lebron james – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Taco Bell Teams Up With LeBron James To Bring ‘Taco Tuesday’ Fight To The Masses

from the it-tolls-for-thee dept

Well, well, the “Taco Tuesday” battle appears to be heating up quickly. After years of holding and policing its trademark for “Taco Tuesday,” chain Taco John’s has found itself in a battle with Taco Bell, which is petitioning the trademark office to rescind its rival’s mark due to it becoming generic. I noted in that last battle that NBA mega-star LeBron James, himself apparently a huge fan on social media of celebrating taco Tuesdays, attempted to get a trademark for the phrase for himself. When that was denied, part of the reason the USPTO gave was that the term was too generic to be trademarked. Had LeBron wanted to press the issue, he could have used that as a weapon to push the Trademark Office to rescind Taco John’s mark.

But he didn’t do that. And now Taco Bell has picked up the battle itself, petitioning the USPTO to remove the trademark. But that’s not all Taco Bell is doing. Instead, the company has teamed up with LeBron to take this fight to the public with a commercial that first aired during the Lakers/Nuggets playoff game on May 22nd.

“’Taco Tuesday’ is a tradition that everyone should be able to celebrate. All restaurants, all families, all businesses – everybody,” LeBron James said in a press release. “’Taco Tuesdays’ create opportunities that bring people together in so many ways, and it’s a celebration that nobody should own.”

According to the press release, James is also starring in a new ad titled “Taco Bleep” as part of the attempt to liberate “Taco Tuesday,” so be sure to look out for that campaign on your TV set beginning May 22.

And here is the commercial in all its goofy glory.

Is a Change.org petition going to push the USPTO over the edge when it comes to its decision? Probably not directly, no. But what Taco Bell is doing, which is quite savvy, is building a public campaign, which could result in pressure not so much on the USPTO, but on Taco John’s itself. Employing a big name like LeBron who ultimately just wants to have fun with taco Tuesdays and leading the public to understand that it’s Taco John’s that is the barrier to everyone being able to use the generic phrase could build enough public shaming to get Taco John’s to reverse course on its own.

Or it won’t and the Taco Tuesday wars will continue. But if there is enough public outcry over this trademark that shouldn’t be a trademark, well, I expect that would make a difference.

Filed Under: commercial, lebron james, taco tuesday, trademark
Companies: taco bell, taco johns

Elon Seems To Think The Cruelest Thing He Can Do To People… Is To Pretend They Want To Associate With Him

from the lords-and-peasants-redux dept

Let’s start this post out by noting that a key reason Elon Musk said he was getting rid of the legacy Twitter verification system was that it was arbitrary and unfair and created a “lords and peasants” scenario. Keep that in mind, because you’re going to want to remember that by the end of this article.

Anyway… what a weird few days on Twitter. Late last week, Twitter finally got around to doing the thing Elon Musk had promised would happen at several earlier dates (including a firm deadline promised at the beginning of April): remove the “blue checkmarks” from those who were legacy verified accounts.

As we’ve detailed over and over again, Elon’s nonsensical decision to combine Twitter Blue and Twitter “verification” (loosely speaking) never made any sense. It misunderstands the point of verification as well as undermines the value of Twitter Blue. It’s kind of self-defeating, and basically most people recognize this. It’s why he’s struggled to get most people to sign up for it.

As part of the great removal, Musk seemed to think that maybe it would push those legacy verified accounts to pay up. That, well, didn’t happen. Travis Brown, a researcher who’s been the most thorough in tracking all of this and had created a database of the over 400,000 legacy verified accounts, noted that as the blue checks were removed… a net total of 28 new Twitter Blue accounts were created.

Yes. Just 28. That’s net total, meaning that somewhat more than 28 people who had been legacy verified signed up, but a bunch of people also canceled their Twitter Blue account, so when you net it out, it was plus 28. Which is… nothing.

Again, as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, there are all sorts of things that Elon Musk could have done to make Twitter Blue worth subscribing to. But, instead, he focused on the “blue check” as if that was valuable. It was never valuable. And by changing it from a verified to a “this mfer paid for Elon’s Twitter” badge, he actually devalued it massively.

Either way, this resulted in a pretty stupid Twitter war, in which some people started pushing a kinda silly “Block the Blue” campaign, urging Twitter users to block anyone with the blue checkmark. And then Elon supporters with the blue checkmark went on an equally silly campaign to yell at people for not giving a billionaire $8. Frankly, neither side looked particularly good in all of this.

