“The famous have an exclusive legal right during life to control and profit from the commercial use of their name and personality.” – Circuit Judge Merritt, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Memphis Development Foundation v. Factors Etc., Inc., 616 F.2d 956 (1980)
Category: Politics & Law
“The gist of this claim is that Carson is embarrassed by and considers it odious to be associated with the appellee’s product. Clearly, the association does not appeal to Carson’s sense of humor.” – Senior Circuit Judge Bailey Brown, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Carson v. Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., 698 F.2d 831 (1983).
“The unwritten law possesses capacity for growth; and has often satisfied new demands for justice by invoking analogies or by expanding a rule or principle. This process has been in the main wisely applied and should not be discontinued. Where the problem is relatively simple, as it is apt to be when private interests only are involved, it generally proves adequate. But with the increasing complexity of society, the public interest tends to become omnipresent; and the problems presented by new demands for justice cease to be simple.” – Justice Brandeis, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“An essential element of individual property is the legal right to exclude others from enjoying it. If the property is private, the right of exclusion may be absolute; if the property is affected with a public interest, the right of exclusion is qualified. But the fact that a product of the mind has cost its producer money and labor, and has a value for which others are willing to pay, is not sufficient to ensure to it this legal attribute of property. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions—knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas—become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use. Upon these incorporeal productions the attribute of property is continued after such communication only in certain classes of cases where public policy has seemed to demand it. These exceptions are confined to productions which, in some degree, involve creation, invention, or discovery. But by no means all such are endowed with this attribute of property. The creations which are recognized as property by the common law are literary, dramatic, musical, and other artistic creations; and these have also protection under the copyright statutes. The inventions and discoveries upon which this attribute of property is conferred only by statute, are the few comprised within the patent law.” – Justice Brandeis, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“Property, a creation of law, does not arise from value . . . . Property depends upon exclusion by law from interference.” – Justice Holmes, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The right of the purchaser of a single newspaper to spread knowledge of its contents gratuitously, for any legitimate purpose not unreasonably interfering with complainant’s right to make merchandise of it, may be admitted; but to transmit that news for commercial use, in competition with complainant—which is what defendant has done and seeks to justify—is a very different matter.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The rule that a court of equity concerns itself only in the protection of property rights treats any civil right of a pecuniary nature as a property right; and the right to acquire property by honest labor or the conduct of a lawful business is as much entitled to protection as the right to guard property already acquired.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918) (internal citations omitted).
“The peculiar value of news is in the spreading of it while it is fresh; and it is evident that a valuable property interest in the news, as news, cannot be maintained by keeping it secret.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“The news element—the information respecting current events contained in the literary production—is not the creation of the writer, but is a report of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; it is the history of the day. It is not to be supposed that the framers of the Constitution, when they empowered Congress ‘to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries’ (Const. art. 1, § 8, par. 8), intended to confer upon one who might happen to be the first to report a historic event the exclusive right for any period to spread the knowledge of it.” – Justice Pitney, Supreme Court of the United States, International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
“One witness who was initially confused stayed and purchased a beer.” – Circuit Judge King, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Capece, 141 F.3d 188 (1998), fn. 7.
“Ceasing the infringing activity does not allow an infringing party to escape liability.” – Circuit Judge King, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Capece, 141 F.3d 188 (1998)
“Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.” – Circuit Judge Thornberry, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, American Heritage Life Ins. Co. v. Heritage Life Ins. Co., 494 F. 2d 3.
“Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.” – Adam Przeworski (quoted by Gabe Fleisher in “Why Today Is So Extraordinary,” Wake Up to Politics, January 20, 2025
“The Defendants’ bar serves a wide variety of food and liquor, including premium scotches and bourbons. The menu items range from appetizers to full entrees. Live music is regularly featured at the bar, and the bar claims to be the first cigar bar in Houston. Its decor includes velvet paintings of celebrities and female nudes, including ones of Elvis and a bare-chested Mona Lisa. Other ‘eclectic’ decorations include lava lamps, cheap ceramic sculptures, beaded curtains, and vinyl furniture. Playboy centerfolds cover the men’s room walls. In addition to the velvet painting of Elvis, the bar’s menu and decor include other Elvis references. The menu includes ‘Love Me Blenders,’ a type of frozen drink; peanut butter and banana sandwiches, a favorite of Elvis’s; and ‘Your Football Hound Dog,’ a hotdog.” – Circuit Judge King, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. v. Capece, 141 F.3d 188 (1998).
