“There are thousands of door-related accidents each year. The Consumer Product Safety Commission should do its bit by requiring that a professionally trained doorman open and shut all doors for door-users. That would create millions of jobs …” [Iain Murray, CEI]
Author Archive
Vintage sound recordings
Many are lost in a copyright maze: “The American rules infuriate scholars, archivists, musicians and the conservationists who preserve fragile recordings. They fret that by the time the recordings become available, many will be beyond salvation.” [The Economist] “A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them” [Steven Seidenberg, ABA Journal]
Annals of criminalization, part 2,038: “performing” copyrighted material
The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved S. 978, a bill that would raise from a misdemeanor to a felony the unauthorized performance or streaming of a copyrighted work when the infringement takes place at least ten times and either reaps $2,500 or more in revenue, or avoids the payment of license fees whose fair market value would exceed $5,000. Mike Masnick at TechDirt thinks the bill could wind up authorizing the jailing of some persons who embed YouTube videos or post videos of themselves lip-synching hit tunes; CopyHype defends the bill and dismisses the concerns as overblown.
When regulation bites
The EPA may face escalating pressure to un-ban some pesticides effective against bedbugs [Michelle Minton, CEI]
“Suit demands CNN offer online captions for deaf”
Disabled-rights lawyers said the suit against the news network “is the first in the nation to seek equal treatment for the deaf from a commercial content provider on the Internet.” Expect many others to follow. [Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle]
Employers liable for not providing work-family balance?
Evil HR Lady and Ted Frank (more here) note some ambitious contentions in a lawsuit against Bayer Healthcare.
Tavern’s terrifying Taurus, cont’d
Yet another lawsuit against a Manhattan bar filed by a patron who fell off its mechanical bull [New York Post]
“Birthers Sue Esquire for $120 Million Over Satirical Article”
Leading birthers Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi are suing Esquire for $120 million because the magazine published a satirical article headlined, ‘BREAKING! Jerome Corsi’s Birther Book Pulled From Shelves!,’ Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici reports.” [Atlantic Wire, Daily Caller]
“Cop who shot Danroy Henry sues store where he allegedly got alcohol”
Follow the bouncing blame: “Pleasantville police officer Aaron Hess, who shot and killed Pace University football player Danroy Henry, Jr., is suing a local liquor store for allegedly providing Henry with alcohol. … Hess has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury but the U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing the case and Henry’s family has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Hess and the police department.” [News12, NY]
WSJ op-ed on same-sex marriage and religious exemptions
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on New York’s vote last Friday to legally recognize same-sex marriage. I also applaud the inclusion of protections for religious institutions (and would have favored strengthening the protections beyond the current level). The WSJ frames the discussion as “Two Views from the Right,” and they’ve got Maggie Gallagher giving the opposite side.