thewizardoflaws-blog

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MMA Fighter Beats the Crap out of a Tai Chi Master and People Didn’t Like Seeing it

Xu Xiaodong (right), an MMA fighter in China, had been for weeks taunting various practitioners of traditional Chinese martial arts, collectively known as wushu, when Wei Lei (left), a practitioner of tai chi, now commonly practiced to promote relaxation and flexibility among the elderly, finally took up his challenge and lost. In ten seconds.

For years wushu practitioners have been assailed in Chinese media as charlatans and frauds. Kung Fu, the most prominent of the styles due to Bruce Lee’s popularity, has been recently characterized by many as a good performance but not at all effective when it comes to actually defending yourself. The same goes for many other traditional styles outside of China including Karate (Japan) and Taekwando (Korea) being prime among them. 

Mixed martial arts gained prominence in the late 1980′s and has only increased in popularity. MMA gets its name because it takes from the various styles and uses only what is actually effective. Chief among the styles is Brazilian Ju Jitsu, a style pioneered by the Gracie family of Brazil, which takes aspects of kickboxing and wrestling and blends them together. 

In China, many have yet to adopt MMA, most still holding on to wushu due to its cultural and historical significance, stories of Shaolin monks beating back invading hordes, saving the Chinese empire from certain doom instilled in children from a very young age. But even monks are not immune from the increasing role of rampant materialism within China. The current head of the Shaolin temple has come under fire in recent years.

Critics say he runs the temple like a business, charging visitors large fees and allowing vendors to sell Shaolin branded merchandise with droves of private kung fu schools lining the street leading up to the monastery. Many could brush this off as the temple simply trying to support itself; however, the head monk also owns several large corporations which license the Shaolin brand across the globe, even having plans of opening a luxury kung-fu themed resort and golf club in Australia that was eventually abandoned. Further, rumors have persisted, even in the strictly controlled state media, of his corruption and decidedly un-monk-like ways.

He reportedly is a serial philanderer, having many lovers and mistresses, including even fathering a child by a nun at the temple. He has a penchant for expensive clothes, or rather expensive robes, and luxury cars and reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury toilets within the monastery. 

So when many saw Xu’s fight with Wei they thought it would be the death knell of corrupt wushu, but it was not to be. The fight ended up being so one-sidedly brutal that it actually had the opposite effect of what Xu intended. Yes, he easily defeated his opponent in one swift attack, but many saw the brutal nature of the defeat as unsportsmanlike, citing that martial arts, even MMA, has within it an unspoken code of mercy once your opponent is defeated. 

The only thing that Xu proved, then, was that wushu is not truly dead once and for all. People like tradition and culture and if a completely ineffective form of dance-fighting is part of that they will cling to it. 

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

College Sports Star is Trying to Sell Shoes for Almost 3X as Much as Lebron James’

Lonzo Ball, formerly of the UCLA Bruins and expected to be one of the top three drafted in the upcoming NBA Draft, is selling shoes, the ZO2, that start at $475. Yes $475.

Compare this to Lebron James, who is the highest rated and most popular active basketball player currently in the world whose shoes start at $175, or Michael Jordan, the most accomplished basketball player in the history of the sport, whose shoes start at around $190.

Ball’s shoes, available for pre-order only, are already flopping. Neither the mainstream public nor the taste-makers in the athletic shoe subculture are biting, everyone balking at the staggering price. Further, critics note the shoe is neither fashionable nor proven. Nobody knows how the shoe actually performs on the court, which would not be the case at all if Ball had put out a shoe with an already established company like Nike, Reebok, or Adidas. And it’s not like they didn’t offer to do so for him.

Ball apparently was offered several million dollars just to sign with Nike but his business manager, his father LaVar Ball, wanted Nike to basically shoulder the cost of manufacturing, distributing, and marketing the shoe while putting his company’s logo, Big Baller Brand, on it. Nike declined. 

It may be a shrewd move on Ball’s part, though, since although the shoe may only sell an estimated 10,000 pairs, a rounding error for Nike, he and his son would have access to the entire $4,750,000 revenue from it. But that is entirely dependent on the shoe selling and LaVar Ball has taken to social media to brazenly defend his stance, claiming that his son is doing what Michael Jordan or Lebron James could not do - sell their own shoe successfully. He has further claimed that at his best he could have easily taken Jordan in a game of one on one, being a former pro player himself. Many have swiftly disputed his claims, citing his poor record during his short tenure in the NBA, but in the age of social media whomever yells the loudest and most confidently tends to win. 

It is as of yet unclear what the eventual fate of the ZO2 will be. Should Lonzo end up being a success on the court it could mean a boon for the shoe, but he would have to be a MAJOR success in order for people to pay for his shoe instead of the much more affordable James or Jordan.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Guy Made Mural of Michelle Obama From Another Artist Without Permission

Look we all love Michelle but you don’t have to steal in order to show it.

This guy painted a mural on the side of a building depicting the former First Lady as an Egyptian Queen BUT he did not get permission from nor did he acknowledge the inspiration for the mural when he did it. 

Gelila Mesfin, an art student, posted her painting online (which is on the right) to her social media accounts. Eventually, the painting made its way to Chris Devis, the painter of the mural (on the left). 

Now, although Mesfin was flattered the muralist would choose her painting as a symbol of accomplishment (being installed only two blocks away from Ms. Obama’s childhood home), she still is claiming copyright infringement, which Devis is not really denying, admitting that for his murals he typically uses original photographs and other works of art. 

Devis claims he found the painting online and did not really ask anyone’s permission. Upon finding out the origin of the original photo he immediately gave Mesfin credit online, but argues she does not really have an infringement claim seeing as she, herself, appropriated the original image of Ms. Obama (a photo by Collier Schorr and digitally painted over it). The only problem is Devins is not exactly correct.

