Author Archives: Lawyer Team

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This blog scans breaking news to find significant and interesting legal settlements. Lawyer.com is a directory website for lawyers. Featuring the best search in its field, lawyer.com connects people who need legal advice to the most qualified professionals who can provide it.

Mets Pay $162 Million in Madoff Settlement

NY Mets

Mets fans are used to errors on the field, but not in the bank.  Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, the owners of the New York Mets, have settled a lawsuit concerning their profits from the much-publicized Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the biggest investment fraud ever conducted.  Irving Picard, the trustee hoping to recoup the investments lost in the Madoff case, had sued the Mets owners accusing them of “willful blindness”, or that they were aware of Madoff’s fraud, but ignored it because they were making money.  Early adopters of Ponzi schemes often make money in the time it takes to collapse.  The settlement today makes sure that those claims of willful blindness never go to court, claims which Picard thinks a jury would have found true.  Jury selection for this trial was set to occur this morning.  Luckily for the Mets, the owners settled for $162 million, nearly half of the $386 million they could have had to pay out.  This is in addition to the $83.3 million in profits the judge in this case had already ordered to be paid back.

It will be interesting to watch how the rest of the Madoff damages litigation pans out.  Despite the 74-year-old head honcho already convicted and in jail for a 150-year term, the recovery effort is still going strong, with Picard getting about $11 billion of the lost $17.3 billion returned.  It is a little late in the game now, but who knows.  Maybe all those rich people who trusted their money with a flimsy criminal will get their money back.  Also, maybe pigs will fly.  Here’s hoping!

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AT&T Offers to Settle over Limiting Unlimited Plans, Is Ignored

The limit does not exist

Via AP:  When smartphones first came on the market, telephone companies offered “unlimited” data plans cheaply in an effort to attract users.  Back then, there were so few smartphones, and even fewer users who used more than a couple of gigabytes of data, that advertising these unlimited plans would mean a great many people would buy them without using much data at all.  As smartphones became more ubiquitous and easier-to-use, though, the number of heavy users on unlimited plans rose to the point where they outnumbered regular users, and it was no longer profitable to sustain truly unlimited use.  Then, AT&T did something incredibly boneheaded: they started capping data use for certain unlimited plans.  In a textbook “do not do this” move, AT&T throttled the service for the top 5% of users, or slowed it down until phones were rendered nearly useless for anything other than calls and texts.  This varied by area, too.  The top 5% in New York City would be using a vastly different amount of data than the top 5% in Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas.  Many customers subsequently sued AT&T for false advertising.  Rightfully so, because I can’t imagine “unlimited” to mean anything other than “not limited at all”.  AT&T has since announced that it will be throttling data at 3GBs/month for all unlimited users, not just the top 5%, which brought up yet another problem: limited users pay $30/month for 3GB of data, the same as so-called “unlimited” plans.  All in all, AT&T’s handling of the affair has been a major clusterwhoops.

Read about one customer’s crusade after the jump:

Mojang Settles with Zenimax over “Scrolls” Trademark

A bunch of trademark infringements in a basket.

Mojang, the creators of the indie sleeper hit videogame Minecraft, have settled with Zenimax, the publisher of the ultra-popular Skyrim, over the use of the word “scrolls” in Mojang’s upcoming release.  Zenimax and their subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks, claimed that the game’s name, which is simply “Scrolls”, was too close to their trademark property “The Elder Scrolls”, a long-running game series since 1994 whose latest installment grossed at least $600 million.  Trademark lawsuits are generally about whether a consumer would reasonably confuse a product, based on how similar the names are or whether the products themselves are similar, among other things.  While any idiot could tell at first glance that Scrolls is not the same as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Zenimax’s main purpose in filing this lawsuit was most likely to demonstrate their willingness to protect their trademark.  If a defendant in a future, actual case of trademark infringement can prove that Zenimax has not attempted to enforce its trademark in the past, the company could possibly lose the trademark entirely — a situation that the occasional frivolous suit against low-key indie developers can help avoid.  The settlement in this case allows Mojang to keep the name “Scrolls”, but cedes the trademark, “Scrolls”, over to Zenimax.  Ostensibly, this is what both companies wanted in the first place.

