Great opinion, and there is an Easter egg for any lawyer who gets to the end of it.

The idiot plaintiff’s lawyer obviously had never filed a defamation claim, so he copied one from a California lawsuit. In doing so, he included a cause of action for violation of B&P Code 17200, which is a California statute (the New Jersey state court judge referred to it as “non-existent”, but no one expects people in Jersey to know anything happening west of the Appalachians). Doing stuff like that is an invitation for a malpractice suit.

The author of the book is on potentially shaky ground if he can’t prove consent to photographs taken in states like California, which have statutory protection for commercial exploitation of one’s likeness. With this group, however, it seems pretty clear that consent was impliedly given by the posing for the photograph.

Comment by Cyrus Sanai — 2/14/2009 @ 5:01 pm

Well…how do TMZ, Perez Hilton, and others do what they do with people’s images all the time? Under California statutory law you cannot take a picture of someone in a public space and satirize it?

Two minutes? They would not have lasted 2 seconds. Especially when I busted out the free-ballin’ kilt.

The idiot plaintiff’s lawyer obviously had never filed a defamation claim, so he copied one from a California lawsuit. In doing so, he included a cause of action for violation of B&P Code 17200, which is a California statute (the New Jersey state court judge referred to it as “non-existent”, but no one expects people in Jersey to know anything happening west of the Appalachians). Doing stuff like that is an invitation for a malpractice suit.

The author of the book is on potentially shaky ground if he can’t prove consent to photographs taken in states like California, which have statutory protection for commercial exploitation of one’s likeness. With this group, however, it seems pretty clear that consent was impliedly given by the posing for the photograph.

Having seen that film a long time ago, I can assure you that neither of those characters would’ve lasted more than two minutes at our table that night.

It’s embarrassing to me when I hit “Submit Comment” or “Send” and discover too late that I misspelled a word or botched revising modifiers in a sentence. I’m wondering who the genius editor was who left the dependent clause “His reappropriation of a culturally validated image.” in the final publication.

I vote for number one.

This litigation and criminal prosecution abuse will make you so fucking mad! God it is fucking douchbag lawyers like this who give lawyers a bad name.

Live free or fucking die as they say!

Is that anything like My Dinner with Andre?

What is worse is women who seem to encourage this behavior by lauding these guys all the while to behave like well, D-list sluts.

Cream Pie Nation.