Although Mesfin may herself have infringed it still does not give Devins the right to use any work without permission - if you steal from a thief you’re still guilty of theft, yourself. Further, it opens him up to liability from Schorr as well. And Mesfin may be able to successfully claim that her version of Ms. Obama transformed what was a realistic recording of her into a symbolic depiction by using Egyptian iconography, thus giving her a copyright free and clear. And even if this ends up not being the case, Mesfin still has some claim in her work since her own work was not a one-for-one copy into another medium, which was exactly what Devins did, adding nothing to Mesfin’s work.

Contrast this with what Beyone is accused of doing - for her critical and commercial hit album Lemonade, Beyonce released a limited edition boxed set, which includes explanations of much of the iconic depictions and imagery within the album. 

One such explanation may have been lifted from a little known religion.  Maximiliano Goiz is a priest within the religion of Yoruba who is also a Beyonce fan. When he saw the artist in videos of the album he immediately recognized some of the imagery from his own religion and wrote about it on his social media account. But with the upcoming release of the boxed set he found his explanation of the imagery was startlingly similar to language used by Beyonce. 

Now although he cannot prove she, or someone associated with her, took it without his permission or without crediting him he actually doesn’t even care. He is just excited that such a huge star would actually bring attention to his little known religion. Beyonce is apparently so woke he ain’t even mad.

The takeaway is this: if you plan on undertaking such a large effort that you need to raise thousands of dollars to do it, make sure you know where you are getting your source material from and get permission to use it. Or be so popular and likeable that people won’t even care when you take something of their’s.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Hackers Illegally Posted new Season of OITNB After Asking for Ransom

A group of hackers known as “The Dark Overlord” tried to extort money from Netflix by threatening to release the upcoming season of Orange is the New Black ahead of its scheduled release and released the episodes after Netflix refused to pay. Release.

The group alleges they also have material from other networks like Fox, ABC, and NBC. There is a bit of a problem with their tactics, though. Firstly, the release of the new season of Black likely won’t hurt Netflix at all. Netflix’s revenues don’t come from viewership numbers, they come from subscriptions. So, even if absolutely nobody watches the upcoming season on Netflix the company will be fine. Unless a huge amount of people cancel their subscriptions or Netflix was anticipating a HUGE surge in people signing up, both of which seem really unlikely, the company is still sitting pretty. 

It may hurt Netflix’s ability to sell DVD and/or Blu-Ray copies of the upcoming season but probably no more than regular piracy of the show to begin with. Meaning that the people who are most likely to buy a physical copy of the show likely won’t change their minds while the people who are most likely to not buy a physical copy of the show likely won’t change their minds, either. Which is probably why Netflix never responded to their demands. 

Further, although it is interesting to see what content the group has from other networks, it is likely not going to be anything too major since the heavy hitters of prime time network TV (Modern Family, Scandal, etc.) will be out of season, their runs for 2016-2017 already over, and will not be scheduled to start production again until the fall, unless the writer’s strike derails those plans. They might have the episodes from the current season but those are already available online anyways.

So, then, what does the group have that could be so threatening to the networks? Maybe the already shot pilot episodes of upcoming shows, but these are literally only one episode and if the big networks see they have been leaked or stolen they will update their networks and internal policies, meaning that it will be more difficult for the group to steal anything in the future. The way most TV shows are filmed and networks operate, it is difficult to have a full season of episodes ready to be released. 

So then what did the hackers do? Nothing much. They released episodes of a show before it was scheduled to be released anyways and it did not really prevent anything from happening that would have already happened while simultaneously tipping their hand to their ability to get within a protected network. 

They also exposed themselves to criminal liability since blatant and knowing copyright infringement goes beyond paying fines and into getting sent to jail (next time read the FBI warning before or after a movie on a DVD). Further, they tried to blackmail companies into paying them money to not release the things they stole. And although they were probably skilled enough to break into a company’s network it is really difficult to leave absolutely no trace behind, meaning eventually they will be tracked down and prosecuted. And if not, since few companies will be willing to negotiate with them given their limited leverage they will likely move on to something else.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Paparazzo Suing Khloe Kardashian for Posting a Picture of Herself

Khloe Kardashian is in some hot water for posting a picture of herself on Instagram and it was actually completely illegal for her to do so even if it was a picture of herself.

Xposure Photos, a celebrity photography company (or paparazzo), is suing Khloe Kardashian for posting a picture of herself on her Instagram account and she actually might have to pay up. The photo in question is of her leaving a restaurant. 

What the lawsuit is claiming is that Khloe took the photo, which had been exclusively licensed to the Daily Mail, a UK tabloid, edited out the copyright ownership details within the photo, and posted it online. The photo has since been taken down. 

Although the photo is of Khloe, herself, she still did not have permission to post it since she did not own the copyright to it. And she cannot argue that she did not give the photographer permission since the photographer did not need her permission since Khloe is a public figure and was in a public place (the street outside of the restaurant). 

Further, by taking out the copyright ownership details in the photograph she potentially also violated the photographer’s trademark rights as well, but the suit is only claiming copyright violations because they are much easier to demonstrate and enforce.

The company is seeking a maximum of $150,000 and an additional $25,000 for editing out the copyright ownership details. The suit arrives at this number through a provision within US copyright law that allows for statutory damages, which are damages set by the law, itself. This exists because art is such a weird industry. It would be impossible to calculate how many of Khloe’s 67 million followers would have actually gone to the Daily Mail’s website to see that particular photograph, so instead of trying to calculate out this number the law allows artists to simply ask for a flat fee per instance of violation. This serves to compensate the wronged artist and to act as a future warning to other possible infringers.

BUT, in order to be able to ask for this kind of relief in a lawsuit you first have to register the piece of art with the US Copyright Office, which is why it is always a good idea to register even though most country’s laws provide for automatic ownership upon the creation of a piece of art.

The takeaway is this: if you are an international celebrity that is familiar with the fact that photographers make money off of taking pictures of you don’t blatantly take a photo of you and post it on your Instagram account. And if you are a photographer register your work (you can register a whole series of photographs for one low price, so you don’t have to pay the individual fee for each photograph).

