Law Law Land Blog Posts

The right of publicity — the legal doctrine that protects the right of celebrities to control and profit from their names, likenesses, and other aspects of their identities — is a familiar topic for us here. But it can be a more complicated subject than we sometimes give it credit for.  Unlike copyright and trademark ...

Does any one electronics retailer have a monopoly on incompetent employees wearing blue shirts? That’s just one of the questions raised by a cease and desist letter sent by retail giant Best Buy to internet merchant Newegg.com, which Newegg posted on its Facebook page last week. In its letter, Best Buy takes Newegg to task for, among other ...

It’s Friday, Friday Gotta get down on Friday Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend. Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’) We-we-we so excited We so excited We gonna have a ball today Rebecca Black Some people think that Rebecca Black’s “Friday” may just be the worst song in recorded history (a campaign no doubt spearheaded by Right Said Fred and the Baha Men). It also ...

One of the joys of living in the DVD/Blu-ray age is that TV fans can easily relive their most joyous television experiences, with series that range from the iconic to the obscure. Megahits like The Simpsons and Seinfeld are obviously readily available, as are cult favorites like Freaks and Geeks and Arrested Development. Even less iconic one-season-wonders are available for ...

In 2006, the California Court of Appeal in Kirby v. Sega held that a video game’s depiction of pop singer Deee-Lite in a fanciful outer space setting is a “transformative use” protected by the First Amendment. On Wednesday of this week, the California Court of Appeal in No Doubt v. Activision held that a video game’s depiction of pop ...

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” These words will be heard many times today as we celebrate the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They ...

In 1996, David Cronenberg directed a controversial film, starring James Spader and Holly Hunter, about people with a sexual fetish for car crashes. While the movie was well-received by critics, it was quickly forgotten by most people. That is, until 2004, when Paul Haggis directed a little ensemble drama that went on to win the Academy Award for ...

The new Facebook movie, “The Social Network,” opened this weekend to rave reviews and the No. 1 spot at the box office. If history is any guide, we should now prepare ourselves for two things: (1) a string of copycat films (coming soon, “Friendster: We Totally Came Up With This Idea First, Really!” and “MySpace: ...

Ah, the cease and desist letter. There is no more trusty weapon in the arsenal of an entertainment lawyer. Most of these letters will get the job done, but tend to be dry and uninspired. They often appear to have been cribbed from a set of legal Mad Libs: This letter will serve as formal notice that the ...

I refuse to buy my daughters Bratz dolls. It’s not so much that I don’t want to encourage them to wear makeup or become streetwalkers. It’s more that I don’t want to give rival toy companies Mattel and MGA Entertainment an incentive to spend even more money fighting about the fate of these “girls with ...

It’s a familiar story (and I don’t claim to have come up with it, so don’t tell me I stole it): Writer pitches a concept to Producer. Producer rejects (or ignores) the concept, and Writer and Producer each go their separate ways — until Producer later makes a movie or TV show that Writer believes ...

Is it just me, or has there been a larger-than-usual number of right of publicity complaints filed lately by celebrities against advertisers? Among others, we’ve seen Lindsay Lohan’s action against E*Trade and Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the Post cereal company. In each of these cases, the primary legal issue is whether the celebrity’s identity, or “persona,” has ...

I have a two year old daughter at home that won’t eat. I mean, she’ll eat chocolate chip pancakes, but not chicken, or broccoli, or anything that might actually cause her to grow. If only I’d known earlier that the secret to Alyssa’s healthy eating was putting the chicken and broccoli inside the chocolate chip ...

Tiger Woods’ alleged mistresses are nothing if not enterprising. Case in point: as reported in the L.A. Times, alleged Mistress Number 11, Joslyn James, recently set up a website — sextingjoslynjames.com — in which she posted over 100 allegedly X-rated text messages allegedly sent to her by Tiger Woods. I checked out the site for myself, and can ...