But, into that mix came chaos in the form of (of course) Elon Musk.

First, a few people noticed that a few celebrities who had very, very publicly stated that they would not pay for Twitter Blue were showing up as having paid “and verified” by their phone number. This included LeBron James and Stephen King among others. Elon admitted in a response to King that he had gifted him a Twitter Blue account:

Musk separately admitted that he was “paying for a few personally” to give them a Twitter Blue account, though he later said it was just LeBron James, Stephen King, and William Shatner — all three of whom had very publicly stated they had no interest in paying.

This made me wonder if he was opening himself up to yet another lawsuit. Given how much Elon has basically turned paying for Twitter Blue into an “endorsement” of the new Twitter and Elon himself, putting that label on the accounts of people who have not paid for it and don’t seem to want it could violate a number of laws, including the Lanham Act’s prohibition on false endorsement as well as a variety of publicity rights claims.

In general, I’m not a huge fan of publicity rights claims, because they are commonly used by the rich and powerful to silence speech. The original point of publicity rights laws was to stop false endorsement claims, whereby a commercial entity was using the implied association of a famous person to act as a promotion or endorsement of the commercial entity or its products.

Which, uh, seems to be exactly what Musk was doing in paying for Blue for some celebrities.

Separately, there are a bunch of questions about how this might violate EU data protection laws, but we’ll wait and see how the EU handles that.

Of course, then things got stupider. Remember the deal with Elon Musk: it can always get stupider.

As that “Block the Blue” campaign started getting more attention (and even started trending on Twitter), Musk gave the ringleaders of the campaign Twitter Blue. Yes, you read that right. Musk gave the people who were telling everyone to block anyone with a blue checkmark… a blue checkmark. And then admitted it by joking about how he was a troll.

Of course… as Twitter user Mobute noted, this is Musk admitting that the trolliest insult he can think of is to say someone is associated with him and his company:

Seems… kinda… like a self own?

Anyway, a few hours later, people started noticing that a ton of other accounts of famous people also started showing up with Twitter Blue despite not paying for it, nor wanting it. Some people said that it was being given to anyone with over 1 million followers, though there were some other accounts with fewer that got it and said they didn’t want it, like Terry Pratchett.

Still, it seemed that most accounts suddenly getting Blue without paying, requesting, or verifying their phone numbers had a million or more followers. And this included a large number of dead celebrities, where Twitter claims (if you click on their blue checkmark) that they paid and verified their phone number, which is pretty hard to do when you’re dead. There were lots of people who fell into this camp, including Chadwick Boseman, Norm MacDonald, Michael Jackson, and the aforementioned Terry Pratchett.

Oh, and Jamal Khashoggi, who was somewhat famously murdered by the Saudi government. I get the feeling he did not, in fact, confirm his phone number.

There have been questions about the publicity rights of dead people, and I’m a strong believer in the idea that publicity rights go away after death. But, you know, it’s still a bad look.

The end result though, is bizarre. Even as Musk is claiming that “everyone has to pay the same” that’s clearly no longer true:

He’s literally handing them out for free (1) based on levels of fame via follower counts (2) if he just decides to arbitrarily or (3) to troll people.

Which, you know, his site, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, but remember what I said up top? His entire reason for going down this path was to get rid of the arbitrary check mark system that created a “lords and peasants” setup where people deemed notable by Twitter got a check mark, and he was bring back “power to the people.”

But… as seems to keep happening, Elon Musk brings back a system he decried as stupid, but brings it back in a much stupider, and much worse, manner. So now there’s still an arbitrary lords and peasants system, but rather than one where at least someone is trying to determine if a person is notable and needs to be verified, it’s now an arbitrary cut-off on followers, or if Elon thinks it’s funny. Which seems way more arbitrary and stupid than the old system.

Filed Under: block the blue, checkmarks, elon musk, false endorsement, jamal khashoggi, lebron james, publicity rights, stephen king, twitter blue, william shatner
Companies: twitter

from the he-shoots-he-scores dept

Somehow, it’s been nearly four years since a tattoo company, Solid Oak Sketches, decided to sue 2K Sports, the studio behind the renowned NBA 2K franchise, claiming that the game’s faithful representation of several stars’ tattoos was copyright infringement. The company claimed to own the copyright on the design of several players’ tattoos, including most famously LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and DeAndre Jordan. The claim in the suit was that 2K’s faithful depiction of the players, whom had collectively licensed their likenesses via the NBAPA, somehow violated Solid Oak’s IP rights.

