Copyright

Morning Docket: 05.09.12

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* Dewey get the chance to reap revenge against all of the partners who defected? Only in bankruptcy clawback suits. Many are keeping an eye on the Coudert and Thelen Chapter 11 cases to see if they’ll have to pay up. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* “People have bigger concerns on their mind than whether Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee.” Well, Scott Brown isn’t most people. He wants all of her job records from her career as a law professor. [Washington Wire / Wall Street Journal]

* “We are not anti-gay, we are pro-marriage.” I don’t think “pro-marriage” means what you think it means. Last night, North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in the state. [CNN]

* Mike McQueary is filing a whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State. Hate to say it, but that’s definitely not the first time Penn State’s seen a lawsuit over something being blown in the locker room. [Centre Daily Times]

* Washington University in St. Louis Law is launching an online LL.M. program for foreign lawyers for the low, low price of $48K. The exchange rate surely can’t be good enough for that to be worth it. [New York Times]

* Joran van der Sloot will likely be extradited to the United States from Peru this summer. His lawyer, Maximo Altez, isn’t a fan, because he thinks that we’ll charge his client with murder. America, f**k yeah! [ABC News]

* Oh, of course a member of the Village People’s claim just had to be the test case for 35-year copyright transfer termination. Well, kudos to you, Mr. Motorcycle Cop. You’re a real “Macho Man.” [Bloomberg]

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Morning Docket: 05.08.12

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The Snooki Defense

* Aw, come on, Mort, Dewey really have to pay you $61M? In case you missed it last night, the only thing that made the former vice chairman’s departure memo dramatic was the insane amount that he claims he’s owed. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Congratulations to Jacqueline H. Nguyen on her confirmation to the Ninth Circuit. She’s the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appellate court, so she’s earned our judicial diva title (in a good way). You go girl! [Los Angeles Times]

* Google might’ve infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights, but a jury couldn’t decide if it constituted fair use. Sorry, Judge Alsup, but with that kind of a decision, you can bet your ass that there’ll be an appeal. [New York Times]

* A Harvard Law professor has come to Elizabeth Warren’s defense, claiming that an alleged affirmative action advantage played no role in her hiring. And besides, even if it did, it only played 1/32 of a role. [Boston Herald]

* Classes at Cooley Law’s Tampa Bay campus began last night. Unsurprisingly, the inaugural class is double the size originally projected, because everyone wants to attend the second-best school in the nation. [MLive]

* Albany Law will be having a three-day conference on the legal implications of the Civil War. This could be a little more exciting if presenters wore reenactment garb and did battle when it was over. [National Law Journal]

* Jury selection is underway in a second degree murder trial that will forever be known as the case where a defendant first raised the “Snooki Defense.” He didn’t kill his wife… but her spray tan did. [CBS Miami]

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Non-Sequiturs: 05.02.12

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* There is a difference between being “insensitive” and being wrong. It’s more important and less obvious than you might think. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Is it harder to go to college in America today if you are a minority — or if you are poor? [Forbes]

* I live in Oakland, so I’m more surprised when a day goes by that I don’t see someone with marijuana sticking out of their pants. [Legal Juice]

* The finalists in the ABA Battle of the Bands sound pretty darn good. My vote will probably to go to Jenner & Block partner Joe Bisceglia rocking out to some old Chicago blues. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Uggs just won a $686 million judgment against counterfeiters. But for some reason, after years of asking every woman I know, no one has been able to explain to me why people insist on wearing them when it is more than 25 degrees outside. I just don’t understand the appeal. [Fashionista]

* It seems like NYU Law really doesn’t want to give up all of its employment data. Reminds me of playing “keep away” when I was seven, and specifically how the game always ended in shouting matches and damaged egos. [Law School Transparency]

* In other ping pong related news… [DealBreaker]

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Megaupload Trial May Never Happen Because of Possible FBI Error

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The U.S. government seems to be losing ground quickly in the PR war surrounding the case against Megaupload, the massive file-sharing site, and the company’s leader, Kim Dotcom. Just over a week ago, we learned that Quinn Emmanuel had signed on as the company’s defense team; the firm hit the ground running with a brief calling B.S. on one of the government’s objections.

And on Friday evening, news broke that the FBI may have again screwed the Megaupload pooch. The potential procedural goof was apparently severe enough that a federal judge wondered aloud if it might have killed the case…

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Morning Docket: 04.23.12

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Ekaterina Rybolovleva: 'But daddy, I want an $88M apartment now!'

