Copyright Infringement

Should We Let the Internet Make Laws?

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SOPA is getting pwned. Yesterday, all the uber players with their epic gear hopped on Vent and raided the SOPA base, and now the newbie Congress people who sponsored the law are running scared. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, the sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act have “renounced” their law. The New York Times reports that Senators and Congresspeople are abandoning this thing like it was a campaign promise.

Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, all of the big internet corporations flexed their muscles — and oh, by the way, this is what it looks like when corporations use speech for speech, as opposed to pretending that anonymous corporate campaign contributions magically count as speech.

In the wake of this victory, here’s a question: Is this what we want? Yesterday, the internet used its power for good (though I fear the movie industry will strike back by making you watch full-length Kevin James movies before you can download the next Batman preview). But what if in the future “the internet” wants something bad, something that is more than the mere protection of freedom?

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Morning Docket: 12.12.11

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Downward dog... kind of.

* Protip for Mark Hansen, AT&T’s lawyer: when you want a judge to save your merger plans, it’s probably not a good idea to demand that she make a ruling by a certain date. [Businessweek]

* What’s going on in Cooley Law’s defamation suit against Rockstar05 (other than discussion of whether the school’s attorney understands the tort’s defenses)? An appeal. [Lansing State Journal]

* Getting a prep school education in New York isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ask Philip Culhane, Simpson Thacher partner and name plaintiff in the Poly Prep sex abuse suit. [New York Times]

* America, f**k yeah! The Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is suing the DMV over free speech rights they might not have had if they seceded from the union. [Fox News]

* Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury tried to sue his disciples for infringement of his moves, but he ended up getting it downward doggy style from the Copyright Office instead. [Bloomberg]

* “If you want a good grade, you need to have sex with me.” At the height of finals season, many law students wish this were an option, but apparently it only happens in college. [New York Post]

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Morning Docket: 11.29.11

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Cristina Fierro: not of age.

* Here’s something that’s actually worth crying over instead of your “meh” bonuses. Much like this year’s Cravath scale, Biglaw pro bono hours will likely be stagnant or cut altogether. [Fortune]

* What’s the point of fleeing if you’re just going to let yourself get extradited? Ex-Crowell & Moring counsel, Douglas Arntsen, will return to New York to face grand larceny charges. [New York Law Journal]

* Knock it off: the feds took down 150 sites selling counterfeit goods yesterday, alleging willful copyright infringement. So much for all of those too-good-to-be-true Cyber Monday deals. [Blog of Legal Times]

* It’s pretty much impossible for Gloria Allred to take a client who doesn’t have a vagina. Her latest litigant, 16-year-old Cristina Fierro, is suing Lawrence Taylor for sex trafficking. [New York Post]

* Finally, some Spider-Man drama that we can get behind, unlike that Turn Off the Dark crap. Tobey Maguire has settled his illegal poker lawsuit, and he didn’t even have to go all in. [CNN]

* Sorry, Chick-Fil-A, but no one is going to be confusing your “chikin” trademark with kale. Maybe like 3% of your customers even know what kale is. And that’s being generous. [Huffington Post]

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