Put another way, it could be said that by branding the player with Solid Oak’s designs, the company seems to think it can control the players’ ability to profit off of their own likenesses. That this draws the mind to very uncomfortable historical parallels apparently was of no issue to Solid Oak.

Well, while 2K Sports failed to get the court to dismiss the case back in 2018, it has more recently won the case on summary judgement, with the court quite helpfully getting everything right and declaring the depiction of tattoos in video games in this manner to be Fair Use.

The defendants have sought to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint because “Plaintiff cannot prove its claim because Defendants’ use of the Tattoos is de minimis and Plaintiff is this unable to prove the key substantial similarity element of its cause of action.” They state their use of the tattoos and images “was pursuant to implied authorization granted prior to Plaintiff’s acquisition of any rights in the Tattoos.”

The court has granted the summary judgment dismissing the infringement claim because “no reasonable trier of fact could find the Tattoos as they appear in NBA 2K to be substantially similar to the Tattoo designs licensed to Solid Oak.” Additionally, the tattoos “only appear on the players upon whom they are inked, which is just three out of over 400 players.” Therefore, the odds are against one of those Players with their tattoos being selected. Additionally, because Defendants had a license for the game, they had implied license for the tattoos as part of the players’ likeness and the Players allowed Defendants to use their likeness.

The full filing, embedded below, goes into far more detail. And, frankly, it’s quite nice to see a court get this so right. It’s clear the court in this case took care and time to go through the material brought by both parties and carefully weigh the claims against Fair Use. Given such careful examination, the conclusions were fairly obvious. In addition to the rationale above, the court notes that the tattoo artists in this case, despite claiming copyright infringement for the de minimis reproduction of tattoos in the game, couldn’t even reproduce them themselves given the likeness rights of the players.

Solid Oak has neither licensed the Tattoo designs nor sold merchandise depicting the Tattoos. (Def. 56.1 ¶¶ 107-08.) Solid Oak’s owner, Matthew Siegler, testified that he would “need permission from the players . . . to not infringe on their right of publicity,” in order to move forward with a business selling “dry wick apparel” bearing the Players’ tattoos. (Cendali Decl., Ex. A at 389.) Solid Oak does not have a license to use the Players’ publicity or trademark rights. (Def 56.1 ¶ 102.) Solid Oak has not proffered any evidence indicating that it has a prospect of obtaining such rights.

And so ends one of the most annoying video game IP lawsuits of all time. The shame of it, really, is that it took the system four years to reach the only logical conclusion: someone getting a tattoo doesn’t somehow destroy their ability to profit off of their own likeness.

Filed Under: basketball, copyright, deandre jordan, fair use, kobe bryant, lebron james, nba 2k, tattoos, video games
Companies: 2k sports, solid oak sketches

LeBron James Declares Victory In Losing Bid For 'Taco Tuesday' Trademark

from the generic-taco dept

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we wrote about LeBron James, part-time NBA superstar and full-time taco-lover, and his attempt to get a trademark for “Taco Tuesday” in the markets of podcasts, entertainment services, and social media. As we mentioned in that post, the idea that LeBron could get such a trademark on a fairly descriptive and widely used term is insane. Nearly as insane, as we noted, as the fact that the Taco John’s chain already has such a registered trademark. It was the latter bit that we, as well as many other commentators on the topic, predicted would be the reason LeBron’s application would be denied, as it would be identical to an already registered trademark.

But the USPTO never ceases to amaze, it seems. While the USPTO did in fact deny the application, the confusing trademark it cited in doing so wasn’t Taco John’s, but another application for an advertising company out of Nevada.

But there was another preceding trademark filing which Yahoo Finance also caught for “Techno Taco Tuesday” that proved to be a key piece in the downfall of James’ attempt to lock up the rights to Taco Tuesday.

The techno twist on the Tuesday was actually trademarked by a Las Vegas entertainment company back in 2018, specifically for the “advertising and marketing services” category for which James was seeking protection. As such, James’ application was denied for being “confusingly similar to the registered mark.”

