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3d Circuit: “No child porn charges in sexting case”

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed down its decision this week in the Pennsylvania “sexting” case, in which a prosecutor threatened to press child porn charges against a group of teenage girls for sending cell phone pictures of themselves in bras and underwear.  You can read the infamous J. DeVoy’s anti-gender-bias [...]

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IOC Uses DMCA to Suppress Luge Accident Video

The opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics was marked with tragedy when 21-year-old Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was involved in a fatal crash during a training run. The horrific event dampened the spirit of the international competition and colored the mood at the opening ceremonies later that night. As anyone would expect, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sprung into action, responding to the accident with a multi-point [...]

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“Twenty-Something Arrested at Twilight Movie” or “State Law Copyright Enforcement?”

Earlier this month, 22-year-old Samantha Tumpach was arrested exiting a showing of the new douchey-little-vampire-kid movie, The Twilight Saga: New Moon.  No, she wasn’t detained for a psych eval, as anyone over the age of 16 should be for watching that movie.  (The only problem with implementing that policy is that state mental health facilities [...]

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Mattel finally learns how to "chill"

One of the chores inherent in the practice of law is that one has to read a lot of really REALLY dry court opinions.  It’s always nice when you find judges out there who recognize this, and make some effort to keep it interesting.  One of my favorites from law school has always been Mattel, [...]

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In Lakeland, Florida, saying "Im'ma kill me a cop one day" will get you two years in prison

A Lakeland, FL man has been sentenced to two years in prison for recording a rap song entitled "Kill Me a Cop" (source).  It seems that the local sheriff’s office considers the lyrics to be a credible threat of imminent violence — never mind the fact that the source of that "imminent" threat was in [...]

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Indian Politician Wants “Slumdog” Song to be Public Property... (so he can use it in his campaign)

“Anyone should be able to use the song. ‘Jai Ho’ should not belong to any one; it belongs to the country,” claims Atul Shah, an Indian politician who is seeking election (source). The song, from the film “Slumdog Millionaire,” won this year’s Academy Award for Best Song. Even if it had not, [...]

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Has the Sixth Circuit Declared Jihad on the First Amendment?

Twice in two weeks, the Sixth Circuit has handed down decisions that are targeted at burdening the adult entertainment industry. As we pointed out in an earlier post and as Professor Salkin explains, the Sixth upheld a questionable Tennessee regulation that creates special licensing requirements for “sexually-oriented businesses.” They also did a number [...]

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Producers of Copyrighted Content – They Just Don’t Get It

I don’t understand why producers of copyrighted content have such a hard time comprehending their customer base. We’re not that difficult to fathom. We only really have a few, simple needs:

We want to be able to get to desired content, whenever and however we want.
We don’t want to pay through the nose for [...]

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Tim Tebow should visit whocanisue.com

The University of Florida starting quarterback likely has a valid claim for infringement of his right of publicity, provided he has not authorized this bit of creative expression that is currently available for purchase.

Gator Nation response:

This story was originally published on The Legal Satyricon.

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