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Come With me if you want to be Entertained

Meet Hollywood’s newest screenwriter - a robot.

A research team from NYU has developed an artificial intelligence program that writes movies. Its latest project, It’s No Game, was written after the research team fed a neural network, a computer designed to simulate an organic brain, a large amount of science fiction scripts to give it a feel for the genre. This is one of the things that popped out from Benjamin, which is what the program named itself. Yes, fo reals.

But, using an AI is not as radical as it sounds. Already, the Washington Post experimented with a news-writing bot that wrote and published updates during the Summer Olympics in Rio last year while Google trained an AI to write romance novels (also yes, fo reals). And there was even a novel writing competition in Japan where a submission from an AI did not win but it ended up getting past the first round of eliminations.

Yes, It’s No Game and Benjamin’s first work, Sunspring, are not fantastic and will not be replacing James Cameron or George R.R. Martin any time soon but eventually the day will come when perfectly acceptable pieces will come from the hard drives of computers and not from flesh and blood authors. But those days may not be as far away as we think.

What will probably end up happening, though, is that like with every technological advance fears will be found to be overblown and artists will use new technology to aid them in creation instead of be supplanted by them. Imagine the next J.K Rowling sitting down to write the next Harry Potter and within a matter of days having several completely different versions of the entire series all at her fingertips. She would be able to sift through and choose the best paths the characters take, changing and augmenting each story line, each plot twist along the way. All without audiences having to wait several years for the next installment to be painstakingly and laboriously written down.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Two Legal Battles Could Change how Artists are Paid

Two megacorporations - Google and Vivendi - are set for a showdown over how they pay artists and although everything is happening over in Europe how it all turns out over there will probably have a dramatic effect here in the US.

At issue with Google is how it pays artists (specifically, music labels who then pay artists a share of their share) portions of the money YouTube receives from advertising revenues. Ads run before or even during videos uploaded to YouTube. A report from the United Kingdom showed that in 2016 record labels made more money from vinyl - yes actual, physical records - than from YouTube while YouTube and parent company Google received the majority of the UK’s nearly $13 billion online ad spending. 

The same report showed that Spotify, with a fraction of YouTube’s 800 million users, actually pays more to artists despite having fewer users streaming less content. How can this be so?

In order for music to be streamed via Spotify, or any other music streaming service, it must first get a license in order to do so. That license, in turn, spells out the amount of money the service must pay to content owners. This is not the case with YouTube. YouTube hosts videos, not music, so the person licensing the music would actually be the one who created and uploaded the video and not YouTube. So YouTube is essentially free to set whatever terms it wants when paying out portions of its ad revenue. 

But, European lawmakers have been at odds with US tech companies for years and are set to make a decision this year whether European laws regarding copyright that currently apply to streaming services such as Spotify would similarly apply to YouTube. YouTube claims it is actually doing labels a great service, capturing revenue they would otherwise miss out on; however, as the way people listen to music changes online revenue becomes more and more important. In fact, revenue from online streaming is set to outpace sales within a year or two, meaning that it will become even more important in the future and YouTube has been, is, and will be a major way people listen to music, especially with YouTube’s new music streaming service -  YouTube Red.

A second legal battle comes out of France and involves This is Spinal Tap. Yes, I’m serious. Vivendi is a large multinational media company based in France that through a series of acquisitions in the early 2000′s ended up owning the rights to Spinal Tap. Typically, the money-making life cycle of a film is front-heavy, meaning that most of the money is made within a few years through a theatrical release and then through home video sales, with money trickling in over the next few years as a film’s popularity wanes over time and audiences move on.

Some films, though, become cult classics, meaning they experience a continued or increased popularity after they are initially released in theaters, and the money-making potential spans years, even decades. This is Spinal Tap, a mockumentary about a fictional heavy metal band, is such a film. Film-makers and studios are paid for the rights to broadcast a film on TV or whenever a DVD is sold or someone pays to download the film digitally. 

The artists who work on a film will sometimes get “back-end” deals, meaning they are paid money both upfront for their services and then again later if a film earns more money than anticipated. Studios like this because it can be a way to induce artists to take less money upfront and ties payouts to performance of the film while artists like this because if they think a film will do well it can be a way for them to make even more money. Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly made a bunch of money this way since he saw the potential of Titanic before it was filmed. Note, this is different from an artist’s residuals, which are payments negotiated by the guilds for payments every time something is broadcast on television.

According to French law media companies are supposed to share their profits in a fair and balanced way with the artists that created the content. For years, Spinal Tap has been a fan favorite and has been consistently popular among a core group of fans, but despite the ability of the people who worked on the film to point to DVD and Blu-Ray sales figures and download numbers Vivendi still claims the film makes no money. This is due to what has been referred to as “Hollywood” or “creative” accounting. Since making a movie is a difficult process, involving any number of different moving parts within a company, it can be very easy to categorize and characterize how many is being spent and revenue is coming in a way that makes it seem like a company is actually losing money by making a certain film. 

And although the studios are parts of public corporations how they account for these amounts of money is very confidential, the only time the public was able to see such methodology being from a contract dispute involving Paramount Pictures over the payouts of the film Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy. The court records indicated the film ultimately lost money for Paramount despite being a huge hit with audiences and critics alike. What Paramount did, though, was assign charges to the film that made it look like it was losing money. What kinds of things did Paramount charge? Things like overhead for the film-makers using offices on Paramount’s property, which is reasonable, but they also charged an overhead fee on that overhead, which meant they were essentially double-charging. They also charged interest on the interest they were having to pay to a bank to finance the production of the film, meaning some of the money that was supposed to be paid to make the film was actually going towards paying the interest on Paramount’s loans. 

All of this ends up hurting the artist in the end since the companies end up making a great deal of money while not following through on the promise of paying the artist in the future, the entire reason the guilds first negotiated residual payments to begin with. The French lawsuit will take some time, but hopefully the artists will come out on top, shed light on how media companies account for money, and will effect how things move forward in the US.

