Instead of “Hope,” Shepard Fairey might consider the word “Truth” as inspiration.
The Los Angeles-based street artist, who rose to fame during President Obama’s campaign when he designed the iconic “Hope” image, will face criminal charges as part of an ongoing legal dispute between him and the Associated Press.
According to theLos Angeles Times, a federal judge based in New York City announced during a hearing with both Fairey’s and the AP’s lawyers present that the artist would face a criminal investigation after his admitted misconduct in the case between him and AP.
In February 2009, AP filed a suit against Fairey claiming that he violated copyright laws by using one of their photographs as the basis for the “Hope” image. In response, Fairey fired back with a suit of his own, alleging that he was protected to use the image under fair use laws.
Last October, Fairey released a statement that he submitted false images and deleted others files of images during the course of legal proceedings, according to the LA Times. He tried to conceal the fact that the AP had correctly ... Read more..
Archive for January, 2010
Custody battles are never pretty, but one case in Sarasota, Florida, is a regular zoo. And that doesn’t mean the throngs of cameras and onlookers that showed up at the courthouse.
The hullabaloo in question surrounds Eli, an 11-month-old who weighs thirteen pounds, wears a diaper and when he leaves the house is led by a leash. Eli is, if you haven’t guessed it yet, a chimpanzee, and he’s at the center of a legal case out of Florida that brings to mind a comedy more than it does a serious case.
But chimpanzee handler Virginia “Gini” Valbuena is completely serious, as a Missouri man attempts to challenge her ownership of Eli.
James “Mike” Casey wants the court let him try and legally prove that Eli came from his chimpanzee ranch, and that he should be returned to his possession. The court case centers around whether or not there should be DNA testing to determine who Eli’s primate parents are, thereby determining his origins.
The DNA testing technique would be similar to those used in paternity cases among humans.
Casey ran the chimpanzee ranch with ... Read more..
In Weintraub v. Board of Education of the City of New York, No. 07-2376 (2d Cir. Jan. 27, 2010), the Second Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, has delivered a body blow to the First Amendment speech rights of public school teachers.
The case concerns a fifth-grade teacher who was dealing with a disruptive student throwing books at him on multiple occasions. When the school administrator refused to take disciplinary action against the student, the teacher filed a grievance with his union. The school allegedly responded by retaliating against the teacher and eventually, firing him. (BTW, all of this happened from 1998-2000, and the Second Circuit decision just came out in 2010; something about justice delayed is justice denied keeps popping into my head.)
The majority decision, written by Judge Walker, recites the holding of Garcetti (U.S. 2006) (the bane of my existence) that public employee speech pursuant to an employee’s official duties receives NO First Amendment protection. In Weintraub, the “speech” being examined was the grievance filed by the teacher with his union.
The Court held that the employee’s grievance was “pursuant to” his official ... Read more..
Those industrious enough to reach the final paragraphs of the recent opinion of the Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) might have been surprised to find Justice Kennedy discussing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). A Hollywood classic directed by Frank Capra, the film is the fictional story of a handpicked bumpkin Senator played by Jimmy Stewart, who sees the light, dramatically filibusters, and in the end teaches the Congress how to behave. Justice Kennedy’s argument seems to be that if the campaign-related indictment of Hillary Clinton in the film titled Hillary: The Movie could be suppressed, the same fate could befall a beloved work such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
The two films’ only similarity seems to be that they are indeed films. One film is fictional, but the other attacks an actual Senator and Presidential candidate. One is designed to entertain, but the other is designed to influence an election. And most importantly, one is a work produced by the culture industry designed to make a profit, but the other is a work funded from ... Read more..
The ABA has been the official federal accrediting body of law schools since 1952, a task it undertook informally after the issuance of the Root Committee Report in 1921. A law school approved by the ABA can remain in business because its students are eligible for federally guaranteed loans and because every state’s licensing authority has made graduates of ABA-approved law schools eligible to take its bar exam. Thus, a law school wants to please the ABA inspection teams that visit every seven years (and more often if the school is new) for a determination of whether to re-approve the school.
Has the existence of the ABA as accrediting body aided legal education? Before 1995, the answer was a qualified yes. The ABA demanded law schools invest in resources that aided students (for example, requiring more full-time faculty), and inculcated a professionalism in legal education that provided for enhanced (though flawed) training of lawyers. The system had its faults, particularly the ABA’s use of its monopoly approval power to 1) push for faculty pay increases, 2) make demands regarding size of ... Read more..