“Commercial agreements traditionally are the domain of state law. State law is not displaced merely because the contract relates to intellectual property which may or may not be patentable; the states are free to regulate the use of such intellectual property in any manner not inconsistent with federal law…. In this as in other fields, the question of whether federal law pre-empts state law involves a consideration of whether that law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. If it does not, state law governs.” – United States Supreme Court, Aronson v. Quick Point Pencil Co., 440 U.S. 257 (1979), as quoted by the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in Smith v. Healy, 744 F.Supp.2d 1112 (2010)
“Once a trade secret is posted on the Internet, it is effectively part of the public domain, impossible to retrieve. Although the person who originally posted a trade secret on the Internet may be liable for trade secret misappropriation, the party who merely down loads Internet information cannot be liable for misappropriation because there is no misconduct involved in interacting with the Internet.” – District Judge Brinkema, United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division, Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 908 F.Supp. 1362 (1995)
“The Court finds that the motivation of plaintiff in filing this lawsuit against The Post is reprehensible. Although the RTC brought the complaint under traditional secular concepts of copyright and trade secret law, it has become clear that a much broader motivation prevailed—the stifling of criticism and dissent of the religious practices of Scientology and the destruction of its opponents. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, has been quoted as looking upon the law as a tool to ‘[h]arass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.’ (Declaration of Mary Ann Werner).” – District Judge Brinkema, United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division, Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 908 F.Supp. 1362 (1995)
“It may be that little more is needed, but falling a little short is still falling short.” – Judge Zagel, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Teradyne, Inc. v. Clear Communications Corp.
“In the instant case, the district court adopted PepsiCo’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law verbatim as the text for most of its opinion. As we have stated before, it is acceptable for a district court laboring under the time pressures of a preliminary injunction in addition to its already busy docket to adopt ‘many or most of the parties’ proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, particularly if skillfully and wisely drafted.’ That the district court so acts does not alter our basic standard of review. This action does, however, cause us some pause where, as here, the court changed nothing in a party’s submissions and even repeated that party’s typographical errors.” – Judge Flaum, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, PepsiCo, Inc. v. Redmond, 54 F.3d 1262 (1995), fn. 4 (internal cites omitted).
“Essentially, to be remembered as a U.S. president, you have to need to do one of three things: Be one of the first presidents; Be one of the most recent presidents; Be Abraham Lincoln.” – Gabe Fleisher, “Why It’s Pointless to Guess at Biden’s Legacy,” Wake Up to Politics
“Our devotion to free wheeling industrial competition must not force us into accepting the law of the jungle as the standard of morality expected in our commercial relations.” – Judge Goldberg, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, E. I. duPont deNemours & Co. v. Christopher, 431 F.2d 1012 (1970)
“The greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects, however independent they may be supposed in some respects, are commonly allowed to be inseparable with regard to commerce.” – David Hume, Political Discourses
“Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour . . . . To violate this combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Nationalism is collective madness, a form of narcissism with millions preening in front of an imaginary mirror, telling themselves they are God’s favorites. Their happiness can only come from the unhappiness of others, so they need to kill and make miserable a lot of people. At the same time there’s something suicidal, something self-defeating about the whole enterprise. Sooner or later they always come to a bad end.” – Charles Simic, “The Art of Poetry,” Paris Review
“If money go before, all ways do lie open.” – William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2
“At the outset of the North African campaign, on 13 November 1942, President Roosevelt declared: ‘No one will go hungry, or without the means of livelihood in any territory occupied by the United Nations, if it is humanly possible within our power to make supplies available to them.’ This announcement heralded the beginning of a civilian supply problem that was to complicate the work of military logisticians immensely. It was not just a matter of humanitarian concern as the President’s announcement might suggest, but one of military necessity. Disease and disorder in rear areas or lack of co-operation from local governments could easily disrupt lines of communications and endanger the success of military operations.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The Army and Civilian Supply – I,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“The person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may, perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both, but the mere possession of that fortune does not necessarily convey to him either. The power which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the power of purchasing.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Presidential elections in the United States are the dash for the cash. News outlets large and small suddenly open up their wallets and shovel out money for words, photos, video, anything that grabs eyes and ears. TOTAL COVERAGE! If you’re a freelancer, presidential elections are a gift from the news gods because it means a few months of steady paychecks, a fattened Rolodex, maybe a staff gig with juicy benefits or a sweetheart book deal.” – Dominic Gwinn, “2024 From The Back Of Dom’s Van,” December 31, 2024, Wonkette (emphasis in original)
“America’s a hustle.” – Noelle Valdivia, “Bliss,” The Penguin