“[T]here is a growing market in fake civet beans. One example widely peddled at outdoor markets is made with artificial fragrances that bear little resemblance to the drink’s actual bold taste. Larger coffee chains, however, produce a more sophisticated beverage using biotechnology, isolating an enzyme similar to that in the civet’s stomach that ferments the beans, and then mixing it with chocolate powder to add authenticity to its aroma. In Buon Me Thuot, the province’s capital and the coffee capital of Vietnam, nearly every market-stall vendor claims to sell the weasel beans, often asking for at least $100 per kilogram. Local customers, once relentless in their search for the real thing, now often settle for the knock-offs.”

For more about the expensive coffee made from collecting poop from the civet cat that is being knocked-off and sold in Vietnam click here.

The Sports Blawg with the Fordham Sports Law Forum

On January 18, 2012, the highly touted high school cornerback Yuri Wright was expelled from school for “sexually graphic and racial” tweets.  Wright is currently ranked 40th in ESPNU’s Top 150 Football Recruits for the class of 2012.  The Huffington Post has provided a link to view some of Wright’s tweets.  Please be advised that they are sexually explicit.

Wright was a student-athlete at Don Bosco Prep High School, a Catholic school with a nationally recognized football program in Ramsey, New Jersey.  While the University of Michigan backed off recruiting the US Army All-American Bowl participant after his expulsion, he has verbally committed to Colorado.  In the meantime, Wright has deleted his twitter account and will have to search for a high school to finish his senior year.

Situations such as Wright’s are relatively infrequent in high schools, college and professional athletes have often had to face consequences as a result of their social media use.  From Gilbert Arenas’ twitter rants to Rashard Mendehall’s controversial tweets about the death of Osama bin Laden, controversial views posted on social media will continue to draw widespread attention.

There are obvious First Amendment concerns implicated when an organization – especially a school – seeks to control online speech.  However, the Supreme Court recently declined to enter the fray.  Their most recent decision concerned a high school student, leaving the NCAA and professional leagues to be largely self-governing in their social media policies.  It seems as though college athletes are under much greater scrutiny because the NCAA is a more highly regulated environment.  However, unlike professional leagues, the NCAA has no set regulations for what is acceptable social media use for student athletes; instead, it leaves it up to the institutions to deal with Twitter or Facebook issues on a case-by-case basis.  Additionally, many colleges and universities have implemented strict, uniform social media policies that apply to all students, athletes or not.

Recently, a YouTube video attacking ex-presidential contender Jon Huntsmen surfaced on the Internet.  The insulting footage refers to Huntsmen as the “Manchurian Candidate,” while playing “Chinese style” music in the background; it shows Huntsmen doing Chinese activities (speaking Chinese, interviewing with the chinese media…) and asks whether the candidate’s true country of allegiance is the United States or China.  The clip further proceeds to display a terribly doctored photo of Huntsmen wearing Maoist military garb and trashes Huntsmen for being a Mormon.  The final scene of the video instructs voters seeking American values and liberty to vote for Ron Paul.

While attack ads are quite common in politics, Huntsmen was particularly offended by this one, because the ad used pictures of Huntsmen’s adopted children to argue that Huntsmen does not hold American values.  In addressing the video, Huntsmen said, “[i]f someone wants to poke fun at me, that’s OK. . .[But] what I object to is bringing forward pictures and videos of my adopted daughters and suggesting there’s something sinister there.”

While everyone agrees that this video was tactless and offensive, the lingering question is: who is behind this distasteful advertisement?

The obvious initial reaction was to place the blame on Ron Paul’s campaign team.  The clip’s final segment endorsed Paul and the video was uploaded on a YouTube account called “New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul.”  However, that evidence alone does not incriminate Paul.  There is nothing actually linking the account to Paul’s campaign team and further, the “NH Liberty 4 Paul” YouTube account only contains this one uploaded video, which makes it seem like a farce.  Even though Paul’s campaign team has started up with Huntsmen before, they maintain that they have never done anything this offensive.  Putting to bed any remaining doubts as to whether Paul’s campaign was the originator of this ad, Paul’s team filed a defamation and trademark lawsuit against the party who uploaded the unauthorized attack video.

But the suit is unlikely to succeed for several reasons.  The suit alleges false advertising and false designation of origin under the Lanham Act.  The Lanham Act applies to “commercial advertising or promotion” and there seems to be no indication of sale of goods or self-promotion.  Additionally, it is very hard to demonstrate that the advertisement actually defames Paul.  Paul’s legal team must be able to prove that this video alone caused a public change in opinion of Ron Paul.  Proving an opinion-shift about a public figure such as Ron Paul is highly difficult and thus unlikely.

Not only is this suit destined to fail, it also is just kind of odd.  Since the identity of the uploader is unknown, this suit is a “John Doe” suit, where the plaintiff adds the defendant when the identity is revealed, even if it is after the suit is filed.  The defendant is usually identified through a subpoena of on an Internet Service Provider (ISP).  What makes this suit so weird is that Paul is a libertarian, primarily interested in individual liberties and freedom from government.  But forcing an ISP to disclose the identity of a client definitely infringes on the ISP and its users’ right of privacy.  Therefore, John Doe proceedings are not in-line with Paul’s main beliefs.

While the lawsuit is weak and strange, it still does make it quite clear that Ron Paul’s campaign is not the party behind the video.  So our original question remains: who is responsible?