Ties That Bind

My son's first birthday is next weekend. So is this blog's third birthday, but I'm fairly comfortable no one will be sending Bag and Baggage age-approriate toys. Thank goodness. I've just spent the last hour and a half unwrapping four Tolo toys from Tyler's grandparents, silently fuming the whole time about how I was going to have the Overlawyered folks explain to me exactly what nasty piece of litigation, littered with unspeakably maimed children who had gained access to their toys too darned quickly, had led to the current state of affairs: impossible toy packaging. One TV news program actually held a Can You Open It? contest for parents. As that report reveals, it turns out for a change you can't blame the lawyers. No, toymakers have decided it's necessary from an aesthetic standpoint for their wares to be shackled in intricate packaging bondage. This is not without its price. From the same report:

[Consumer Reporter Liz] Crenshaw

AS THE SHOPPERS RIPPED, ROARED, UNTWISTED AND TORE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE PACKAGING, THE OPINION PART OF OUR STORY WASN'T HARD TO GET AT ALL,

Do toy packages frustrate you in any way?

Consumer

Very much so.

Crenshaw

Tell me about it.

Consumer

Because when you open the toy package and you want to get the toy out, It takes about 30-40 minutes to get the toy out, and I want to strangle somebody.

Crenshaw

You ever hurt yourself?

Consumer

All the time.

My son when he was about, oh, 6 or 7, he had the hard plastic, and he got it part way opened and then it slipped out of his hand and it come up and cut him across the top of the eye here.

Crenshaw

Oh you're kidding.

Consumer

So he went to the doctors, got some stitches, and that's how we spent our holiday.

Ha! A case of Underlawyering if there ever was one. Who'll join me in me in a chorus or two of "We Didn't Start The Fire?"

A Tort Professor's Dream

Today's commute to and fro the office was actually enjoyable — enjoyable, I tell you, and we're talking the 405! — thanks to the Engadget podcasts that ushered me along. No. 15 in particular includes discussion of a site that if it's not already making guest appearances on all the Torts exams this fall will certainly be doing so any semester now: 13:30– "Hunt via the web, um, yikes."

Also, Phillip Torrone has an endearing if much too rose-colored view of the reliability of the fair use doctrine, but never mind that, listen to him go! 05:00– "Mash the Planet, we need your help mashing it."

IP MEMES: THAT'S INCREDIBLES—AND MORE

(My November contribution to IP Memes follows.)

THE MOVIE IS 65, BUT THE BOOK'S STILL NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN

65 years after its screen debut, a four hour, four disc set of "Gone
With the Wind" has just been released on Warner Home Video. And 55
years after author Margaret Mitchell's death, her estate continues to
aggressively guard its copyrights. Australian Web site Project
Gutenberg earlier this year added Gone With the Wind to its database
of texts accessible freely online. Australian law protects the
copyright in such works until 50 years after the author's demise. The
latest extension of U.S. copyright law nearly doubles that, as lawyers
for Ms. Mitchell's estate were quick to point out. Project Gutenberg
has removed the book, though it remains unclear which country's law
would govern in this case. No word on whether the demand letter
threatened "a good lashing with a buggy whip."

Links:

• IGN Insider, Gone With The Wind: 65th Anniversary Collector's Edition
• International Herald Tribune, The end user: Copyright patchwork
• Gone With The Wind quotes

MPAA, MARVEL JUMP ON THE LAWSUIT BANDWAGON

Following the lead of the Recording Industry of America (which has
recently added a 10-year old to its ranks of defendants), the
Motion Picture Association of America has begun suing individuals
suspected of trading unauthorized movie files on P2P networks.
Meanwhile, Marvel Enterprises, which owns the rights to characters
such as The Incredible Hulk and the various X-Men, is going after the
creators of City of Heroes, a massively multiplayer role-playing game
that allows players to create characters Marvel says are too similar
to its own. Will it be long before the players themselves are in
Marvel's crosshairs? Says Weblogs, Inc. co-founder Jason Calacanis:
"Heck, I'm going to turn my brother in for drawing Wolverine in his
8th-grade notebook!"

Links:

• Miami Herald, Music piracy suits hitting home
• PC World, MPAA Sues First Movie Swappers
• USA Today, Marvel sues two companies over role-playing game
• Jason Calacanis weblog post

THAT'S INCREDIBLES

Where I come from, $200 million is real money. To see how
Disney/Pixar spent that much on licensed promotions for its film The
Incredibles, check out blogger Alan Taylor's chronicle of over 325 official
Incredibles-related items, including a set of Incredibles-branded
weightlifting gear, necessary to help banish calories from
Incredibles-branded Pop-Tarts. (Via Waxy)

Links:

• The Incredibles
• The Incredible$

WHO SAYS YOGA AND LAWSUITS DON'T MIX?

First there was Bikram Choudry, suing studio owners perceived to stand
in the way of the Starbuck-ification of his 26-posture series. Now
there's the dispute between Roger Avary (incidentally, co-writer of
"Pulp Fiction") and Microsoft, who Avary alleges snatched his idea for
a "virtual" yoga studio. Microsoft recently announced a new Xbox game
called "Yourself! Fitness" that Avery says he pitched to Microsoft
last year without reaching any agreement. Sounds like the perfect
opportunity for litigants to replace "Respectfully Submitted" with
"Namaste."

Links:

• SF Gate, Yogis go to court over poses, Copyright dispute turns yoga into a legal exercise
• Yourself! Fitness
• Ireland Online, Pulp Fiction writer sues Microsoft

TIVO ANNOUNCES ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR HACKS

TiVo, famously dubbed "God's Machine" by FCC Chairman Michael Powell,
has just slipped a bit lower in the divine firmament. By March of
next year, TiVo users will no longer simply see their recorded
programming speeding by when they fast-forward through recorded
commercials. Instead, they'll see ads — not the ones they recorded,
but ads placed there through partnerships between TiVo and other
advertisers. However, TiVo is one of the most hackable, and hacked,
consumer electronic devices on the market today, so intrepid users are
no doubt even now plotting ways to thwart TiVo's efforts to make them
view ads when what they're trying to do is skip ads. TiVo already
walks a tightrope in taking a hands-off approach to hackers who
handily circumvent its copy protection. Now its paid advertisers will
add their voices to those who want TiVo to clamp down harder on
hobbyists tinkering under the hood.

Links:

• Sun-Sentinel, TiVo Will No Longer Skip Past Advertisers
• c|net News.com, TiVo hacks flourish

193.5 MB

That's how much iPod real estate Engadget's first 15 podcasts will require. And they'll keep your ears happy for 10 hours, 26 minutes. In case you were wondering.

Documents Is Documents

I blogged a little last year about the probable ease of admitting Web pages as evidence (Electronic Discovery And Weblogs), and a colleague of mine later had some fun during the FareChase litigation introducing a contradictory Web page he located in court during the direct exam of an adverse witness (Cross Exam Heaven). Now CIS reports that "a magistrate judge in the Northern District of Illinois held that 'snapshots' taken by the Internet Archive that depict web pages as they appeared in the past are admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court rejected the arguments...that the archived pages constituted hearsay and that the Internet Archive was an 'unreliable source.'" [Via BoingBoing]

Good for the magistrate judge. You might be surprised at what documents routinely are admitted in evidence. There's no reason to deem Web pages any more unreliable than any other form of scribbling, particularly those in the Internet Archive, the whole purpose of which is to provide an enduring record.