Archives for February 2004

To promote the progress of science…

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Some days you go to class and you learn something that puts everything in perspective and you realize you made the right decision going to law school. Copyright class tonight was such a moment.

As you surely know, Rick Salomon, Paris Hilton’s ex-boyfriend, recently released a video of the two of them engaged in sexual congress. He actually sells copies of the tape on his Web site, trustfundgirls.com. Now he is suing another Internet site, sexbrats.com, for also selling the video. On what grounds is he suing? Copyright infringement. He owns the copyright to the video.

What’s great is sexbrat’s attorneys’ rejoinder. They have filed a motion to dismiss Salomon’s suit, which alleges Salomon committed fraud on the Copyright Office by claiming that he was the sole author of the work in question.

Says the motion: “Salomon’s failure to identify Ms. Hilton as a co-author on the application for copyright registration renders the certificate of registration invalid and fraudulent.” Hilton didn’t just act in the film, sexbrats alleges, she’s a co-author.

“Unfortunately for Salomon, the video also depicts Ms. Hilton participating fully in the creation of the video,” the motion says. “Ms. Hilton offered directorial comments and physically controlled and directed the camera.” From what I’ve learned so far in intellectual property class, this sounds like a pretty good argument.

I can’t wait to be an attorney.

Feb 25, 2004 | 5 Comments

Valentine’s day message

“Romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece.” –Lisa Simpson

Feb 13, 2004 | 1 Comment

A big deal for us: Cloning isn’t a big deal in Asia

clone-made-in-chinaWhile the White House is pushing a ban on human cloning, we keep seeing breakthroughs overseas. It’s no surprise that the most important cloning research is taking place in Asian countries that aren’t burdened by Christian prudishness. Not only are advances that could help real, suffering patients being sacrificed for the ‘rights’ of embryos, but the nascent biotech industry is being smothered.

This is an area where the U.S. does have a comparative advantage and where we should lead in the global marketplace. Yet there’s a reverse brain-drain of good American scientists who are leaving our universities and firms for countries like China, where the government happily and lavishly funds and encourages their research. Talk about a giant sucking sound.

Feb 13, 2004 | Comment

That dog don’t hunt

The Los Angeles Timesreports today that Justice Scalia didn’t just go duck hunting with Vice President Cheney in January, but that Cheney also flew him out on Air Force Two. The more important revelation, I think, is that the hunting camp they stayed at is owned by a oil company executive. What the hell was Scalia thinking?

In case you don’t know, this matters because weeks before the trip the Supreme Court decided to hear a challenge to the secrecy around Cheney’s national energy commission. I’ve previously written about this commission and it’s report because I think its findings may not have only shaped energy policy, but foreign policy as well.

Scalia, although he infuriates me from time to time, is probably my favorite justice on the Court. For the most part he rejects creative interpretations of the Constitution, and for the most part he is consistent. His blunt, call-it-like-it-is style is also refreshing. But I think he may be taking his textualism a bit too far this time. 28 U.S.C. § 445(a) commands,

Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

“I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned,” he told the Times. I beg to differ. Going on vacation with a litigant before you, and at that litigant’s expense, and staying at an oil executive’s camp when the issue in question is related to energy, are pretty reasonable grounds to question impartiality whether impropriety exists or not. Scalia should do the honorable thing and recuse himself.

Feb 5, 2004 | 1 Comment

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