Law and Magic Blog

Another Story About Jim Passe, IP Lawyer and Magician

Here's another nice story about Jim Passe, the IP lawyer and accomplished magician. Tip of the top hat to David Ortman.

Yankees Auction Ortiz Jersey For Benefit of Jimmy Fund

Remember that Yankee stadium "curse" brought on by the David Ortiz jersey? The team's owners spent time and money digging up the area where a construction worker buried it, and found it. Success! Curse avoided! They donated it to the Jimmy Fund, which auctioned it off to the tune of $175,000; the high bidder was a car dealer named Kevin Meehan, who says he'll display his prize in one of his dealerships. He also got a new Ortiz jersey and a bunch of other valuable stuff. Said the Yankees, "“As we said, what was intended to be a dastardly act has turned into something very beautiful, and we hope that these funds will play a small part in the fight against pediatric cancer." Read more here.

Oh, and the BoSox fan who caused all the trouble? His name is Gino Castignoli. I was going to say that apparently he gets nuttin', but it occurs to me that maybe he can take the value of the jersey off on his taxes as a charitable deduction to the Jimmy Fund. No, probably not. He didn't, after all, donate it himself and his intent was fairly clearly to leave it at the stadium for the benefit (?) of the Yankees. Guess I'll have to ask one of my tax law colleagues.

Lawyer-Magician Rusty Rittenhouse

Reader David Ortman of Seattle, Washington notes that Athens, Ohio, attorney Rusty Rittenhouse is also an accomplished magician. Here's a link to an article from the Athens Messenger that discusses his skills.

Harry Potter and Copyright Law

Jay Dougherty, one of the contributors to the Law and Magic volume, is quoted in this thr.com article about the "Harry Potter Lexicon" lawsuit. He points out that a crucial question is the transformative nature of the use of the original materials.

In determining whether use of copyrighted materials is "fair use" a court looks at four factors:

1. the purpose and character of the use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.

Has Mr. van der Ark "transformed" or created something new out of the materials Ms. Rowling created? Or has he just copied hers?

But another question is the effect that the Lexicon will have on Ms. Rowling's sale of her proposed Lexicon or Encyclopedia. Will avid Potterites fail to buy her title because they've bought Mr. van der Ark's?

I don't know much about the first question; I haven't examined the Lexicon website that closely. But I can venture an answer to the second, having been around some Potterites. No. I cannot believe that those folks wouldn't buy ANYTHING Ms. Rowling writes. And after this lawsuit, they'll be even more curious to see what her book contains, and perhaps much less interested in the RDR title. So there.

Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom

In a Volokh Conspiracy post, Jonathan Adler addresses those bills that purport to grant academic freedom to high school teachers who wish to present alternatives to the theory of evolution. Citing a Wall Street Journal article on the subject of various bills wending their way through state legislatures, Professor Adler concludes,

Unlike some critics of "Intelligent Design" and other creationist theories, I am not convinced that teaching alternatives to evolution necessarily violates the Establishment Clause. That said, these bills make for horrible public policy, as there is nothing scientific about these "alternatives" to evolution. Encouraging attacks on evolution in high school science classes promotes academic fraud not “academic freedom.” If school boards or state legislatures want public school students to be exposed to competing theories about the origins of life — a question evolutionary theory does not address — they should do it in a world religion or social studies class and leave science alone.

Across the Pond

Here's a link to a post at Ben Goldacre's BadScience.net in which he discusses the new legislation that replaces the soon to be repealed Fraudulent Mediums Act, that itself replaced the Witchcraft Act of 1736. Among his comments:

Psychics are popular. They do what they say on the tin. They serve consumers who possibly shouldn’t watch telly after 9pm, but who have chosen to seek out practitioners with a very odd take on evidence. Apparently, special protection will be given to those who may be “particularly vulnerable” on account of their “credulity” (”consumers who may more readily believe specific claims”).

With my tiny brain, I can’t see how anyone is going to rationally police this kind of thing, given that the whole industry is, by definition, based on nonsense, and it’s plainly undesirable to ban things simply because they’re stupid.

...

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has given us a taster of the comedy to come, adjudicating last month in all seriousness on Zara, the “UK’s premier psychic adviser”. It was concerned that statements like “I will cast a spell to grant your wish”, “might be interpreted to mean that her spells would be successful”. Thank God the ASA is there to save us from this underhand marketing practice. I don’t understand why anyone would pay for a spell if they didn’t think it would be successful.

Then the regulator tried to assess Zara’s powers. “We considered that the claim ‘premier psychic adviser’ implied that Zara offered an objectively superior service to all other psychic advisers … because we had seen no comparative evidence to show that Zara offered an objectively superior service to all other psychic advisers, the claim was misleading.”

It’s unclear what kind of evidence might have sufficed for the ASA. If it was a provable phenomenon then perhaps that would genuinely have been mis-selling. Maybe Chris Forster, the BNP’s moustachioed psychic candidate for the London Assembly, could have helped the ASA take a more quantitative approach. His speciality is “remote viewing of people, property or businesses, ie to analyse accurately at a distance”, and he promotes himself as “the only qualified internal auditor and accountant working full-time as a psychic”.

This nonsense is everywhere, and I’m glad of it (although not the BNP part). I am very happy to live in a world where “Alien doctors treated my cystitis” can be a news story in the Hartlepool Mail (”I don’t tell people … I don’t think they believe me. That’s why I’m telling my story to the Mail, to give credibility. I want to get it into concrete evidence”).

Good stuff.

Fox Reality Channel Airs "Breaking the Magician's Code"

Do you remember that video set, "Breaking the Magicians' Code"? It's making its reappearance on the Fox Reality Channel. This week the focus is on the second episode. It will air again tonight, at 6 p.m. (5 Central time) and 9 p.m. (8 Central time). Fox originally aired the specials from 1997 to 2002.

FindLaw's Julie Hilden on the J. K. Rowling/RDR "Harry Potter" Lawsuit

FindLaw's Julie Hilden discusses the Rowling/RDR lawsuit here, evaluates the claims, and finds that Ms. Rowling has a good chance of winning her case.

A Frolic and Detour

This post has absolutely nothing to do with law and magic. But--my sister sent me a link to this video and I thought it was extremely funny. It's "An Engineer's Guide to Cats".  It ranks with the print introduction to solar energy by Jim Augustyn, The Solar Cat Book (updated as The Return of the Solar Cat Book) in terms of science humor. Check out the website devoted to cat and other non-primate art for similar "performance art" humor. (At least, I think MONPA is is supposed to be funny). For more fun with scientists, check out the current CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory (Mondays at 8, 7 Central Time. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program....

Sebastian Goldstein, Lawyer/Magician

American University School of Law grad Sebastian Goldstein is also an accomplished magician; he's been the "house magician" at the Tropicana Hotel and Resort in Atlantic City and has been practicing magic for 23 years.