Okay, so the USPTO decided that the fact that both applications included “Taco Tuesday” and the “Techno Taco Tuesday” application was both filed first and was in the same market as James’ application. That might normally be the end of the story, and a particularly boring one at that, except that LeBron’s team is declaring victory. Why?

Well, because of the other reason the USPTO gave for refusing to approve the trademark.

However, it’s not all bad news for the Los Angeles Laker. James could still respond to the USPTO filing with added or adjusted language within six months if he so chooses. And according to what someone in his circle reportedly told ESPN, James still may have achieved what he set out to do by establishing “Taco Tuesday” as a generic term to cover for any legal claims that could be brought against his use of the term.

“In this case, the applied-for mark is a commonplace term, message, or expression widely used by a variety of sources that merely conveys an ordinary, familiar, well-recognized concept or sentiment,” the USPTO examining attorney wrote in the declined trademark filing.

That sound you hear is the clicking of computer mice as every restaurant that has a Taco Tuesday event is bookmarking this ruling for when the Taco John’s people come calling claiming trademark infringement. I can’t imagine it’s going to be terribly long before some company, or group of companies, seek to invalidate the Taco John’s trademark that TJ’s has wielded like a cudgel for so long, because this statement by the USPTO is fairly clear: “Taco Tuesdays” is generic as all hell.

We cast narrow eyes at LeBron for filing this in the first place, but if he can end the madness that is Taco Tuesday trademarks, even I’ll call him King.

Filed Under: generic, lebron james, taco tuesday, trademark

A New 'Taco Tuesday' Trademark Challenger Approaches: LeBron James

from the bad-defense dept

As we’ve previously discussed, restaurant chain Taco John’s has waged at least a decades-long war to try to pretend that its trademarked term, “Taco Tuesday,” hasn’t become generic. How the chain ever got what sure looks to be a purely descriptive trademark is anyone’s guess, but armed with its trademark the company has since gone after other restaurants big and small for daring to host their own “Taco Tuesdays.” If all of this sounds depressingly stupid to you, well, you’re not wrong.

You really would think the convergence of trademarks and tacos eaten on Tuesday couldn’t get any dumber, except here comes LeBron James. Some background is probably in order. See, LeBron loves tacos. So much so, in fact, that he tends to eat them on many Tuesdays, all while Instagramming his family doing so and affecting a Hispanic accent while shouting about how much he loves Taco Tuesdays. That would have been only mildly interesting at best, except that LeBron’s company has now decided to try to trademark the phrase. Side note: The New York Times should really be better about conflating copyright and trademark law, as you will see below.

On Aug. 15, a company called LBJ Trademarks LLC filed a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of Mr. James to copyright “Taco Tuesday.” The company seeks protection for use of the phrase in a host of forums, including “downloadable audio/visual works,” podcasts, social media, online marketing and “entertainment services.” USA Today first reported on the request this weekend.

There are layers of dumb here. First, it seems unlikely that Taco John’s, wielding its own “Taco Tuesday” trademark, wouldn’t be able to claim some level infringement in at least some of these market designations, even assuming the company doesn’t have valid trademark registrations in those categories of its own. But, again, the fact that Taco John’s has those trademarks on a descriptive phrase like “Taco Tuesday” is itself stupid. And, circling back to LeBron, the idea that he would take a phrase already-coined and famous, that he then simply shouted into social media, and then lock it up in a variety of markets is compounding the stupidity.

But just to add a bit more to this, LeBron’s spokesperson basically torpedoed any chance his company has of getting this trademark approved with the following comment.

“The filing was to protect the company from potential lawsuits should we decide to pursue any ideas, nothing of which is in development,” a spokesman for Mr. James said this week on (taco) Tuesday. “It has nothing to do with stopping others from using the term.”

“Should we decide to pursue any ideas, nothing of which is in development” might as well say, “We’re not using this in commerce and don’t have any plans to.” Trademark law requires that the applied for mark be actively used or planned to be used in commerce, or else you don’t get the trademark. Defensive marks like this simply aren’t a thing. If the USPTO is made aware of the spokesperson’s comments, it would be insane to approve this mark.

Meanwhile, the whole Taco Tuesday trademark thing probably needs to just be invalidated to begin with.

