Just about anyone who has walked across a college campus has seen that familiar arches symbol – and no, not McDonalds. The arches are, of course The North Face. The North Face brand of clothing is very popular on college jackets, backpacks, hats, and gloves. However, with a tagline of, “Never Stop Exploring,” it was originally intended for the hiker or explorer, not the college student. Today it seems you can’t attend college without acquiring some article of clothing that sports the North Face symbol. It’s almost as essential as books and a laptop, and might as well be included on that ‘useful’ list sent out to freshmen, “Checklist for College.” Therefore, it’s ironic that Jimmy Winkelmann, an 18-year-old from the St. Louis area, started a line of clothing called the South Butt with the tagline, “Never Stop Relaxing” to help him pay for his college.
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A computer-like object just doesn’t replace a book: the feel of the paper, the smell of old books, the ripped cover on the book read over and over again. However, the ability to lessen one’s luggage weight by loading all those books onto one device is tempting. As the e-book technology that makes this possible develops, so too do the ways to pirate e-books. Motoko Rich pointed out in a New York Times article that while those in the music and filmmaking industries are used to dealing with illegally posted material, “for authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, it’s new and frightening territory.”1
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Last December, guitar hero Joe Satriani filed a lawsuit against the members of Coldplay and Capitol Records, alleging the band’s song, “Viva La Vida,” contained “substantial, original portions” of his 2004 track “If I Could Fly.”1 (Listen here to refresh your memory.) To the delight of many Coldplay fans, a financial settlement was finally reached between the two parties last September.
Unfortunately, Coldplay is weathering yet another legal dispute. It seems that “either Coldplay is a magnet for litigious songwriters, or [has] a real plagiarism problem.“2 This lawsuit comes from an unfamiliar singer-songwriter: Sammie Lee Smith. Smith recently filed against Coldplay in the Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that the band stole his material to create hits such as “Yellow,” Clocks,” and “Trouble.”3
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TiVo hasn’t always been profitable, but today the company stands to make a small fortune after winning its patent suit against the Dish Network Corp over technology used in its remote controls. The decision would net TiVo about $300 million from Dish (about $100 million in damages and interest, and the rest in contempt sanctions).
From the New York Times:
“At issue is a TiVo patent on technology for storing and retrieving video on DVRs, which lets viewers pause, rewind and replay live TV. TiVo sued Dish in 2004 for patent infringement for using a similar technology on its DVRs, a case Dish lost on appeal. Dish paid TiVo $104.6 million in damages and interest and was barred from using the technology.
While the case was going on, Dish crafted a redesigned technology that it said did not infringe on TiVo’s patent. But the U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas, disagreed and ordered Dish to pay TiVo additional damages — this time at $103 million plus interest, along with about $200 million in contempt sanctions.”
In this appeal, two of the appellate judges found that the lower court “applied the right standard in analyzing whether Dish’s redesigned technology still infringed on TiVo’s patent.” Judge Randall Rader, the lone dissenter, said the court is “punishing a company that has made a good faith effort at a redesign.”
This is the latest of several similar lawsuits; last year, TiVo sued AT&T and Verizon “over the same patent and two others that allow multiroom viewing and correct overshooting when viewers fast-forward TV.” Turning the tables, Microsoft sued TiVo in January, alleging that TiVo has violated Microsoft patents related to such things as an on-screen TV guide.
Stay tuned for further updates.
September seemed like a good month for Tiger Woods. Forbes magazine declared that Woods was “the first billion-dollar athlete.”1 The magazine calculated that with the $10 million bonus he received from the FedEx Cup,2 Woods reached the billionaire status that is usually reserved for the Waltons and hedge fund CEOs. What made Woods’ impressive earnings even more remarkable was that his skills as a golf prodigy, gaining him trophies left and right, only made up 10% of his lifetime earnings.3 The rest came from his lucrative endorsement deals,4 most remarkably Nike which paid him $30 million annually.5
However, the first billion-dollar athlete saw his endorsement empire crash and burn in December, the aftermath of a scandalous car crash coupled with exposure of his (many) extramarital affairs. Accenture, the global consulting giant, and AT&T have already dropped Woods. Although not officially parting ways with Woods, Gilette has said it will start phasing out Woods from promotions for its Gillette razors and shaving foams.6 The reason? Following the flood of information regarding Wood’s infidelities,7 Woods no longer represents the athletic, clean-cut family-man such brands wish to be associated with.8 Or as in Accenture’s case, Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore.”9
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A transient Manhattanite usually has a certain amount of pretension that must be indulged. We’ve moved to the City because we identify, or at least aspire to identify, with a population at the vanguard of savviness and style, or at least conspicuous consumption. Unfortunately, for some of us, our Manhattan pilgrimage involved quitting our jobs to become law students banished to a lifestyle sans bi-weekly paychecks and rapidly eroding credit card availability. How now can we satiate our innate urges for the trappings of affluence when we lack the means to enjoy it? Cue Foodie Culture.