The takeaway is this: if someone offers you a “back-end” deal make sure it is not tied to some secret accounting method. Instead have a flat-fee payout tied to a clearly discernible and easily available figure. Figure could include box-office receipts for films, ratings for a TV show, or amount of streams for a song. An example would be “for every $5 million this film earns in box office receipts over $100 million as is reported in Variety I get an additional $100,000.”

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Johnny Depp not “Savvy”When it Comes to Money Apparently

Superstar Johnny Depp has been having a bit of trouble lately. In addition to being pronounced one of the most overpaid actors in the world he has been accused of domestic abuse, went through a rough divorce, had to apologize to Australia’s ecosystem, and is now in the middle of a dispute with his former business managers, The Mandel Co. and The Management Group, among others.

Highly paid individuals, typically artists or athletes, employ business managers to invest their money for them since they usually are not experienced, educated, or knowledgeable in the realm of investing or finance. Most of the time the people involved know what they are doing and are trust-worthy but Depp is claiming that his former managers cheated him. 

What it comes down to is that Depp lost a lot of money and he is blaming his former managers while his managers contend that his reckless spending is why he lost a great deal of money, using as an example the fact that he spent over $3 million to shoot the ashes of author Hunter S. Thompson out of a cannon (which Depp disputes, claiming it cost closer to $5 million). 

Depp claims they lost him nearly an uncalculated “tens of millions” of dollars by over-charging him and lending out his money to others without his knowledge or consent in what ended up being failed business transactions. His managers claim he spent his money with utter abandon and they even bailed him out of a $5 million loss with a loan he has yet to repay, the claims of him being cheated only coming after that loan came due.

This isn’t the first case of business managers coming under the microscope. Recently, a number of NFL players sued their former business manager, Jeff Rubin, for losing them collectively $43 million in a failed attempt to invest in a casino in Alabama, Rubin going forward with the investment even AFTER the state forbade the kind of gambling which made the investment so enticing to begin with.

Whatever the outcome of Depp’s suit it will be a long, protracted legal battle.

The takeaway is this: if you ever have enough money to warrant a business manager make sure you have the ability to audit them regularly by an outside party so you know how your money is being invested and to make sure you aren’t being cheated.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

What Net Neutrality is and why you Should Care

The FCC wants to get rid of net neutrality which the majority of people, especially tax-payers, think is a bad thing. Here’s why.

The actual cables that bring the signals of the internet to your house are owned by a private company. It may be AT&T or Comcast or whomever but somebody owns it. The same can be said if you have satellite or for when you browse the internet on your smartphone - a company owns the little sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum that your data is transmitted to you. For a really long time the companies that deliver the internet to you were able to do whatever they wanted and most of the time they were nice to each other. But, every once in a while they either outright forbade (or forbidded?) you from doing something or made it so that the connection was so slow that you personally just stopped doing that something. 

A really good example was when AT&T prevented people from using the Facetime app on their iPhones because it seriously strained their network. And most people put up with it, but the thing was at the time AT&T was the sole cellular service you could use with your iPhone. Eventually iPhones were available to use via Sprint or Verizon or any other cell service but Apple still complained to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency in charge of all things communication related, and AT&T agreed to stop doing that.

Another example was when Google came out with Google Wallet, a way of connecting credit cards to your phone for quicker and easier transactions. Many phone companies blocked the use of Google Wallet from being accessed on smart phones over their networks because they came out with their own competing service which was basically identical. Google complained to the FCC and eventual won the ability for their service to be used on cell networks.

But, as the internet grew in popularity it was shown to be more crucial to the lives of everyday people - entire corporations run on the internet like Facebook or Twitter or Google or Amazon. Eventually the Obama administration classified the internet as a “Title II” common carrier, meaning it was subject to the same restrictions and policies as other, more traditional communications networks, the most notable of which is the telephone system. 

Basically what the government said was, “You may own the actual means of communicating but you have to treat everything transmitted on your networks the same way, giving no preferential treatment or non-preferential treatment to anyone.” This has become more and more important since many media companies have consolidated over the past decade. 

What was once seen as a strict division between content (like HBO) and delivery (like AT&T) has been almost entirely done away with. Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world, recently merged with AT&T, one of the largest communications companies in the world (largely because there was just no more room for Time Warner to grow as a company in making content). This means that you could conceivably get your content and have it delivered by the same company. AT&T owns Direct TV, the AT&T cellular network, and even provides high-speed internet in some parts of the country while Time Warner owns Warner Brothers and many networks like HBO. So you can now watch Game of Thrones at home on Direct TV and then stream it later through HBO’s app on your phone which uses AT&T’s cell network.

If this sounds like a monopoly to you you would be right. The current chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, criticized the Obama administration’s classification of the internet as a common carrier as outdated, likening it to “Ma Bell,” which was the colloquial name of the conglomerate of telephone companies headed by Bell Systems that ran the vast majority of telephone systems in the US and Canada from 1877 to 1984. Bell was split into seven smaller networks, nicknamed the “Baby Bells,” after it was shown they engaged in illegal monopoly behaviors, crowding out competitors and over-charging consumers among them. 

The thing is, one of the smaller networks was the American Telegraph and Telephone company, often referred to by its initials - AT&T. Ever since the break up AT&T has steadily become a leader in the communications world, even buying up parts of the old Bell network. Now, 4 of the 7 Baby Bells are owned by the same company again. 

So, why should you even care? 

Well, because for one thing if net neutrality is thrown out it would severely stifle innovation. If internet providers could have a two-tiered system of data, one fast lane and one slow lane with companies or consumers having to pay more to use the fast lane, it would be very difficult for new businesses to get a toe-hold on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, and even Google - the single biggest internet company on the planet - all started out as small companies going up against bigger, better-funded competition. New companies not only create new jobs but they sometimes can fundamentally change society. Look at how we process and search for information on Google or communicate on Facebook or consume content on Netflix. 

