MetaFilter posts tagged with litigation

The Monster at the End of This Beer

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:18:19 -0800

Last month, the makers of Monster Energy Drink (Warning: Flash, Ads) sent a cease and desist letter (PDF) to Rock Art Brewery, makers of The Vermonster beer. Brewer Matt Nadeau plans to fight back, even though such a fight would be nasty, time consuming, and very, very expensive. This is not the only time a company with Monster in its name got litigious over the use of the word Monster, nor is it even the only product named The Vermonster!

MGMT vs France

filthy light thief — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:34:46 -0800

The French UMP party are being sued by the duo MGMT over the use of their song Kids. UMP paid a standard €53 fee to France's music licensing body, but MGMT's lawyer Isabelle Wekstein says that this was not enough to cover subsequent uses of the song, particularly on the Web. UMP has admitted using it, but said it was a mistake and has offered a symbolic gesture of one euro (£0.89). The story is getting more coverage as the UMP has been pushing hard for a 'three strikes law' that would banish pirates from the Internet after two ignored warnings, which may be close to passage in the French National Assembly.

Searching For Robert Johnson: Guitar expert spots new photograph on eBay auction

y2karl — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:26:03 -0800

...As he pored over the mass of texts and thumbnail photos that the eBay search engine had pulled up on that day in 2005, one strangely worded listing caught Schein’s eye. It read, “Old Snapshot Blues Guitar B.B. King???” He clicked on the link, then took in the sepia-toned image that opened on his monitor. Two young black men stared back at Schein from what seemed to be another time. They stood against a plain backdrop wearing snazzy suits, hats, and self-conscious smiles. The man on the left held a guitar stiffly against his lean frame. Neither man looked like B. B. King, but as Schein studied the figure with the guitar, noticing in particular the extraordinary length of his fingers and the way his left eye seemed narrower and out of sync with his right, it occurred to him that he had stumbled across something significant and rare... the more convinced he became that it depicted one of the most mysterious and mythologized blues artists produced by the Delta: the guitarist, singer, and songwriter whom Eric Clapton once anointed “the most important blues musician who ever lived.” That’s not B. B. King, Schein said to himself. Because it’s Robert Johnson.

Searching for Robert Johnson reveals not only what may be the third picture of Robert Johnson but a Byzantine struggle over his legacy as well.

America's Pastime

tractorfeed — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:01:41 -0800

Enterprising kids in Connecticut spend a few weeks clearing weeds out of an empty lot, planning a halcyon summer of wiffleball. They scavenge some plywood out of a dumpster, buy some paint, dig some holes, pour concrete, and next thing you know, they have their own custom built playing field. As one kid put it, "if we build it, they will come." But the outcome was not what they expected.

Anyone know any lawyer jokes?

yoyoceramic — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:41:57 -0800

Where's Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law, when you need him? Circumcision is sexual abuse. CIA is Brainwashing. Don't wait, choose your class action today!

The "attractive nuisance" in the red suit.

chlorus — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:40:46 -0800

He keeps his white gloved hands where parents can see them. And buys liability insurance, just in case.

War of the Welles: The Torturous Journey of The Other Side of the Wind to the Big Screen

jonp72 — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 09:57:50 -0800

The Other Side of the Wind is the lost last film of Orson Welles, a reputed unseen masterpiece, that may finally see the light of day in late 2008. The film tells the story of Jake Hannaford (played by John Huston), an aging movie director who has to film a low budget sex-and-symbolism flick to avoid getting overtaken by the Movie Brats of the Spielberg/Coppola generation. After providing voiceovers to two documentaries on the Persepolis ceremonies of 1971 and an intimate portrait of the Shah of Iran, Welles obtained Iranian financing to finish The Other Side of the Wind. Unfortunately, after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the bank accounts of his Iranian financier were seized, which led to the negatives for the film getting locked in a French vault. After Orson Welles died in 1985, his lover/collaborator Oja Kodar had to settle his estate with Orson's estranged (but never divorced) wife Paola Mori. There the matter might have rested, if not for an unfortunate coincidence. (More inside.)

how much would michael scott cost in legal fees?

tylerfulltilt — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:42:12 -0800

Steve Carell may be hilarious in the office, but how much would his jackass behavior cost in real-life? clips (youtube)

Quel horreur...

pwedza — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:12:41 -0800

The French do some things well and, well, some things not so well. (see)

Symposium on Director Liability

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 31 May 2006 10:51:47 -0800

Forum: The Pros and Cons of Director Liability. [more inside]

brand loyalty or else

alumshubby — Wed, 18 May 2005 12:19:52 -0800

Man Claims Firing Over Drinking Wrong Beer He works for one mega-beer brand and, on his own time, partook of a competitor's.

Monsanto vs. US Farmers

digaman — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 11:32:01 -0800

Farmer Homer McFarland is being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Monsanto corporation. His crime? Replanting his crops' own seed, as farmers have done for millennia, which violates the biotech giant's intellectual property rights, the company claims. Quietly, Monsanto's aggressive "seed police" have been suing farmers in 25 states for years, often settling out of court for huge sums, according to the Center for Food Safety's new report, Monsanto vs. US farmers [PDF link]. For more information, also see a new documentary called The Future of Food.