Filed Under: lebron james, taco tuesday, trademark, use in commerce

from the written-in-ink dept

I’ll forgive you since it’s been two years, but hopefully you will remember our posts about a crazy copyright lawsuit back in early 2016 between a company called Solid Oak Sketches and Take-Two Software. At issue were Take-Two’s faithful depictions of several NBA stars in its NBA 2K series of games, including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. The problem is that Solid Oak claims to have copyrights on several tattoos appearing on the skin of these players, all of which show up in the images of the game. Of course, Take-Two negotiates the rights for player likenesses with the NBA Players Association, meaning this lawsuit has the odd smell of a third party bickering over branded cattle. While Solid Oak is asking for $1.2 million in damages, Take-Two has pointed out that these sorts of statutory damages shouldn’t apply as the company only registered its copyrights in 2015. This fact leads a reasonable observer to wonder why the copyrights weren’t registered much earlier, were Take-Two’s use so injurious.

That question is of course tangent to the most central concern of why in the world any of this isn’t obvious fair use? Take-Two has First Amendment rights, after all, and its use of the eight tattoos in each iteration of the game is a hilariously small portion of each work. On top of that, the whole enterprise of the game is to faithfully depict reality with regards to each player whose likeness it has properly licensed through the NBAPA. None of this should strike anybody as a million dollars worth of copyright infringement.

And, yet, a court recently refused to grant Take-Two’s petition to dismiss the case, allowing this mess to proceed.

“While Defendants contend that the Tattoos in NBA2K are ‘observable only fleetingly’; ‘displayed only briefly’; ‘a small part of the graphical display’ when displayed; ‘sometimes obscured by other graphics’; ‘not displayed prominently’; and ‘sometimes displayed out of focus,’ Plaintiff denies each and every one of these characterizations of the Tattoos. Instead, Plaintiff contends that, if an NBA2K player selects Messrs. James, Martin and Bledsoe in a given game or series of games, or ’employs the broad range of the video game’s features to focus, angle the camera on, or make the subject tattoos more prominent,’ ‘the overall observability of the subject tattoos can be fairly significant.’ Thus, it is difficult to determine whether the substantial similarity is apparent to the ‘average lay observer,’ if what he or she is observing varies in each iteration of the game.”

I own several of these games and can attest that the observability of any tattoos on any player within them are fleeting at best. The whole point of the game is to be an action-packed basketball experience from a viewpoint of most of, or the entire, basketball court. Picking out individual tattoos is rarely possible other than in manual instant replay. And, sure, some players might use that replay feature, but not regularly and not as part of regular play. This smacks of a judge that needs only to be sat in front of a television or computer screen to see the game in operation in order to have reached the proper and opposite conclusion.

But Take-Two also made a First Amendment claim, arguing, as I did above, that granting tattoo artists the rights Solid Oak is claiming would be to allow tattoo artists to trump the likeness rights of a natural person. If that doesn’t strike you as plainly insane, it should. Yet the judge apparently considered all of this a question of visual accuracy and therefore denied the fair use defense.

“Because of the difficulties inherent in conducting a side-by-side comparison of the video game and the Tattoos, further evidence must be considered in connection with the fact-intensive question of the applicability of the fair use defense. As the differences between the Tattoos and Defendants’ use in the video cannot be resolved with assurance on a visual comparison of the works alone, Defendants’ fair use of the Tattoos is not so clearly established on the face of the [SAC] as to support dismissal.”

To be fair to the judge, often times the court is wary of dismissing early on in the trial process over fair use defenses that aren’t on very, very solid ground. That may be what is going on here. But if it is, this seems to be chiefly an issue of calibration, because Take-Two’s fair use claims are very strong, and the implications of Solid Oak succeeding in its lawsuit are both not in the original interests of copyright law and plainly horrifying when it comes to public persons and their ability to trade off of their own likenesses.

Hopefully a jury will be more grounded than the court.

Filed Under: basketball, copyright, fair use, kobe bryant, lebron james, tattoos, video games
Companies: solid oak sketches, take two software

from the hmmm dept

Back when I first wrote about the copyright lawsuit between a tattoo artist and Take-Two Software, makers of the highly successful NBA2K basketball series, over the faithful depiction of LeBron James’ image including his ink, I had been hopeful that perhaps this case could be a step towards resolving whether fair use applies when presenting images of people with tattoos in creative works. And that might still happen, but the defense Take-Two has decided to start things off with won’t do the trick. Rather than asserting the work’s status as fair use, the video game maker has led with a challenge to whether the tattoo artist can claim statutory damages based on when he had registered the copyright for the tattoos in question. It’s a play on a technicality, one which seems to strangely play on what counts as an independent work.