Whenever two large corporations merge they have to get permission from the Security and Exchange Commission and they always give the same, tired reasoning for why they should be allowed to do so - it would bring down costs and allow for greater research within the company, which would only benefit consumers. But history shows that in nearly every single case, in any industry, this never ends up happening. Prices go up, the amount of offerings to consumers goes down, and little innovation occurs. This is true with airlines, high-speed internet, financial companies, and pharmaceuticals. Consumers end up paying more for the same or even less.

With net neutrality on the chopping block it will be a bleak future for innovation online. But, fortunately, there are laws in place so that a new administration can’t just change everything over-night. Pai and the FCC have to prove that, essentially, everything has changed since the common carrier ruling first took place only a few years ago, which will be difficult, and even if they do, it still has to be approved by Congress, with many democrats vowing a fight.

The FCC just voted to take high speed internet providers out of the Title II and, not surprisingly, the FCC expects a court battle, which hopefully will be uphill and last into 2021, allowing the next President to appoint someone that actually gets it.

The takeaway is this: in the short term net neutrality is still in place BUT it could be in danger over the next four years.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Bond’s Biggest Battle yet is With Hollywood Studios

The James Bond franchise is the longest running, most successful, and well known film franchise in history and it is currently looking for a new home.

Sony Pictures was the long-time home of Bond for many years during the wildly successful Daniel Craig era. Many critics saw Craig as the perfect Bond for his time, unlike his predecessors Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton, and audiences agreed. Now, though, Sony and James may be parting ways and many are courting the companies that own the film rights to set up shop with them.

Eon Productions, run by the Broccolis (descendants of the original creator of James Bond, Albert R. Broccoli), and MGM jointly own the film rights to the James Bond franchise and have been having reportedly lavish meetings with various film studios to try to strike up a deal, one even supposedly happening on the recreated set of Dr. No. 

But, many analysts point to the fact that it may be bad business for whichever distributor ends up getting Bond for a variety of reasons. Chief among them, the deal is for only ONE Bond movie. Some of the biggest names in media in the entire world are falling all over themselves for a single movie with no script, director, or even star in place. Daniel Craig has repeatedly said Spectre, the latest in the Bond franchise, would be his last and it certainly seems to be the case since the end of the film saw Bond quitting the spy game to retire as a sendoff to Craig and a thank-you to fans who supported him.

And even if Craig comes back, many have noted the previous films weren’t exactly a boon for Sony. According to leaked e-mails from the 2014 Sony hack, it was revealed the terms of Sony’s deal with Eon and MGM were awful, Sony not making much money from their films while shouldering almost all of the financial burden which totaled over a quarter of a billion dollars PER FILM. Of course, Sony, as a whole, most likely more than made up for it with placements for their products (computers, phones, etc) along with paid placements from other companies such as Aston Martin, Rolex, and Omega to name only a few.

But why would so many studios get in line for a chance to dance with the British spy? For one, prestige - James Bond is one of the most recognizable characters on the planet and associating your name with him would be a good way to make people want to see everything else you have to offer. Secondly, no matter how poorly it does a Bond film is still, more or less, a guaranteed success. In a world where studios need a film to gross a billion dollars in order to be considered a mild success having Bond in the pipeline makes decisions easier for studio heads, no matter how one-sided the deal ends up being.

The takeaway is this: Bond will never die, even if he gets replaced. The only thing that will change is the name of the company in the opening credits.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Love him or Hate him, it Would be Dangerous to Prosecute Julian Assange

The guy that was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the forgettable Fifth Estate is an actual guy who does stuff. Most people used to like the stuff he did but now most don’t and the Justice Department is considering prosecuting him under the Espionage Act, which actually would be bad. SAD!

A brief history of all things Wikileaks: 

Wikileaks used to be a no-name site in the middle of the internet run by a decent programmer. The idea was anonymous people could submit documents anonymously to blow the whistle on various things like environmental problems, corporate greed, and government cover-ups. 

For a long time nobody had ever heard of it until in 2010 this guy woman named Bradley Chelsea Manning uploaded a HUGE number of documents to the site, basically detailing all the goings-on of the military in the Middle East, which was embarrassing, mainly because it showed, at least in part, that the vast majority of deaths in the Iraq War up to that point were civilians and not bad guys. Manning was prosecuted under the Espionage Act because all of the information he leaked was classified in nature.

Mainly because of the 2010 leak Wikileaks came to be seen as a place where whistle blowers could go to be heard and be kept safe BUT after a while it essentially took anything it got, didn’t do much due diligence on it, then published it. As a prime example, during the failed Turkish coup in 2016 the site released thousands of documents stating it showed how corrupt the Turkish government was, but unfortunately for Assange and the people who are supposed to go through the documents at Wikileaks, none of them really speak Turkish, or if they did, did not go through the documents because what the documents actually revealed were the names and addresses of anti-government supporters who were summarily rounded up and imprisoned after the coup attempt. Most recently in Turkey a resolution narrowly passed that essentially gives the president of Turkey dictator-like powers for well over the next decade. Incidentally, the current US president congratulated him on his victory the same day, but probably not because he has a large amount of property in Istanbul (which is in Turkey).

Here in the US, Wikileaks was the source of the leaked Clinton campaign and DNC e-mails last year, which actually ended up not being very salacious at all, one of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s recipes being one of the highlights. Many cite the e-mail leaks as a large factor in Trump’s victory, considering it dominated the news cycle in the weeks leading up to the election even though they ended up amounting to nothing, and also point to the fact that it is widely known the e-mails were taken illegally by Russian operatives and handed over to Wikileaks who gingerly published them. 

And MOST recently, Wikileaks published thousands of documents detailing the CIA’s entire electronic surveillance tool-chest, including how it can turn normal consumer electronics, such as certain internet-connected TV’s, into listening devices. This occurred just after the current president came into office, who during the campaign loved Wikileaks for publishing the e-mails of his opponent, even asking the Russian spy agencies and Wikileaks to find Clinton’s “missing e-mails”, but who has since changed his mind, announcing they are considering charging him under the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents.

