Intellectual Property

When Luddites Handle Cyber Security, You End Up With American Law Firms

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Cyber security is all the rage this week, with President Obama announcing that he’s working on a new cyber war plan and the Internets freaking out that the Super Bowl blackout was really a Chinese hacking effort.

Some of you probably assume the ATL front page was hacked this week. Don’t worry though…we made all those problems ourselves.

Cyber attacks on U.S. businesses have increased dramatically as savvy hackers look to steal financial and intellectual assets from computer systems. The smartest cyber criminals have even figured out the best way to get what they want is to avoid the target corporation entirely and aim straight for their law firm — the soft underbelly of American cyber security…

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One Of The Funniest S#*$r B$@l Ads You’ll See This Year Makes Fun Of NFL Trademarks

By Techdirt

Ed. note: This post appears courtesy of our friends at Techdirt. We’ll be sharing law-related posts from Techdirt from time to time in these pages.

It’s almost that time of year again, when many of us lesser beings will gather together to watch super-human men on all manner of PEDs and deer antler urine sprays smack each other around while an oblong leather ball sits somewhere in the background. We’ll leap for the pizza and chili like salmon during mating season while, between whistles, obligatory commercials with Avatar-like production budgets glow at us. That’s right sports fans, it’s [editor redacted] time!

Wait, hey! What the hell? I said it’s [editor redacted] time! Oh, come on. I can’t say [editor redacted]? Fine, what about a euphamism, like [editor redacted]? No, can’t say that either? Maybe [editor redacted]? Damn it, this is stupid. I’m talking about something that rhymes with “Pooper Hole” (heh, got you, editor!)….

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Where U.S. Copyrights Go To Die

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Antigua & Barbuda 1
United States 0

Have you been holding off on buying your copy of Supertrain: The Complete Series in hopes of downloading it illegally without fear of reprisal? Well, you have a friend in Antigua & Barbuda.

In a Monday decision by the World Trade Organization, Antigua & Barbuda can now legally offer downloads of copyrighted U.S. works, and there’s not a damn thing the U.S. can do about it.

The decision marks the latest chapter in the long-running trade dispute between the U.S. and the tiny Caribbean nation over Antigua’s internet gambling industry. The U.S. banned Antigua’s internet casinos, Antigua took the U.S. to court through the WTO, and Antigua won — and has continued to win — consistently throughout the appeal process.

And now, in what passes for the sentencing phase of the WTO proceedings, Antigua has earned the right to violate the hell out of U.S. copyrights up to the value of $21 million a year.

Does that seem illogical? Welcome to the WTO….

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Professional Balloon Twister

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Can you make this? I didn’t think so.

Our latest career alternative for attorneys is definitely outside the box. It’s not like, say, going into finance, or consulting, or even writing and blogging. It’s really different.

We’re talking about balloon twisting. Yes, that’s right — like the kind of you see at children’s parties, or done by street performers. In fact, today’s profile subject earned extra money during law school by performing as a balloon twister on the streets of Boston….

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Court Says Trial Needed To Determine If Universal Music Violated DMCA With Dancing Baby Takedown

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Ed. note: This post appears courtesy of our friends at Techdirt. We’ll be sharing law-related posts from Techdirt from time to time in these pages.

We’ve covered the Stephanie Lenz / dancing baby / fair use case for years — but now it looks like there’s finally going to be a trial to consider if Universal Music can be punished for sending a DMCA takedown notice on a video of Lenz’s infant son dancing to 29 seconds of a song by Prince, which Lenz asserts was clearly fair use.

If you haven’t followed the case, it’s been argued back and forth for years. At one point, the court ruled that a copyright holder does need to take fair use into account before sending a DMCA takedown, but that there needs to be “subjective bad faith” by Universal Music in sending the takedown. In other words, Lenz (and the EFF, who is representing her) needs to show, effectively, that Universal knew that it was sending bogus takedowns. The EFF has argued that willful blindness by Universal meant that it had knowledge (amusingly, using precedents in copyright cases in the other direction, where copyright holders argue that willful blindness can be infringement)….

