Lawsuit magnet
11/8/12
By Caitlin Tremblay
'Tis the season for frivolous lawsuits apparently. Former
"Canadian Idol" contestant and current pop music It Girl, Carly
Rae Jepsen, is being sued by Ukrainian singer Aza over her
insanely catchy summer hit, "Call Me Maybe." This is the second lawsuit in a week against Jepsen, who was sued on Nov. 1 over
the song "Good Time."
According to Music Feeds, Aza claims that "Call Me Maybe"
rips off her Christmas single "Hunky Santa." Yep, you read that
right -- a Christmas single. Jepsen's song is about giving your
phone number to your crush; Aza's song is about asking Santa for
a good-looking boyfriend. The songs don't even sound similar.
Jepsen's has instruments; Aza's has a lot of computerized
sounds. (Music Feeds linked to videos of both songs. Listen to
"Hunky Santa" at your own risk.)
At any rate, Aza is suing for unspecified damages and also
named in the suit Jepsen's manager, Scooter Braun (manager to
fellow Canadian pop star Justin Bieber). Aza says that when she
first heard "Call Me Maybe" on the radio ,she was driving and
"almost got into an accident" because she "couldn't believe what
she was hearing."
Jepsen's reps have responded: "This is completely false and
(Carly's) lawyers will deal with this. Everyone knows (Carly) is
a songwriter. She is not spending a lot of time listening to
Ukrainian radio."
Score so far -- Jepsen: 1; Aza: 0.
Challenging the sex offender law
11/8/12
By Suhrith Parthasarathy
Just a day after Californians overwhelmingly approved a
measure to help track the Internet activity of sex offenders, a
district judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the law,
reports Wired.
Proposition 35, approved by 81 percent of the state's
voters, requires registered sex offenders to turn over
information about their Internet accounts to the police. But on
Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of two registered
sex offenders (who remained unnamed), claiming that the measure
infringes the First Amendment rights of the offenders to speak
anonymously, according to Ars Technica. The groups further argue
that the measure sets a bad precedent for free speech rights of
all citizens.
Judge Thelton Henderson granted the request of the civil
liberties groups for a temporary stay of the measure, pending
further litigation. But Chris Kelly, the former chief privacy
officer of Facebook and a supporter of Prop 35, told The Hill
that the lawsuit is "an attack on the very idea of sex offender
registration requirements to protect kids and adults alike."
By the book
By Peter Rudegeair
The 150-year-old San Francisco Law Library, which has been
searching for a temporary home, is threatening to sue the city
if it doesn't come up with a location, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
San Francisco's Charter requires that the city provide space
near the courthouse for the library, which maintains free access
to legal databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis, as well as over
250,000 law books. The library's current home in the War
Memorial Veterans Building closes next summer for renovations,
and it needs to find a new home within weeks in order to
relocate the books. San Francisco has identified four
alternative spaces for the law library, but getting a sign-off
from the city, the library director and the library board and
has dragged out the process.
Now Kurt Melchior, president of the library's board of
trustees and a partner at the law firm Nossaman, tells the
Chronicle that the library is close to filing a lawsuit on the
matter. "I'm shocked at the way the city has behaved," he says.
"It's a plain violation of the City Charter." What's more,
complains Melchior, the city has a history of shortchanging the
library. The current location, which is across from the
courthouse, was meant to be temporary, but it has lasted 17
years, can only accommodate a third of the library's collection
and has a skylight that has let in light that led to the warping
of some books.
Spam-a-lot
11/8/12
By Peter Rudegeair
Sending over 300,000 spam faxes may end up costing a Georgia
company nearly half a billion dollars in penalties, according tothe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
American Home Services of Norcross, a suburb of Atlanta,
hired a Texas firm to market its business installing siding,
windows and gutters in 2002 and 2003. As part of that campaign,
the firm sent out unsolicited faxes touting the company to
306,000 individuals and offices across the Atlanta metro area.
One of those faxes went to another company in Norcross called
Fastsigns, which filed a class action accusing American Home
Services of violating federal consumer protection laws.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Fastsigns'
favor this week and sent the case back to an appeals court to
settle other claims, a move that could validate a trial court's
judgment that American Home Services owes $1,500 in penalties
for each junk fax, a total of $459 million. The company argues,
however, that only six targets of the junk faxes have been
identified, so it should only owe penalties in those cases. But
Judge Robert Benham of the state Supreme Court said in his
decision that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was
clear on penalties for such things: "A sender is liable for the
unsolicited advertisements it attempts to send to fax machines,
whether or not the transmission is completed or received by the
targeted recipient."
Summary Judgments for November 7
Summary Judgments for November 6
Summary Judgments for November 5
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