I don’t know where this “Terrible Twos” thing comes from, because here at Law Law Land, we’ve had a fantastic second year — thanks, as always, to you, our dear readers.  We’ve laughed together.  We’ve cried together.  We’ve made vaguely inappropriate pornography-related puns together.  We’ve said goodbye to some old bloggers, and hello to some new ones.  We’ve launched our new site, and made impossible promises for the next.  We’ve seen our unorthodox campaign strategy for repeating as the Blawg 100 champions — which is, the strategy of actively trying not to repeat as champions — succeed beyond our wildest dreams.  Yep, all in all, it’s been a fine year.  I think this deserves yet another round of applause, don’t you?  (As always, Corey Haim knows what to do.)

So we’re rewarding ourselves by taking the rest of the holiday season off, and seeing you in 2012.  But before we go, we wanted to bring back a post we enjoyed from last year (and let’s face it, it’s really about what we like, amiright?) — like our site, of course, updated for the times.  And so, we present to you the Top 11 of Twenty 11:  the eleven most popular Law Law Land posts of 2011, as chosen by you, the readers, with your browser clicks. This year’s list is the model of equanimity:  our 11 entries come from 10 authors and cover virtually the entire universe of Law Law Land content.  We are nothing if not eclectic here at Law Law Land, and apparently, that goes for our readers too.  In reverse order: Continue reading the full story . . . »

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Amber M. Burroff

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It appears I’ve found a blogging niche:  the seedy, salacious, saucy legal topics everyone is too scared (or maybe smart) to write about.  (And this topic doubles as a nice relief from the usual “holiday shopper gets mauled in battle over the last available Let’s Rock Elmo“ headlines.)  Colleges, universities and businesses spent this holiday season shopping for a special kind of XXXmas gift — the gift of a good name.

On December 6, 2011, the new domain extension .xxx was gobbled up by the most unusual suspects, with more than 55,000 new names registered within the first 24 hours.  The .xxx top level domain (TLD) was designed — prepare to be shocked here — exclusively for adult entertainment content.  But ICM Registry, which is operating the new TLD, also opened up registrations to other organizations looking to protect their trademarks from scandalous misuse — or from those nefarious “cybersquatters” who might be looking for a buck NOT to put the domains to no good (like the brilliant entrepreneur who, in the wonder years of the Internet, operated WhiteHouse.com as a porn site (the real website is WhiteHouse.gov).

In other words, the Internet’s new red light district is open for business to those who were naughty OR nice this Christmas.  But are the nice kids who come to the new .xxx marketplace late going to be at the mercy of the fast movers on the naughty list? Continue reading the full story . . . »

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Ken Basin

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This time of year, the legal press is pretty well flooded with articles summarizing the most important cases and decisions of the last year, or looking ahead to the most important cases of the coming year.  This is all well and good — indeed, just this Tuesday, I offered my own list of five important cases to watch in 2012.  But what’s the fun of spending all of one’s time following important cases, when there are so many amusingly absurd cases to watch out there instead?  In that spirit, here are five cases that may not break any legal ground in the coming year, but that you’ll still want to keep an eye on (if only to have something funny to talk about at cocktail parties). Continue reading the full story . . . »

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Ken Basin

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‘Tis the season.

‘Tis the season to be jolly.  ‘Tis the season to go shopping.  ‘Tis the season for political gaffes.  ‘Tis for hilarious gifting of intentionally awful presents.  Yes, ‘tis the season for lots of things, but most of all, ‘tis the season for top-ten lists.

Ten best movies.  Ten best dressed.  Ten best pet gifts.  Ten best of everything.  Ten best top-ten lists.

It seems only fitting, then, to embrace the spirit of the season, and look ahead to 2012 in obligatory list form.  But let’s mix it up a little by breaking up our list into two parts.  Today, we bring you five important cases you should watch in 2012.  On Friday, we’ll follow up with five totally unimportant trainwrecks of cases you might not be able to pry your eyes away from. Continue reading the full story . . . »

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Jesse Saivar

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Q:  What are the legalities of using actors to portray real people in a film — a fictionalized bio-pic in which the main character is purely fiction but some of the other characters are real, both living and deceased?  For example, if Forrest Gump did not use actual footage but instead chose to represent those scenes using actors to represent the famous people?

A:  I really liked Forrest Gump when I saw it.  I’m pretty sure I even cried in it.  Now I hate it for some reason.  Maybe it’s just a general backlash against Tom Hanks’ haircut in The Da Vinci Code.  But let’s not get into that.

As to your question…we Americans generally think we all have a 1^st Amendment right that gives us the ability to say what we please when we please, which has lead to such enlightening phenomena as Ashton Kutcher’s constant Tweeting (thanks a lot, Founding Fathers).  What is important to understand, however, is that this right of free speech is not absolute.  We are not always free to say what we please, especially when it comes to saying things about other people. Continue reading the full story . . . »

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Dan Nabel

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For those of us (males) who entered adolescence in the early ‘90s, Angelina Jolie is a semi-celestial being whose very presence makes us want to cry out “we’re not worthy.”  Okay, so maybe the 13 year-old in me still wants to be Crash Override spelling out “CRASH AND BURN” for Acid Burn after defeating The Plague.  But that is neither here nor there.

The news of the day is that a Croatian author/journalist named Josip Knezevic has filed a federal lawsuit (using an Americanized version of his name) against Angelina and several persons/entities related to her upcoming film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, for copyright infringement.  According to Mr. Knezevic, he wrote a book entitled, The Soul Shattering (not to be confused with the World of Warcraft aggro reducing spell, SoulShatter), which Angelina’s executive motion picture producer, Edin Sarkic, allegedly ripped off.  The case is interesting because it not only provides a detailed description of what was ripped off, but it also provides a plausible explanation for how the alleged rip-off occurred.

Continue reading the full story . . . »

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