Solid Oak Sketches had sued for damages nearing $1.2 million, claiming eight works had been infringed upon in the game NBA 2K16, including tattoo designs for LeBron James and two other players. According to Take-Two’s most recent filing with the court, Solid Oak Sketches registered the copyright for those tattoos in 2015. The game company’s argument is that it has been depicting those players and their tattoos since 2013, therefore there is precedent that statutory damages are not in play.

These claims for damages, however, are precluded by 17 U.S.C. §412. As is clear form the face of the Amended Complaint and its attachments, Take-Two has depicted Mr. James, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Bledsoe — and their tattoos — in its NBA videogames since at least 2013. This is years prior to the registration of the tattoos with the U.S. Copyright Office in June and July 2015… Here, where the same work has allegedly been infringed by the same defendant in the same manner since 2013 — long before registration — binding Second Circuit precedent dictates that statutory damages and attorneys’ fees are unavailable.

In other words, because the complaint is over infringement that is essentially the same as has been occurring two years prior to the registration, precedent indicates that statutory damages and attorneys’ fees should not apply. It’s an interesting argument, though I wonder if it isn’t without its pitfalls. Does Take-Two mean to suggest that in some way each years’ NBA 2K game is not a separate work and publication. I am sure that is not what they are trying to argue, but arguing that the depiction of individual players within the game are essentially the same depiction for the purposes of combating this action leads us down that path.

Regardless, it does certainly seem to demonstrate that whatever harm Solid Oak Sketches wants to claim in their suit seems silly. Were it so injurious, it brings the question as to why it didn’t act to protect itself in all the years previous in which similar alleged infringement is supposed to have occurred. Did it suddenly only become a problem in 2016?

The filing also makes it clear that Take-Two plans to also attack the underlying nature of the infringement claim in the future, which likely means it will assert a fair use argument. I hope it does. That would be the more important precedent to set here.

Filed Under: basketball, copyright, lebron james, registration, tattoos
Companies: solid oak sketches, take two software

from the ink-blot-test dept

Are tattoos covered under copyright law? Yeah, probably. But also, hey, maybe not. But if yes, how much control does the artist get to exert over depictions of the copyrighted tattoo? After all, it’s on somebody’s skin. And, hey, that somebody might be famous, like an athlete, who might then be depicted in video games about that sport. If so, then we get to find out if depictions in artistic works, such as video games, would fall under fair use and/or First Amendment provisions. It seems nobody is actually sure how to answer these questions, because what few cases have been brought before the court all appear to have ended in settlements and low-level court rulings.

Which, I suppose, is why they seem to keep on a-coming. The latest is a company named Solid Oak Sketches, which claims to own the copyright on the tattoo designs appearing on the bodies of several NBA players, including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and DeAndre Jordan. The company has recently filed a copyright infringement suit against Take-Two Software, makers of the NBA2K franchise.

Solid Oak is suing Take-Two Interactive Software and other companies associated with the videogame NBA 2K16 for unauthorized reproductions of those tattoo designs. The question over whether tattoo designs are copyrightable has never been fully decided by a court, as acknowledged in the new lawsuit. Victor Whitmill’s lawsuit against Warner Bros. over Hangover 2 settled as has other disputes including one by a tattoo artist, Christopher Escobedo, who inked a UFC fighter and later asked a bankruptcy court to determine the value of his tattoo claim against videogame publisher THQ.

On one hand, copyright law protects original works of expression fixed in a tangible medium. In the Whitmill case, before it settled, the judge commented, “Of course tattoos can be copyrighted. I don’t think there is any reasonable dispute about that.” An opinion was never issued, however. In the THQ case, Escobedo was awarded $22,500 for his lion tattoo. Then again, it could be argued that tattoo appropriation in an expressive work is de minimus.

Not only that, but when combined with a First Amendment argument, it’s difficult to see exactly why tattoo artists should hold any kind of sway in these cases. The depiction of the players has been licensed by the NBA Players Association, after all, and the tattoos faithfully reproduced within the game are a part, albeit a small part, of that image. I’m struggling to understand why Solid Oak’s quarrel is with the game-makers and not the NBAPA. But even then, the idea that players’ rights to license their own images might be stilted by what is essentially a form of voluntary branding, a la cattle, is insane.