But why should you care? The President has recently giving the Justice Department the go-ahead to try to prosecute Assange and Wikileaks.

On the one hand, Assange has turned out not to be the nice guy everyone first thought he was. Wikileaks, like any other organization, runs on money, in this case it accepts donations, and if it doesn’t have anything new or major to share to keep it in the news and the minds of the public it will eventually stop functioning. In fact, before the Snowden leaks in 2013, Wikileaks was essentially seen as “outside of the game” and no longer important. He has shown to be willing to publish essentially anything as long it gets him clicks, regardless of the fact that the information he puts out there has been shown to put people’s lives in danger. 

On the other hand, it would set a dangerous precedent to go after this guy and Wikileaks because they are essentially a blog. He didn’t personally go in and break through the encryption walls, though there is some evidence to suggest he helped Edward Snowden do just that (Assange also reportedly paid for Snowden’s flight and lodging, while another member of Wikileas accompanied Snowden to Russia from Hong Kong after the news story first broke and helped him get settled there), he was just the guy reporting, and not even really, the real reporters were people from The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Der Spiel in Germany that he showed the documents to. 

This is crucial because if Wikileaks is just doing the reporting and Assange ends up getting charged then it wouldn’t even matter if he is eventually acquitted because it would send a message that even reporting on someone trying to blow a whistle will cost you dearly. Being arrested for reporting something in a newspaper or blog would be a huge threat to Free Speech, and it wouldn’t even matter if every single time it happened the case was eventually thrown out because think of how many fewer people would take such a chance out of fear of being arrested and having to put up with the cost in time, money, anguish, and frustration of having to defend themselves. 

If the current administration went after Wikileaks it would then be able to go after other publications, including ones it considers “fake news,” such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or basically anyone. And, sure, supporters of the current administration would love to see that, but what happens after the current president leaves office and is possibly replaced by someone of the opposite party? It would be the likes of Fox News, Infowars, and Breitbart that would then be the targets.

That is the whole point of the First Amendment - it is supposed to protect anyone, regardless of political backing. You may hate Julian Assange, I certainly do not like him very much, but I don’t think you should prosecute the guy for just publishing the stuff someone else gave him, especially because it would mean basically any news outlet could come in the cross hairs later on. What you should prosecute him for is sexual assault, which is what he was in asylum for in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He’s still hanging out there, though, since he still has a warrant out for his arrest for missing a court date in the UK.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Ivanka’s Totally Upscale Clothes Sold in a Discount Store and Nobody Noticed or Cared

This “breaking” (totally not fake) news is actually from a few weeks ago. Ivanka Trump’s completely “upscale” clothes for the “discerning professional woman” were recently found at a discount store with a different label slapped on and nobody could tell they weren’t supposed to be there.

It is actually common practice for clothing manufacturers to sell the same clothing under different brands, one for upscale places like Macy’s or Neiman Marcus and another for discount stores like JC Penny. Or even to put higher quality labels on sub-par merchandise and sell it in outlet mall versions of high-quality stores (like Saks Off 5th Avenue). In this case, her clothing was rebranded under the Adrienne Vittandi label and sold in Stein Mart stores, a discount chain in Florida. 

All the politics surrounding her business aside many are pointing to the fact that her brand just isn’t what it claims to be. Reviewers say that she copies what everyone else is doing now or was doing five years ago to the point where it all blends together and you can’t tell apart her brand from what any other mid-level store sells. And it’s all completely legal since, generally, there is not much you can protect in a fashion design other than the label.

And it should be no surprise since Ivanka doesn’t actually make her own clothing. She is not Coco Chanel stitching together dresses in the back of her store at night then selling them the next day; there is no Ivanka Trump factory in middle America. The reason why this went unnoticed by pretty much everyone is revealing of a dirty secret in the fashion industry. It’s all about the brand. 

Ivanka’s clothes are made by the same parent companies that actually make everyone else’s clothes. So, when someone buys an Ivanka dress or purse all they are really getting is something that was made in factories in China (not America, SAD) who knowingly and openly violate Chinese labor laws (which are far more Dickensian than in the US), was bought by a large company (in this case G-III, whose company policies go out of its way to ban any sort of maternity leave), had an Ivanka label put on it, and then marked up 900%. You could conceivably get the literal exact same piece of clothing somewhere else for a tenth of the price.

The same has been said of KimYe, the clothing line of Kim Kardashian-West and Kanye West. In side by side comparisons of their new children’s line many critics have pointed out that savvy shoppers could forego paying over $100 for an outfit by simply going to Walmart and getting things that look nearly identical for closer to $10.

All anyone is really buying is the name Ivanka Trump on a label where most of the time nobody can actually see it. So why is the Trump name synonymous with “luxury and success” if it is sold in a discount store without anyone even knowing?

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Artist Calls Bull on “Fearless Girl”

The artist of Charging Bull, often referred to as the Wall Street Bull, is calling bull on the Fearless Girl statue and many agree.

Arturo di Modica installed the 7,100 pound sculpture over night on December 15, 1989 in front of the New York Stock Exchange as a symbol of hope and resilience. At the time the economy was tanking and di Modica thought the installation would spur many people to improve the economy. Initially, Wall Street executives HATED it. They wanted it removed and after going back and forth the piece was eventually placed where it is today, becoming one of the most recognizable pieces of guerrilla art. That’s right, di Modica never had official permission to install the piece. He did everything on his own. 

Contrast it with Fearless Girl, which many have seen as a critique of the boys-club nature of Wall Street, finance, business, and industry in general. But, if you take a closer look at Fearless Girl you will see it is less about combating the patriarchy and more about promoting business. Well, a business in particular. The plaque underneath Girl reads, “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.”

