Law

The Guardians: John Grisham Tackles Wrongful Convictions

I recently finished John Grisham's The Guardians, a 2020 novel about an Innocence Project-type attorney and Episcopal minister working to free a man wrongly convicted of killing his former attorney in Florida. This is the first Grisham novel I've read since his early novels The Firm and The Client made him a household name. I once took a flight where I saw a dozen passengers with copies of The Firm. That book was everywhere in 1991. Thirty-three books later, Grisham is still able to write a ... (read more)

2023/07/08

Villains & Vigilantes Creators Win Settlement to Publish Game

After the longest court battle in the history of tabletop roleplaying games -- four years, eight months and 16 days -- the creators of Villains & Vigilantes have secured the rights to publish the game they created as teens in the 1970s. On Tuesday night, Jeff Dee and Jack Herman of Monkey House Games uploaded a version of the game to DriveThruRPG that included some new text in the copyright indicia (emphasis mine): The Monkey House Games logo is a trademark owned by Monkey House Games. All ... (read more)

2016/04/14

Zimmerman's Own Words Justify Martin's Punch

Since the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the conventional wisdom among people who agree with the verdict is that Trayvon Martin punched him first, so the teen was responsible for the fight that led to his tragic death. The claim about the punch is entirely coming from Zimmerman and could be a lie -- no one else saw it -- but let's assume for the sake of argument that it's true. There's still a justification for Martin punching him in self defense, based entirely on Zimmerman's own words in the ... (read more)

2013/07/18

Stand Your Ground Let Zimmerman Go Free

There's a lot of talk about how Florida's Stand Your Ground law did not play a role in George Zimmerman's acquittal. His attorneys did not call for a hearing, as entitled under that law, but instead presented self defense as justification for his actions at trial. But Stand Your Ground rewrote the instructions read to juries on self defense. Dan Gelber, the Democratic candidate for Florida attorney general in 2010, has offered a succinct explanation for why Zimmerman was able to use self ... (read more)

2013/07/15

Villains & Vigilantes Creators Win Rights to Game

After a 20-month legal battle, the creators of the super-hero roleplaying game Villains & Vigilantes have prevailed in their court fight with the game's longtime publisher. Magistrate Judge Mark E. Aspey of the U.S. District Court for Arizona ruled on January 15 that Jeff Dee and Jack Herman own the rights to the game based on the 1979 contract they reached with publisher Scott Bizar of Fantasy Games Unlimited. The court also found that Bizar never had the right to sell derivative products or ... (read more)

2013/03/18

Villains & Vigilantes Creators Sue Game's Publisher

An epic battle is underway over one of the oldest super-hero roleplaying games, but sadly it won't be settled by muscle-bound men in tights. The creators of the game Villains & Vigilantes, Jeff Dee and Jack Herman, have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Scott Bizar, the longtime publisher of the game. The suit, filed July 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, claims that Bizar has no right to publish the game or any related products and illegally profits ... (read more)

2011/08/04

Consultants Sue Huffington Post for Stealing Idea

Democratic political consultants Peter Daou and James Boyce have sued the Huffington Post, claiming that Arianna Huffington and other founders took their idea for the site and never compensated or credited them. Daou and Boyce had a lot of planning meetings with Huffington before the 2005 launch of the site, which was originally intended to be a liberal counterpoint to the Drudge Report. They sent Huffington a proposal for a site called fourteensixty.com that pitched features that were later ... (read more)

2011/01/06

Debt Collector: People Are Mean to Me

I keep comments open forever on Workbench because the old blog entries here occasionally attract some interesting comments in the deluge of spam. A debt collector searching Google on Tuesday for the phrase debt collector sued for doing their job found my story on the $8.1 million judgment against a collector and posted an epic rant. The rant, which I've reprinted in full below, shows that debtor anger and the threat of being sued are getting to these bottom feeders. If you're bothered by calls ... (read more)

2010/12/09

Woot Mocks AP's DMCA Copyright Bullying

The DMCA copyright battle between the Associated Press and the Drudge Retort took place two years ago, but Woot CEO Matt Rutledge remembered it in a blog post this week. Rutledge noticed that when AP covered the sale of his company to Amazon.Com, it quoted from his blog. The AP, we can't thank you enough for looking our way. You see, when we showed off our good news on Wednesday afternoon, we expected we'd get a little bit of attention. But when we found your little newsy thing you do, we ... (read more)

2010/07/07

Thousands of Consumers Sue Debt Collectors

The web site Credit Reporting & Debt Collection News claims that Chrystal A. Snow's $8.1 million debt collector judgment is a function of Texas law that would not be possible under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA): The FDCPA does NOT allow for PUNITIVE damages unless it is a CLASS ACTION. The lack of punitive damages is a MAJOR flaw in the FDCPA. Debt collectors and debt buyers have NOTHING to worry about in MOST states, with California and Texas being notable exceptions. ... (read more)

2010/04/08

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