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On January 13, 2010, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in American Needle Inc. v. National Football League, et al.i The transcript of the oral arguments is available here.ii Though the NFL is a household name, not everyone is aware that the league is an unincorporated association of 32 distinct football teams that collaborate for the regular season games and championship Super Bowl each year.iii Despite the distinct branding of each team, the success of the individual teams and the league overall are interdependent, and as such, the teams sought to jointly promote the NFL Brand (the intellectual property of the NFL and its teams) for profit.iv In 1963, the teams formed NFL Properties, a separate corporate entity responsible for development, licensing, and marketing of the teams’ intellectual property (logos, trademarks, etc.), as well as advertising and promotional campaigns, and most importantly, the authorization to grant licenses to vendors allowing them to use the teams’ intellectual property to manufacture and sell consumer products featuring the teams’ logos and trademarks, like jerseys and hats.v One such vendor was American Needle, which held a NFL headwear license for almost 20 years until 2000, when the NFL teams authorized NFL Properties to solicit vendor bids for an exclusive license, which was granted to Reebok for ten years.vi
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During the 2008 presidential campaign, you could barely go anywhere without seeing the Obama “Hope” image on a poster, t-shirt or bumper sticker. Since then, the iconic image has become the focus of an intense debate about fair use in copyright law. Critics of artist Shepard Fairey’s work call it mere theft, while supporters commend Fairey for transforming a regular photograph into a symbolic image. New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl went as far as to proclaim Fairey’s design as “the most efficacious American political illustration since “Uncle Sam Wants You.”
In February 2009, the Associated Press claimed that Fairey had unlawfully used one of their images as the basis for his work. The alleged photograph was taken for the A.P. by freelance photographer Mannie Garcia at the National Press Club in April 2006. Fairey initially denied the allegations, claiming instead that his work was based on a picture of Barack Obama and George Clooney which was taken during the same event. As a preemptive measure, Fairey filed a lawsuit against the A.P. asking the judge to find that his work is protected under the fair use exceptions to copyright law, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for criticism or comment.
The question of which photograph was the underlying work has implications in determining whether the poster was legally a fair use. Factors that determine whether a derivative work is protected under the fair use exception include how much of the original work was taken and how substantially the original work was altered. The image that the A.P. alleged was the underlying work is extremely similar to the poster, and was likely too similar to fall under the fair use exception. Fairey’s chances of winning a fair use argument would be much greater if he used an image that required more significant alteration on his part.
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The ringing in of the New Year marked not only the end of a decade, but also the end of an era for New York landmark Tavern on the Green. January 1st marked the expiration of the operating license for the Leroy family, who had operated the restaurant since the 1970s, and had successfully maintained the former sheepfold as the second highest earning restaurant in America (grossing more than $34 million in 2008 and $38 million in 2007).
As a result of the city’s granting of the new operating license to Dean J. Poll, operator of the equally famous Central Park Boathouse, the Leroy family filed for bankruptcy on September 9, 2009, with 452 listed creditors looking to reclaim $8 million. The bankruptcy action has sparked media attention, as the assets of Tavern on the Green are auctioned off, with items generally ranging from $100 to $1 million.
The most valuable asset for Tavern on the Green, and the most controversial, is its name, which has been appraised at a value of $19 million. Initially, the city took the position that it did not own the name Tavern on the Green, and would leave it to the Leroy family to control. The city subsequently changed its stance, and the ownership of the Tavern on the Green trademark is now being hotly contested in federal court.
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The Fairness Doctrine was originally implemented by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949 in order to ensure a balanced presentation of issues of public importance on broadcast news programs. According to author Kay Mills:
The FCC had laid out the doctrine in 1949 in its “Report on Editorializing by Broadcasting Licensees” to clarify confusion that existed in the broadcasting world about how far stations could go in expressing their own views. Broadcasters had an affirmative duty to air controversial issues so long as they made available opportunities to express opposing views, the FCC said, adding that no one had the right to distort the news.1
Speaking for the court, Justice White stated in Red Lion, 395 U.S. 367, 369 (1969) that:
The Federal Communications Commission has for many years imposed on radio and television broadcasters the requirement that discussion of public issues be presented on broadcast stations, and that each side of those issues must be given fair coverage. This is known as the fairness doctrine, which originated very early in the history of broadcasting and has maintained its present outlines for some time.
Since its repeal, there have been rumblings as to whether or not the doctrine should be formally re-implemented. However, some believe the current media coverage is overblown. “The conservative buzz on this issue derives from no more than a few isolated quotes over the past several months by 5 of the 284 Democrats in Congress.”2 This is grounded in the belief that the current broadcast news landscape is partisan and stratified. Advocates on both sides of the debate believe that either the Doctrine should be reinstated in order to ensure broadcasting fairness, or that by reinstating it the government would be curtailing the First Amendment rights of broadcasters.
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