You see the “SHE” in the above quote isn’t capitalized for emphasis, but rather to identify a business. SHE is a reference to the stock-ticker code for the State Street (a bank) gender diversity index. The index is a fund composed of companies run by women. That you can invest in.

State Street commissioned Girl to advertise its business. And di Modica isn’t having it.

The fact that Girl is actually a billboard takes away the impact of the piece to many, including feminists, who note that the very nature of the statue, Fearless Girl instead of Fearless Woman, infantilizes, and thus detracts from, the crucial message, especially in a time where research suggests women still have a long way to go. Surveys conducted of professional men show that they are all for pro-feminist messages and lessons when it comes to their daughters but are largely against it when it comes to their wives. The fact that Girl is, well, a girl, only serves to reinforce this notion - that equality is for the next generation and not this one; “I want my daughter to be independent, but not my wife.”

Di Modica is all for equality but he feels his work is being unfairly appropriated and being cast in a bad light. By casting Girl and against Bull he feels his art is being unfairly portrayed as misogynistic but perception of art can can and does change over time. The Mona Lisa, for instance, wasn’t considered much of anything until somebody stole it in 1911. It was only after its return in 1913 that it was considered a masterpiece, mainly because of the mystery surrounding its theft and return. 

But, di Modica might actually have a pretty good argument on his side should he sue State Street. He is claiming that Girl violates his rights as an artist, namely his copyright and trademark rights. By placing Girl in antithesis of Bull, setting up a showdown of sorts, it is taking Bull and, in essence, making a new piece of art while at the same time altering the original work, changing its original message, thus altering the original piece. Both of these violate copyright law in the same way that if you were to take a photo of a city skyline and place it on a t-shirt (making a new piece of art) and add the words “visit New York” (changing both the work and its original message). 

Similarly, Girl violates di Modica’s trademark rights through a lesser known law, namely the Visual Artist’s Rights Act (VARA). VARA protects certain art-forms (sculpture, painting, photography) by granting limited protections from things like mutilation (taking an original Picasso painting, cutting it up into hundreds of pieces and selling them) and misattribution (not naming the creator of a work, claiming someone else’s work as your own, or mischaracterizing the nature of the work in question). VARA came to be as a result of a Supreme Court case involving Monty Python. Seriously.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a comedy sketch show originally broadcast in Britain, but when it came to the US the episodes were edited to be more suitable and palatable for US audiences. The trouble was the company that distributed the show did not have permission to edit the episodes in any way, thus when the show first premiered in the US in its altered state it was seen as unfunny and strange. The comedy troop, Monty Python, sued, claiming that the troop’s signature style of comedy was not being presented properly to US audiences and thus the distributor and broadcaster violated the troop’s trademark (their particular brand of comedy). The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court and Monty Python won.

In this case, Bull is being portrayed as something it was never meant to portray, a symbol of misogyny and the patriarchy, which di Modica feels is a violation of his particular message and brand of art. Oddly enough, though, di Modica never made any sort of similar claim over the years as Bull eventually came to be seen as a symbol of corporate excess and greed. Further, taking Bull and making it essentially into a new piece of art does not violate copyright law, per se, artistic appropriation happens all the time (like with Andy Warhol’s depiction of the Campbell Soup can) but courts have found doing so in advertising doesn’t contribute to society as much as purely for artistic purposes and so courts give much less protection to commercial speech than political, cultural, or artistic speech.

The fact that the plaque directly underneath Girl serves to draw attention to one of State Street’s products undercuts its cultural and artistic value and may end up being the nail in the coffin should it come to litigation. 

The takeaway is this: if you’re planning on using someones else’s art to further your own message, its generally okay as long as your message doesn’t include selling something.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Who Would’ve Thought a Racist Conspiracy Theorist Would Ever lie?

Alex Jones, the owner and head of Infowars.com, a right-wing/alt-right “news” site often cited by the likes of Fox News and, SADly, the President, is currently being sued by yogurt and will probably lose because he admittedly says things that are just not true.

Chobani, a yogurt manufacturer with facilities in small-town Idaho, is suing Jones because of a video posted to his website alleging Chobani’s connection to a rape case which occurred in Twin Falls, Idaho, which is home to not only a Chobani facility but also to a refugee relocation center. It is no surprise that Chobani hires refugees on a regular basis, considering that the founder and head of Chobani is a Turkish immigrant.

The video makes the connection between Chobani and a sexual assault case involving three refugee boys and a five-year old girl, which actually happened, but which Chobani has no connection to in any way. The video further alleges that Chobani is also connected to an uptick in tuberculosis in the town, which did not happen, as a result of the increased refugees. 

The twist in this case, though, is that Alex Jones completely admits that much of what he says on his site is completely fabricated. In a child custody dispute between he and his ex-wife Jones says that he is merely playing a character in his “rants,” and that what he says does not necessarily reflect his actual view points. As such, the judge in the custody case has barred many of his “rants” which include racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic tirades, but is allowing in footage of Jones praising his kids, cause he is just such a nice guy. 

Also not being allowed into the record are Jones’s allegations that both 9-11 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting did not really happen and were orchestrated by the government. 

Chobani is asking for at least $10,000 and will probably get whatever it wants since Jones’s testimony from his custody case is completely fair game in this case and the fact that he is claiming it as “art” will not save him from liability.

The takeaway is this: if you know what you are saying is not true at all and it makes someone else look terrible, just don’t say it.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Bieber’s Rider for his Tour in India is Apparently Ridiculous

Among the many things in the 23 year old Canadian’s contract, yes he’s only 23, are two ENTIRE hotels. Apparently he and his entourage require two entire hotels, with the upper four floors turned into his personal play palace. But riders, an addendum to a contract, which are now a staple of the rich and famous while on any sort of tour were not always a show of how big and important of a person you are. They were originally about safety.

If you head into the wayback machine and head all the way back to the 1950′s bands largely toured much smaller venues and it was only when the Beatles toured the US that any band would actually play a large venue like Yankee Stadium so high was the demand for the Fab Four. Back then only rudimentary technology existed to amplify the sounds coming from the microphones and electric instruments, which is why the engineering of the Beatles’s first concert in a stadium was so historic - it actually sounded good using only small amps designed for small concert halls. 