S&M Barbie

nathan_teske — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:23:05 -0800

S&M Barbie ... and S&M Barbie

Digital asse(t)s

clevershark — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:05:32 -0800

Think the RIAA is doing something new by threatening and suing? Think again... it's all part of a 4-step process.

SCO wants GPL declared unconstitutional.

silusGROK — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 09:48:23 -0800

SCO is at it again ... this time they've asked a federal judge to declare that Linux's general public license — a backbone of the free software movement — unconstitutional. Let's hope the judge has more sense than SCO.

All your plugin capability are belong to us

aaronshaf — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 13:40:25 -0800

Eolas® Technologies Inc. owns the plugin concept. Meet US Patent 5,838,906: "The patent claims to cover mechanisms for embedding objects within distributed hypermedia documents, where at least some of the object's data is located external to the document, and there is a control path to the object's implementation to support user interaction with the object." Eolas sued Microsoft, was awarded $521 million, Microsoft is appealing, and the W3C held (Macromedia hosted) an ad hoc meeting on the recent court decision and launched a discussion list. Microsoft plans to promptly make changes to Internet Explorer. If this follows through, what are the negative and positive implications?

Nestle sued over bad water

omidius — Thu, 19 Jun 2003 13:33:41 -0800

Nestle, the makers of Poland Spring water are being sued for selling their bottled water as "naturally purified" or "spring water" when in fact it does not meet the scientific criteria for spring water, is worse than some area tap water, and is sourced near "asphalt parking lots or other areas of dangerous contamination".

Can I sue the aliens for my probe trauma? 'Cause I know they did it.

Ignatius J. Reilly — Thu, 08 May 2003 08:53:31 -0800

Judge, citing al-Qaida-Iraq link, awards $104 million to Sept. 11 families A judge ruled yesterday that lack of evidence should be no barrier to suing people who cannot be found. "The judge wrote that lawyers relied heavily on 'classically hearsay' evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists." --This would hardly be the first documented example of a court being overtly political, but the judge himself has no problem commenting on how shoddy the case was. "The judge noted that the experts provided few actual facts that Iraq provided support to the terrorists." --Apparently, the judge had just been waiting for Saddam to cease to be a diplomatically immune head of state before ruling against him. Is the low standard of evidence needed for civil rulings allowing the courts to begin establishing something that the military and intelligence can't? [more inside]

Readin', 'Ritin' and Redneckery

grrarrgh00 — Sun, 16 Mar 2003 08:07:05 -0800

Sticking to the gay stuff: The ACLU is threatening legal action against a middle school in Arkansas whose administrators have gone to extraordinary lengths to punish a student for being gay, including outing him to his parents, forcing him to read passages of the Bible, calling him "abnormal" and "unnatural," and disciplining him for mentioning between classes to a female friend that he thought another boy was cute. (via CalPundit) [more inside]

Shrinkwrap, Software, EULAs and Reverse Engineering

ed — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 11:52:13 -0800

Another way around sneaky agreements: A Californian is suing (PDF) Microsoft and Symantec over shrink-wrapped agreements and EULAs that are only readable when you first install the software, making a return or refund absolutely impossible. Many courts have upheld shrinkwrap licenses. Conversely, reverse engineering has been determined to constitute fair use. If this case sets a precedent, could we see abridged legalese on the side of future boxes or a rethinking of software licensing trends? Or will the cluttered tower of consumer rights, protection for software companies and code evolution and innovation topple over?

Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement

Witty — Tue, 07 Jan 2003 10:16:28 -0800

I made my claim. Have you? This Web site was established to provide information about a proposed Settlement of lawsuits brought by Attorneys General of 43 states, Commonwealths and Territories, and by counsel for the Plaintiff Settlement Class entitled In re: Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation. You may be a member of the Settlement Group and your rights against Defendants may be affected if you are a person or entity that purchased these prerecorded Music Products from a retail store during the period of January 1, 1995 through December 22, 2000.

Girl to sue over detention

feelinglistless — Sat, 28 Dec 2002 03:57:10 -0800

Girl to sue over detention "The family, who want compensation, will argue that the detentions were unlawful because they took place in Freya's free time. " If you can't give kids detention, how else are they going to be punished for breaking school rules?

semmi — Fri, 04 Oct 2002 23:42:04 -0800

Salman Rushdie defends fellow writer Michel Houellebecq, the autonomy of the literary text and its right to be considered on its own terms with characters of every sort.

mikrophon — Tue, 27 Aug 2002 07:28:28 -0800

Thai company employs Spider-man to deliver cooking gas. Marvel sez: "use monkey suits because monkeys don't have intellectual property rights." 'Nuff Said?

queequeg — Fri, 16 Aug 2002 13:52:15 -0800

Is there really a $7 billion lawsuit against the Bush administration -- filed on behalf of 14 of the victims' families -- charging that he let 9-11 happen on purpose? Seems like kind of a weird thing for a few web sites to fabricate, but a google search doesn't reveal many mainstream news sources. And what do folks think of the "Let It Happen On Purpose" theory... or more importantly, the evidence that the theorists cite?