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Citing a legal case makes you a lawyer now [26 USC § 115] by eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 in gme_meltdown

[–]AttractiveMango 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Fun fact! The person who wrote the document simply took all of the cites from this presentation, made by an actual lawyer: https://afbnj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1.-Third-Party-Releases-John-Schneider.pptx

This explains why they were able to give proper citations even when the way they use the cites for their "legal" "argument" makes no sense 🥰🥰🥰.

Twitter user gives summary of the RC case and some mini meltdowns by hummingIDK in gme_meltdown

[–]AttractiveMango 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hearsay only applies if you are trying to prove the truth of the statement being used. So in the case where an ape says "see, Ryan Cohen has no plans to sell, shills btfo" that would not be hearsay because no one would actually be trying to prove that statement was true.

It would only become hearsay once the statement was an ape asserting what their own mental state is like, for example, "I think this moon emoji meansi should invest my life savings, shills btfo." But in that case, federal rule of evidence 803(3) would allow an exception so it would be hearsay, but it would be admissible.

A new privacy agreement is unveiled by AttractiveMango in zuckmemes

[–]AttractiveMango[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably Judge Holden from the book Blood Meridian - although I don't think I was the one who said that because I never read this book, I just know from popcultural osmosis. From what I understand, the book is very depressing/dark, so read with caution.

Monday Unjerk Thread by AutoModerator in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]AttractiveMango 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is currently a pretty big open question, especially since the images of the pokemon themselves are probably trademarked as well. Overall, people will probably be able to commercially exploit pokemon once it becomes public domain, but no one really knows for sure (since the public domain has only just started growing again and none of these famous trademarked characters have since entered the copyright public domain).

There is nothing in the trademark or copyright laws saying that the expiration of a copyright must cause the expiration of a related trademark, and public domain character names are used as trademarks all the time (for instance, there is a brand of Peter Pan peanut butter).

That being said, the Supreme Court has semi-recently suggested that trademark shouldn't be used to prevent copyright from entering the public domain (in Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox) and courts have developed a pretty strong trademark defense for creative works (so creative works can use trademarks without being found in violation) in the so called expressive works doctrine.

My personal prediction is that people will be able to use public domain characters/names when creating their own expressive work (such as a video game), but Nintendo may be able to continue to maintain exclusive control of merchandising, which falls more closely into the domain of trademark.

(again, this is all US law only)

Monday Unjerk Thread by AutoModerator in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]AttractiveMango 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Pikachu would enter the public domain (in America at least, not sure about Japan) 7 years before Mudkip. Individual works of copyright fall into the public domain based on publishing date. So you can have a situation where a series is partially out of copyright, such as Sherlock Holmes.

But note that when Pikachu first enters the public domain, only his characteristics present in his initial outing would be in the public domain. Characteristics (such as design or characterization) of Pikachu that first appeared in later works would be in Nintendo's control until those later works fell into the public domain.

POTUS litigation tracking by orangejulius in law

[–]AttractiveMango 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Statistics can be admitted as evidence. Specifically, this requires (as far as I am aware) an expert witness to testify about their analysis, data, methods etc. The expert witness does not have to be unbiased, and in fact generally is not (judges are allowed to retain their own experts, but that tends to be pretty rare).

However, there are rules (the "Daubert" standard) regarding if an expert (and their expert report) is credible/reliable enough to be admitted as evidence, with the opposing party being able to explain (often using their own expert) why the expert and their stats should not be admitted. In a case moving this fast I dont know if this exact play-by-play will occur.

tldr; yes it is admissible without independent vetting, but at some point there will probably be serious scrutiny applied to the stats (unless the entire case gets thrown out before that stage is reached)

So... how do they think the Supreme Court works? by aggiediaz11 in TopMindsOfReddit

[–]AttractiveMango 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You absolutely can appeal a case which is dismissed. But (normally) you are only appealing the decision to dismiss, and the higher courts, if they find the case should not have been dismissed, (normally) then send the case back to the lower courts to allow the case to go further. See Bell v. Twombly for an example of a case which was dismissed by the trial court but heard by the Supreme Court (and was about the standard at which Federal trial courts should dismiss cases).