As the years went by and musicians played to larger crowds while shows got more elaborate it became more and more inevitable that something would go wrong which would either make the performance suffer, which in turn would make the performers look bad, or someone would get hurt. Often times there were elaborate pyrotechnics involved and during the 1960′s and 1970′s safety often took a backseat. 

That is why many acts soon instituted riders with elaborate demands. Knowing not everyone would always follow a band’s safety requirements and equipment checks, or even read them for that matter, musicians started to ask for things like bowls filled with M&M’s separated by color. It was actually a sly and clever way of testing a particular venue. If they walked into the dressing room of a particular stadium or venue and they didn’t see the things they asked for in there, like a particular brand of champagne or the aforementioned M&M’s, it was a pretty good indication that the locals in charge didn’t take care of the more important stuff, which allowed them to tell their own people to go through additional safety checks. 

Now, though, the actual equipment is nowhere in the mind of a given performer. That is usually up to someone like a road or tour manager or someone specifically in charge of that very thing. But, rumors of elaborate demands stuck and so as soon as any performer gets any sort of recognition now the elaborate demands come quickly after.

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

There’s a BIG Problem with a Celebrity Paying off Your Student Loans

Artist Nicki Minaj recently made headlines by offering to pay for her fans’ tuition costs if they could show her they had straight A’s. This is great news for the followers that were able to take her up on the offer because they no longer have to worry about paying off massive student debt for the rest of their lives but they now probably have to face the IRS and a massive tax bill.

Post-Secondary education (i.e. college and grad school) is expensive in the US, with more and more people earning degrees and tuition only increasing the actual value of a college degree is actually decreasing. And advanced degrees are not immune, either. There are actual real-world examples of Ivy League PhD’s bagging groceries just to make ends meet. Student loans are a unique category of debt. Normally, if you have a debt, like an auto loan or mortgage, and can’t pay it off the lender (usually a bank) would just take ownership of the thing you have the loan for - your car would be repossessed or your house would be foreclosed on and you would be kicked out. And usually this would be the end of the story since, at least in most cases, the value of the car or house would be at least equal to the debt.

But how do you repossess an education? You cannot. Your lender cannot take away your diploma. With these kinds of loans, ones that are not tied to purchasing something specific, the lender can go to court and then get a judgement against you and until you pay off the loan it can take a cut of your paycheck. This is called wage garnishment. But, what if you are a college grad that doesn’t have a job? They can take what little money you have in your bank account but often grads have co-signors, typically a parent, so they go after your parents’ stuff. 

One way to avoid all of that is to declare bankruptcy, which is a government proceeding basically saying “there is no way I can pay off all of my debts so the slate is being wiped clean and I’m going to move forward with my life.” With most debts this is the end of the story but NOT with student loans. By law, they are specifically exempt from bankruptcy proceedings, the person declaring bankruptcy having to go through special procedures to show that there is no way they can pay them off, and more often than not they tend to not be successful.

But how does Minaj come in to play in all this? Yes, it is fantastic that she is using her resources to pay off the loans of people who, despite excelling in school, still have massive debts, the AVERAGE college grad now graduating with around $30,000 in debt after only four years of college. But the thing that Minaj and her beneficiaries most likely have not thought through is the tax implications of a large debt being cancelled out in one foul swoop. 

The IRS defines “income” as basically anything that can be valued that you receive in a given year. So, whenever a contestant on a game show gets prizes (even non-cash prizes) they have to declare it as income when filing their taxes. So, when Oprah gave everyone in her audience a free car every single person had to declare as income, which is also the case with someone paying off your loans or your tuition for you.

Everyone that received money from Minaj, which was just straight up cash, she apparently just wiring money into people’s bank accounts, has to now declare that money as income, even if it just used to pay off their student loan debt. And depending on how much that debt is they might now owe the IRS a huge amount of money. If someone had the average $30,000 debt and Minaj paid it off, then that person could be owe an additional $5,000 come tax time at least. Someone could be pushed into an entirely new tax bracket and then be on the hook to the federal government for more money they are able to pay. And this does not at all include any extra taxes from a given state.

The takeaway is this: yes, it is absolutely a positive that a popular artist was trying to encourage and reward people to pursue an education but everyone involved should understand the implications of transferring large amounts of money over Twitter.

May 10, 2017 9pm

[thewizardoflaws-blog]

Guy gets his Kids Taken Away From him After YouTube Videos go Viral

YouTube star and all around genius, DaddyOFIve, has recently temporarily lost custody of at least two of his children, prompting him to apologize and change his username to DaddyOThreeButMaybeNotForMuchLonger.

This guy, Mike Martin, and his wife, Heather, posted videos of themselves playing pranks on their kids, stating some of them were staged while others were edited to make them look worse than they were. After his videos became popular, his account racking up over 750,000 followers, people started to question the severity of the pranks, especially other YouTube personalities. 

Eventually the story transcended the internet and crossed over into mainstream media, DaddyO sticking to his story that the videos were staged, revealing little evidence to the contrary (such as raw footage of the edited videos or behind the scenes footage). But, recently two of his children were picked up by Child Protective Services with the aid of police and sent to live with their biological mother (who is divorced from Martin).

Child abuse does not solely involve physical harm but includes psychological and emotional abuse as well, which these videos suggest was happening.

This does not mean the kids are gone forever, but it does mean they will be in the custody of their biological mother and her current husband and away from the Martins pending an investigation. The quirk with child abuse is that there are actually two trials they have to defend themselves in now - a criminal one for the criminal act of abusing children, which means they could potentially face jail time, and a custody one since the state needs to determine what kind of access DaddyO will have to his children going forward, the videos being able to serve as evidence in both trials.

The takeaway is this: like I’ve said before - what you do on the internet has real world repercussions.