* No dowry, no problem: Dewey we have a suitor for this imploding Biglaw firm? Rumor has it that Greenberg Traurig was seen whispering sweet nothings into D&L’s ear about its possible interest. [Am Law Daily]

* BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has hired Milbank Tweed to work out a restructuring plan. Just think, maybe if your product didn’t suck so hard, you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. [Reuters]

* Sex, money, and betrayal… it sounds like another failed TV series about lawyers on ABC, but in actuality, it’s just a preview of the John Edwards campaign finance trial set to begin this week. [Los Angeles Times]

* Technophobes beware, because this copyright battle over code is getting serious. Oracle v. Google turned into Larry v. Larry in court last week as the CEOs for both companies gave testimony. [Bits / New York Times]

* George Zimmerman thought he’d have to stay in jail longer because he was having trouble coming up with his bail money, but he was released in the dead of night. Bet he looked pretty suspicious. [CNN]

* “There are [fewer students] coming in and crying. I haven’t had a crier yet, which I have had in the past.” Given the legal hiring market, that’s a real accomplishment for a career services official. [Charlotte Observer]

* Who gives a sh*t? Not this Russian fertilizer tycoon. When you’re a billionaire, buying an $88M apartment for your kid is just a run-of-the-mill transaction. Come on, he’s not hiding his assets for his divorce. [Telegraph]

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SCOTUS! eBay! Cert and Other Sundries

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One of the worst parts of attending an institute of higher learning, whether for undergraduate studies or law school, is being forced to purchase overpriced textbooks that in all likelihood you will never need or open.

A cottage industry has sprouted up for people trying to find ways to let students pay less for the costly laptop stands. These days, students can take advantage of local used bookstores, Amazon or eBay, and in some cases, their iPads.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case regarding the legality of one unexpectedly common way to make a little cash, and still sell affordable-ish books: buy that s**t abroad for cheap, bring the books back to the U.S., and sell them online for normal American prices.

Unsurprisingly, publishers are not excited about this emerging “gray market.” That’s where SCOTUS comes in….

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Quinn Emanuel Calls B.S. on Government Conflict-of-Interest Objection in Megaupload Case

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Following the federal government’s raid in January 2012 on Megaupload, the company that owned and operated the notorious file-sharing site megaupload.com, the criminal case has already started making its way through the court system. The government froze the company’s assets, and the CEO is under house arrest, but Megaupload still managed to hire some high-powered, Biglaw representation. Good for them, right?

Well, maybe not. The government has objected to Quinn Emanuel entering the case to represent Megaupload. The government cites conflicts of interest.

What are the alleged conflicts? And what does Quinn have to say about the situation?

The firm just filed a saucy brief responding to the objection. Let’s just say that Quinn isn’t taking it lying down…

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Morning Docket: 04.09.12

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* The billable hour may be far from dead, but last year, 61% of general counsel worked out alternative fee arrangements with outside counsel, including counsel from elite (read: Biglaw) firms. [Wall Street Journal]

* Dewey need to take lessons on revenge from this firm? John Altorelli, the D&L defector who spilled all the beans to the Am Law Daily, was blasted on Page Six this weekend. More on this to come later today. [New York Post]

* CHECK YOU LATERALS: recent Quinn Emanuel hires William Burck, Paul Brinkman, and Andrew Schapiro, as well as name partner John Quinn, have entered appearances on behalf of Megaupload. [Am Law Daily]

* Copyright infringement suits over porn downloading involving some 3,500 defendants were dismissed because the plaintiffs’ attorney, Terik Hasmi, couldn’t get it in legally in Florida. [National Law Journal]

* In England, there’s no such thing as a no-fault divorce, but instead, you can get one for “unreasonable behavior” — behavior like malicious service of tuna casserole, and speaking only in Klingon. [New York Times]

* This gives “I’m a Slave 4 U” some new meaning. Britney Spears’s fiancé, Jason Trawick, is trying to start their impending rocky marriage off on the right foot. He’ll soon be her co-conservator. [New York Daily News]

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Since When Is Merely Linking to Copyrighted Content an Extraditable Offense?

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The war on internet piracy currently being waged by entertainment industry lobbyists the U.S. Justice Department seriously puts me in an ideological bind. On one hand, I am a creative person. I understand the need for content creators to be compensated for their work. Whether that means movie producers, musicians, or journalists, the internet has deeply screwed with the compensation structure for “artists.”

On the other hand, that should not be the internet’s problem. The entertainment industry needs to figure out a way to update its outdated business model. Going after every 23-year-old with a few personal servers and high-speed internet is never going to fix the piracy problem.

But that would take a lot of actual work and planning and compromise. In the meantime, it’s business as usual. And that means extraditing a 23-year-old software engineering student from the U.K. who ran the website TVShack, a site which linked to streaming video files.

The kid has never been to the U.S. He did not even break any British laws, but OMG piracy, and woe to all who get caught anywhere near the crosshairs of the American entertainment industry….

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Fake Filesharing Lawsuits? Dang, That’s Devious

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After the feds took down Megaupload in January, the major change to many people’s lives is that it is now much harder to stream bootleg versions of the new season of Archer. What also happened is authorities took control of content hosted on the site and a lot of people who posted files there are worried getting busted as well.

Well, one man’s crisis is another man’s golden opportunity.

Keep reading to see how a new batch of criminals is trying to cash in on folks already worried about Megaupload-related copyright liability. It’s actually quite a clever plot…

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