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Quote of the Day: But What About Peep-Toes?!

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If such a shoe exists, the parties have not pointed to it, there is no evidence that Already has dreamt of it, and we cannot conceive of it. It sits, as far as we can tell, on a shelf between Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Perseus’s winged sandals.

– Chief Justice John Roberts, remarking in a recent opinion on the specific degree of fabulosity that would be required for Nike to renege on its covenant not to sue Already LLC for trademark infringement. The Supreme Court opinion can be found here.

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.02.13

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You stole my building.

* Lawyers who re-argue 2,400 year old cases are lawyers with too much time on their hands, even if they’re doing it for charity. [ABA Journal]

* What do you know, free speech is allowed to exist on the internet. [Public Citizen Press Room]

* I shaved my balls for this fiscal cliff deal? [Huffington Post]

* Some law professors still don’t understand what the law school “disaster” is all about. [Associate's Mind]

* How much can you really charge for contract attorney work? [Point of Law]

* The best criminal law blog post in 2012 was… [Simple Justice]

* It never occurred to me that a building could be pirated, but here you go. [De Zeen Magazine]

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Non-Sequiturs: 12.18.12

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Congrats to Judge Edith Jones, one of my favorite judicial divas, for making the list of best benchslaps.

* Professor Josh Blackman has a Christmas gift for you: “The 8 Best Benchslaps of 2012.” See if you can guess who wins the award for lifetime achievement. [Josh Blackman's Blog]

* Speaking of unorthodox law school classes, how would you like to take a course on “Understanding Obama”? [Althouse]

* And speaking of the Instagram controversy, what might happen if the intellectual property issues wind up in the courts? [Associate's Mind]

* The deadline for our holiday card competition has passed; our write-up of the finalists will appear shortly. While you wait, check out this cute non-electronic law firm holiday card. [Ross Fishman]

* Time is running out! We’d love your votes in the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 (under “News/Analysis”). [ABA Journal]

If you are not a fan of Westboro Baptist Church, check out Anonymous’s declaration of cyber-war against them….

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Morning Docket: 12.13.12

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DVF: ‘You must be kidding me.’

* “This is a total victory not just for the C.F.T.C., but also for financial reform.” Regulators, mount up, because you basically just got a free pass to do your jobs and keep a more watchful and vigilant eye on Wall Street. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Last year, China officially surpassed the United States in terms of the number of patent applications filed. China’s probably surpassed the United States in terms of patents infringed, but that’s neither here nor there. [National Law Journal]

* And now we see why St. Louis University School of Law’s interim dean said he’d be donating his salary to the school. He’s no “butt boy” — he’s settled $25M worth of cases since the fall. [Madison-St. Clair Record]

* “Help me, I’m poor”: the Huffington Post’s army of unpaid bloggers will continue to be unpaid, because the Second Circuit recently affirmed the S.D.N.Y.’s decision to toss out their case. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Diane von Furstenberg, the fashion designer behind luxury brand DVF, is suing an ex-distributor for selling her wares on the cheap to the likes of TJ Maxx and Marshalls. Ugh, cringe… that’s très déclassé. [Bloomberg]

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Facebook Laughs as Peon Users Attempt to Reclaim Their Privacy and Copyright Interests

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By now, we’re sure you’ve seen the ridiculous copyright notices that have been popping up on Facebook status updates left and right — and if you haven’t, then perhaps your friends are simply more intelligent than the masses who’ve been fooled into believing they can override the social media giant’s terms of use.

We’ll put this simply to avoid further confusion: stringing together nonsensical bits of pseudo-legalese cannot save you from succumbing to the rules and regulations of the Facebook gods. On the other hand, stringing together nonsensical bits of pseudo-legalese is sometimes what law blogging is all about, so we’ll help our readers debunk the myths of privacy and intellectual property rights on Facebook.

Aww, you thought Facebook couldn’t use all the things you posted on the site because of your privacy settings? Well, isn’t that just precious….

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