As it happens, I am a player of this particular franchise. The tattoos add to the ambiance and realism of the player depictions, but they aren’t in any way central to the game. Arguing otherwise is silly. Yet, because LeBron James was featured on the cover, the lawyers for the plaintiff argue that the tattoos are “the face” of the game, thus arguing for higher damages than the Escobedo case. Note that the tattoo on LeBron James’ arm in question is a portrait of his son. They had previously asked for just over $1.1 million in a demand letter for a perpetual license.

As in most other similar cases, I would expect Take-Two to settle, but I truly hope they do not, because it’s way past time that we get some clarity on whether or not tattoo artists can hold hostage likeness rights in this way.

Filed Under: copyright, deandre jordan, kobe bryant, lebron james, nba 2k16, tattoos
Companies: solid oak, take two interactive

Hackers Get Tons Of Detailed Info On Nearly 1 Million Rich & Famous By Copying Major Limo Broker Service's Database

from the a-treasure-trove dept

Brian Krebs has yet another fascinating story from the hacking underground, where he’s discovered that hackers appear to have broken into the computer system for CorporateCarOnline, a service that brokers limos around the US, and grabbed a copy of their database — which appears to include a ton of information. This includes names, details and financial info on tons of A-list celebrities, sports stars and politicians. Krebs discloses some of the “notes” associated with some people, including LeBron James, Tom Hanks, Donald Trump, Aaron Rodgers, Rep. John Conyers, Senator Mark Udall and others. The note on Conyers apparently said: “Meet and Greet Baggage Claim. US Congressman. A DFTU situation,” which Krebs suspects stands for “don’t fuck this up.”

However, as Krebs notes, the database could be a field day for tabloids (and, one assumes, blackmailers), because the notes associated with certain passengers for things they may have done in those limos can, at times, be embarrassing.

Any two-bit tabloid would have an absolute field day with this database. Simple text searches for certain words (“sex,” “puke,” “arrest,” “police,” “smoking pot”) reveal dozens of records detailing misbehavior and all kinds of naughtiness by executives, celebrities and people you might otherwise expect to behave civilly.

For example, the following is an explanation taken from a limo reservation made back in May 2006 by a woman working for MTV. The limo in question was actually a stretch Hummer with capacity to seat 14 passengers, and was rented for the occasion of visiting a series of wineries in Long Island, NY. When the stretch Hummer returned to the shop after disgorging its passengers, the fleet’s owners discovered that the vehicle had been plastered with cheese slices and crackers, and that someone had left behind a sex toy

And, with that, you have to imagine that TMZ, Gawker and others just started trying to figure out how they get their hands on this database…

Filed Under: crack, hack, lebron james, limo, rich and famous, security, tom hanks
Companies: corporate car online

LeBron James Discovering What Happens When You Try To Suppress Something

from the calling-attention... dept

Every time you think people understand that trying to suppress some kind of information only draws more attention to it, it happens again. The latest, as pointed out by Tim O’Reilly is that basketball star LeBron James had videos confiscated after he was dunked on by a college sophomore — and because of that it’s now being written up on various news sites and blogs. If he’d just let the video go out it may have amused a few people but no one would have thought any less of James, one of the best players ever to play the game. Instead, even more people are finding out about it and makes James look really insecure and controlling. In fact, the Rivals.com points out that because the video can’t be seen, people will just assume it makes James look as bad as possible:

The Crawford dunk would have been a temporary embarrassment for LeBron. Let’s say the video was put on YouTube. It blows up for a bit, dominates blogs for 36 hours, everyone has a good chuckle and then it’s forgotten about.

But by censoring the tape, LeBron turns the dunk into a legend. On video, it’s just a dunk. Without video, the jam can reach mythic proportions. Because nobody can see it, the story of the dunk will grow in stature with each telling. Today, it was a simple two-handed slam. In a few days, it will be a 360-degree windmill. By the time Crawford makes his Xavier debut in October, he will have jumped off LeBron’s shoulders, flipped in the air, slammed the ball home with his left pinkie and then handed LeBron $3.99 for his dry cleaning.

One day, perhaps, people will learn…

Filed Under: attention, lebron james, streisand effect, suppression