What? You don't want *this* guy's monument in your park?
The United States Supreme Court this week announced that a city’s government has a right to decide which donated monuments to display on municipal property (source). Justice Alito, writing for a unanimous Court, said that placement of a permanent marker on public grounds represents a type of government speech. As such, the government gets to pick the message.
The dispute began when a member of the Summum religion (which adopts Egyptian customs, such as mummification, with elements of Gnostic Christianity that teach spiritual knowledge is experiential) proposed that a monument to their “Seven Aphorisms” should be placed alongside an existing “Ten Commandments” monument. The city declined to accept the “donation,” and the “donor” sued, asserting a violation of their free speech rights. The Tenth Circuit agreed, and the dispute made it all the way to the High Court.
The Supreme Court rejected the lower court’s reasoning, which asserted that placing a monument in a public park was analogous to making a speech in an open forum. Alito states that the display of a permanent monument is not the same as a transitory expressive act, such as giving a speech or staging a protest.
He went on to explain what might happen if municipalities were forced to put up every proposed statue, in the name of “equal” treatment:
“Every jurisdiction that has accepted a donated war memorial may be asked to provide equal treatment for a donated monument questioning the cause for which the veterans fought. New York City, having accepted a donated statue of one heroic dog (Balto, the sled dog who brought medicine to Nome, Alaska, during a diphtheria epidemic) may be pressed to accept monuments for other dogs who are claimed to be equally worthy of commemoration.”
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 it.
If you make it difficult for us, there are other ways for us to get what we want. Ways you don’t like, because it means you won’t get your cut.
It’s precisely because content producers don’t understand us that we have scenarios like this.
I really thought that everyone was coming closer together, though, producers and consumers, when I discovered a service called Hulu this summer. It just so happened that I found myself, for about six weeks, in a place with Internet access, but limited cable service. I began to fret when I realized that I would not be able to get my weekly Battlestar Galactica fix – right when the last season was beginning to air. Also, with the writers’ strike delaying everything, many of my other favorite programs were still running new episodes into June. I was going to miss the season finales for a handful of shows, which I had been watching religiously at home. I began to panic a little bit.
A few days ago, Facebook announced that it would be changing its terms of service. The updated terms made changes with regard to intellectual property ownership of content that users posted to the site. The changes were denounced as oppressive by many blog commentators. Apparently in response to the negative “press,” Facebook has reversed course, posting the following message on the “home” page for all users.
iPhone application developer, InfoMedia, Inc., filed a complaint last week, seeking a declaratory judgment from a U.S. District Court in Colorado. The pleading seeks to end a dispute that has been bubbling up between InfoMedia and one of its competitors, Air-O-Matic (AOM). What are these two companies fighting over? Dominance in the cutthroat realm of iPhone flatulence apps. (source)
Late in 2008, Apple decided to relax its draconian content censorship rules which govern the kinds of applications that could be offered for sale in its iPhone application store, allowing novelty applications that simulate farting noises. The app store quickly filled up with new entries into this niche market. Currently, a search for the term "fart" in the app store yields nearly 150 results, including such classics as "iToot", "Fart Box", and "Fart Piano" – to name a few.
AOM’s current offering is entitled "Fart Lighter – Pull My Finger, Pro Edition" and sells for 99¢. On December 18, 2008, they filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), seeking to register the phrase "Pull My Finger" for use in connection with "[c]omputer application software for mobile phones." (taken from Federal Trademark Application, Serial No. 77,635,715.) That application is currently awaiting examination by the USPTO, so AOM is not entitled to any presumption of validity or enforceability for the "Pull My Finger" mark, which has only been in use by AOM since December 13, 2008. But that isn’t stopping them from asserting that other fart app developers have infringed on their trademark rights.
It’s a daunting task, but one District Judge in Rhode Island thinks he has found a way to catch the interest of the under-30, computer-oriented generation: Link to YouTube videos, which play music that is ironically related to the facts of a case. (source)
“The novelty of citations to YouTube and the idea that you could access music as you plod through the opinion hopefully makes a kind of dry subject a little more fun and interesting,” [U.S. District Judge William E. Smith] wrote in an e-mail. “It seems to me that judges should look for ways to get people interested in important subjects like the First Amendment, to get them talking about it. Hopefully this will accomplish that goal in a small way.”