The judge in this case noted that scrolls are very common in fantasy, which is the genre of both games.  An analogy to this case would be if Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien sued every fantasy writer to later use “rings” in the title, despite the fact that magic rings are a common element in all fantasy stories.  Interesting, because a comparison of the Elder Scrolls universe and Tolkien lore will unearth nearly-derivative similarities on all levels that I won’t bore you with (though I could probably discuss that for a few hours).  So do they owe the Tolkien estate any money?  Should they stop making their games due to copyright?  In creative endeavors, creators build upon the works of creators past.  Though this case was about the title of a game, and not at all about gameplay or visual style or even content (if it were, they would have no case whatsoever), hopefully Zenimax will at least recognize their own creative debts.

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Sony BMG Settlement Indicates Need to Define Digital Royalties

A thing of the past – music companies want to sell digital music as if it were still analog.

I’ve written before that music companies need to adjust to changing times.  Today, Sony BMG settled a suit with a group of several musicians concerning digital distribution.  The gist of it is this: the royalties that go to artists are different if the transfer of a song is considered a sale or a license.  12-20% of a sale goes to the artist, while 50% of a license does.  A sale means that the copyright holder has given some ownership rights to the purchaser (e.g. with a CD or record, where the purchaser owns a copy of the album and can resell that copy at some point).  A license means that a purchaser has the right to listen to the song, but the copyright holder still retains all ownership rights.  Digital distribution services like iTunes and Amazon’s music download service have been treating digital versions of songs transferred via the internet as sales rather than licenses.  This lawsuit challenged that definition — the artists alleged that online distribution is more like a license than a sale, and therefore they are owed more money.

The settlement of this case for $8 million may influence more artists to sue.  If more artists sue, music distribution services may need to change their royalty calculation to a licensing system to protect themselves from greater losses in litigation.  Last year, Eminem famously won a similar suit, though it was mainly based on his contract and not the idea of licensing in general.  It was considered a precedent in copyright law, but since then the debate has been mostly quiet.  Hopefully, the music industry will begin to shift its digital rights management and become more open to change and paying artists a fair share of their work.  However, considering it’s an industry that sold over $6 billion worth of digital music last year, I can understand their reluctance to even a small shift in royalty fees.

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Celebrity Chef Pays $5.25 Million in Confiscated Tips to Workers

A pile of delicious spaghetti (representative of but not actually Batali’s, though)

Celebrity chef Mario Batali has settled with his disgruntled workers over allegations he skimmed 4-5% of servers’ tips at the end of every night at his high-profile restaurants.  The employees claimed that they were not paid overtime when they worked for over 10 hours and that Batali took the tip money to pay the salaries of sommeliers at his other New York restaurants.  The settlement comes in the wake of an overhaul of New York wage laws, which one lawyer connected with the case said made the circumstances “ambiguous”.  Overall, tip-skimming is illegal, and restaurant owners need only follow the guidelines set by the New York legislature to avoid similar lawsuits.

I went to one of these restaurants a few years ago as part of a company morale type of thing at my old job.  The food was pretty good, but not exactly worth the money paid for it.  I guess it’s more about the name at the front of the restaurant than the meal itself.  But anyway, between 20 or so people, the bill turned out to be more than $1,000 with wine and whatnot, if I recall correctly, and probably more knowing my old boss.  A 20% tip on that would be $200, and 5% of that would be $10 going to Batali’s sommeliers.  It seems like a pittance to file a lawsuit over when you look at it localized like this, but compounded over however many hundreds of meals are served per day over five years and between at least eight restaurants, this number becomes astounding.  If the tip-skimming was truly as widespread as the plaintiffs alleged, Batali should be thankful that he only had to pay $5.25 million.

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