollywood tried to ban home movie rental because they generally adhere to the “cut off your nose to spite your face” business model. [Tech Crunch] * More on the phenomenon of judges speaking out publicly. I don’t know about all these critics, but we’re sure big fans of these judges. [Wall Street Journal]

* You can go to jail for possession, but if you actively aid and abet drug cartels, you can walk away with a fine worth 5 weeks of your income. It also helps if instead of “poor” you’re a bank. Hooray for “Too Big To Hold Accountable For Anything!!! [Rolling Stone] * Disney has gotten fed up with “mockbusters,” films that jack the studio’s logo to confuse people into buying a different DVD. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been itching to check out this new flick September: Osage County. [Jezebel] * Dahlia Lithwick explains that too many schools feel the cure for the trauma of school shootings is… creating more trauma. [Slate] * Chief Judge Theodore McKee of the Third Circuit rules that the government can detain you for carrying Arabic flashcards. This doesn’t even make racist profiling sense: “bad guys” would already know how to speak Arabic, right? [The Raw Story] * Defendants need to understand that getting an acquittal requires them to expend some personal effort, too. [Katz Justice]

Santa Claus is coming to town... and EMI owns him.

* Mayor Bloomberg is filing suit to overturn New York’s Living Wage law, because wasting a bunch of money pursuing a lawsuit for the last two weeks of his term is the kind of efficiency he brings to the table as a biznessmun. [DNAInfo] * Judge Richard Leon puts the NSA metadata surveillance program on ice. Looks like someone's going to get bugged. [Slate] * Someone’s asking for a fake college transcript in Baton Rouge. Pretty sure LSU’s athletic department could give you a hand. [Law and More] * Considering the polygamy ruling in Utah, here’s an interesting analysis of the constitutionality of bestiality laws. This seems like an appropriate place to link this song about a guy who broke into the Lincoln Park zoo in Chicago. [The Volokh Conspiracy] * Here’s a fun game: replace the name of the school and the course of study and marvel at how easily it could pass for an article Elie wrote. [Huffington Post] * These folks got smacked with a cybersquatting charge because they used a logical domain name to publicize an ongoing dispute. It’s a lot easier to sue people than to build a solid home. [IT-Lex] * In sad news, the victim in a recent carjacking-related killing was Dustin Friedland, a Syracuse law grad who worked with Adam Leitman Bailey. Our thoughts are with the Friedland family. [NY Daily News] * The Beastie Boys are suing GoldieBlox over the latter’s viral ad set to a parody of “Girls.” Unlike GoldieBlox, NYU Law professor Chris Sprigman doesn’t need an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine to burst the Beastie Boys’ bubble. Video embedded after the jump… [Bloomberg Law via YouTube]