We here at GaneshaFish agree that this is a good idea, and offer the following for your enjoyment while reading this post.
H.R. 414 was introduced into Congress this month with the title “The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act” (source). In an effort to combat unauthorized pictures, which might be taken in places like dressing rooms, locker rooms, and the like, the bill would require all mobile phones, made in the United States, to emit a “tone or other sound” that would be audible “within a reasonable radius of the phone” whenever a picture is taken. Under the legislation, a user would also not have the option of disabling the sound.
If the sound made by a phone, when a picture is taken, is designed to communicate a message (i.e., “I’m taking a picture now”), would it be a First Amendment issue to require the sound? Can the government compel every camera phone user to make this statement each time they take a picture?
A twenty-two year old Nevada woman has placed her virginity up for grabs in an online auction, where the bidding has reportedly reached over $3.7 million. The transaction has caught the attention of some religious groups, who would like the federal government to intervene. However, because prostitution is legal in the state of Nevada, this particular sale of personal services will not be stopped, even though it may be advertised on the Internet – which can be accessed in states where prostitution is illegal.
One astute legal scholar had this to say about the matter:
It’s a First Amendment issue. You can advertise goods or services that are illegal where they’re advertised but legal where they’re performed. What’s she’s advertising is as legal as toast with the crust cut off where she is. (source)
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WARNING, RANT ALERT
(what follows is the individual opinion of the author)
Here again, we have the latest example of some whackjob in the Bible belt confusing legality with morality. In case you, the reader is confused, they are not always the same thing, and arguably never should be – at least at the federal level.
The idea here is that “morality” is another word for the standards of a particular community. Those standards are subjective, i.e., everyone has their own idea of what is moral and what isn’t, and no one is wrong for having a different idea than their next-door neighbor – with a couple of rare exceptions, like pedophiles. Generally, you can get a group of people together who agree on a particular moral standard, regarding a particular issue. However, the larger you make the group, the less likely it is that the group will agree, and there’s no really good reason why 51% of the people should be able to dictate their subjective idea of what is moral to the other 49%.
In the United States, our system of government was designed to reflect this reality. Local governments (e.g., state, county, city, homeowners association, etc.) are the ones in the best position to, if it is absolutely necessary, pass a law/regulation that is based on the morality of the community that those governments represent. Our federal government should not ever be taking action based on some perceived moral standard. The above-described news item illustrates this point quite well.
The community of people that live in the state of Nevada have decided for themselves that prostitution is okay. They have chosen to elect officials who recognize this particular moral standard, and those officials have enacted legislation that reflects that standard. The people of Nevada are free to change their minds and elect new officials who might change the law. This scenario accurately depicts the dream of our Founders.
Outrage over some “spillage” of immorality into other communities is a weak excuse for demanding some sweeping federal standard that is contrary to the laws of Nevada. The First Amendment was written specifically to prevent this type of thing. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it – you are free to make the decision for yourself. Have the courtesy to let the rest of us do the same – for ourselves.
A.L. Enterprises, Inc. (“ALE”), a Nevada corporation, sued a Canadian manufacturer of male chastity belts in Utah this week. ALE alleges that Latitudes International (“Latitudes”) has shipped products into the United States that bear ALE’s federally registered trademarks.
“[I]t’s simulated wood design gives it a ‘warm, earthy feel.’”
As the owner of federal registrations for the trademarks “CB-3000″ and “CB-6000″, to be used in association with devices conducive to male chastity, ALE has the right to prevent others from selling similar products in the U.S. under the same marks. Latitudes is accused of doing just that.
According to the complaint, Latitudes is selling counterfeit versions of ALE’s products at two websites, http://www.chastitydeviceformen.com/ and http://www.latitudes-international.com/. Indeed, the website does appear to be offering the same three types of “devices” that ALE sells and using the same trademarks to identify its goods.
Perhaps the most interesting detail in this story, at least to this observer, is that the USPTO has two separate classes of goods for:
“Devices conducive to male chastity, namely, chastity belts for men” and
“Adult sexual aids conducive to male chastity, namely, chastity restraints for men”
iPhone application developer, 