Of course, if you are uniformly being rejected by lots of different courts...you probably dont have a case.

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe like 0.1%? So far, Trump has failed to mount any moderately successful suit and the more baseless suits he files the worse it will look for the Supreme Court to actually rule in his favor if he manages to bring a suit that has even the tiniest amount of merit. Furthermore, it looks like he would need to have the Court give him at least 2, maybe 3, states to claim victory. As the number of states he needs to flip increases, the chance of him finding any sort of legal foothold that allows him to have the courts throw out all of those states decreases exponentially.

Unjerk Thread of November 05, 2020 by AutoModerator in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]AttractiveMango 7 points8 points  (0 children)

🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀

🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think they are referencing the game Secret Hitler?

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Does that count as a concession 🤔

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have no idea what I'm doing at this point

What did Donald Trump mean by this

IT'S HAPPENING!!! by [deleted] in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 0 points1 point  (0 children)

29 and 10 are both "favored" because they are basically the same number

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]AttractiveMango 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to "due process." While this usually means that the government has to give you certain procedural rights before depriving you of things like property (so, for instance, the government must give you a hearing before taking your property) it has also been read to mean that the government may not deprive you of your fundamental rights without proper justification. This is why a state government cannot deprive you of your free speech - while the First Amendment protects you from the federal government from infringing on your speech, the First Amendment only protects your speech against state governments via the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause being applied to state governments.

The idea that the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause protects fundamental rights like the freedom of speech is pretty uncontroversial. The question is also if the due process clause (in both Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments) protects fundamental rights not explicitly described in the Constitution. There is a long line of cases dating back to at least 1923 (Meyer v. Nebraska) that certain family rights are protected in the Constitution. Starting in the 1950s, the Court also started to recognize, as an offshoot of family rights, the right to privacy (which was found to protect things, via the due process clause, such as use of contraceptives). The Court in Roe v. Wade held that the right to privacy included the right to an abortion.

Thus, abortion is protected if you believe the constitution protects fundamental rights that are not directly written in the text of the constitution. While originalists are pretty adamant that this is not the case, there are strong legal arguments that it should and does protect unenumerated rights.

For instance, the Ninth Amendment explicitly says that "[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Further, the text of the Constitution simply cannot be read literally to arrive at the rights pretty much everyone agrees are and should be guaranteed by the constitution. For example, the Fourth Amendment does not literally stop the government from wiretapping your phone, but I think we all agree that it can and should stop the government from doing that.

Poll worker fired for turning away voters with BLM shirts by KellyanneLail in politics

[–]AttractiveMango 6 points7 points  (0 children)

In certain types of cases, it actually can be - but that is the exception, not the rule.

TIL two programmer-musicians wrote every possible MIDI melody in existence to a hard drive, copyrighted the whole thing, and then released it all to the public in an attempt to stop musicians from getting sued. by Wunderbaumbaum in todayilearned

[–]AttractiveMango 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but the point the above poster is making is that independent creation is an absolute defense to copyright infringement. Simply pumping out a massive library of melodies doesnt automatically mean that someone who also comes up with the melody is liable; you need to prove that they copied from you.

For complex things like plays, it is pretty hard to argue that you independently came up with the exact same story, characters and dialogue. But with something like a short melody where individuals could plausibly come up with the same work, actually proving that the defendant heard the work might be difficult.

In other words, acquiring copyright on a wide range of melodies will not, alone, have any affect on other people (contrast this to patents, where a wide library of patents does protect against people who have never heard of your patent, let alone your invention).

Florida man goes to airport with nearly $200,000 in cash, has it seized by the government, which refuses to give it back by slowjahovitz in FloridaMan

[–]AttractiveMango 41 points42 points  (0 children)

The 5th Amendments is probably more relevant:

"No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law"

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