Good Idea? | Takedown! Tattoo Artist Wins Lawsuit
A jury in a federal lawsuit handed a big win to tattoo artist Catherine Alexander in October.
Alexander sued Take-Two Interactive Software in the U.S District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. Take-Two Interactive Software is the publisher of a video game that depicted professional wrestler Randy Orton.
Alexander claimed that by including in its depiction of Orton tattoos that she’d inked on the wrestler, the company violated her copyright in the tattoos.
Take-Two unsuccessfully argued that its use of the tattoo was authorized by an implied license and protected by the fair use doctrine.
Some copyright experts worry that the verdict could lead to an explosion of litigation over whether tattoo owners control the right to license displays of their own likenesses.
Source: LexBlog
Quotable | “You try to anticipate what’s coming next, but there are always surprises.”
Courtroom sketch showing an accused person (center) flanked by his attorneys at sentencing, drawn in about eight minutes. Photo: Butch Krieger, http://www.butchkrieger
– Art Lien, courtroom sketch artist
Art Lien retired this summer after 45 years of making courtroom sketches for CBS, NBC, and SCOTUSblog.
In an interview with National Public Radio, Lien said that he fell into sketching trials after graduating with a fine arts degree and being hired by a local news station to cover the corruption trial of Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel in 1977.
Lien said that among the U.S. Supreme Court justices that he’s sketched, Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy were the most difficult to sketch because their faces had fewer distinctive features.
Lien also said that he relied on his memory when sketching moments from oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court that featured justices and lawyers gesturing.
Source: NPR
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By the Numbers | 25%
– The amount by which police agency Facebook posts over-represent Black arrestees
According to a paper published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, posts about serious crime to police agency Facebook pages over-represent Black suspects by 25% compared to arrest rates.
The paper compared about 100,000 Facebook posts to data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program to gauge whether the posts accurately tracked local arrest numbers.
“A substantial body of research shows that crime news that is disseminated through social media exacerbates the public’s fear of crime more than traditional news media,” said Julian Nyarko, a Stanford Law School professor and one of the paper’s three authors.
Source: ABA Journal
On the Radar | Refunds for PACER Users
Users of PACER, the federal court system’s online database, are in line for $100 million in refunds under the terms of a class-action settlement announced in October.
Under the terms of the settlement, users who paid for copies of federal court records between 2010 and 2018 are each entitled to receive $350, and possibly more if there are sufficient funds.
The lawsuit was filed by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, the National Consumer Law Center, and the Alliance for Justice.
In the lawsuit, the group alleged that the federal judiciary broke the law by charging PACER users fees for copies of public records that exceeded the cost of producing the records.
Source: Politico
Out There | Ballot Selfie: Crime or Protected Expression?
A Mequon-Thiensville (Wis.) School District Board of Education member faces jail time after posting a photo of his completed ballot on Facebook.
According to a criminal complaint filed by Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol, Paul Buzzell posted the photo after the April 2022 election. Buzzell is charged with voter fraud, an offense that carries up to 3.5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Gerol said he filed the charges in hopes of getting an answer from an appellate court on whether the voter fraud statute, which prohibits showing a marked ballot to anyone, violates the First Amendment.
In 2020, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill that would have made taking a “ballot selfie” legal, but the bill died in the Assembly.
Source: myplainview.com
On the Radar | FBI Releases National Crime Data
The rate of violent crime and property crime remained steady from 2020 to 2021, according to data on 11 million criminal offenses released by the FBI in October.
In the aggregate, estimated violent crime decreased 1% from 2020 to 2021. However, the estimated number of murders increased by 4.3% in the same period, and the number of estimated rapes also increased.
Much of the slight decline in the amount of aggregate estimated violent crime was due to an 8.9% decrease in robberies from 2020 to 2021.
Source: FBI.gov
» Cite this article: 95 Wis. Law. 6-7 (December 2022).
