speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Poverty of Civil Libertarianism
56 Los Angeles Times F1 (March 24, 1992). Twenty years earlier Nancy
Sinatra lost a lawsuit against Goodyear for dressing up a blonde in a
miniskirt and go go boots in a commercial for a tyre called the Boot. Since
the Midler victory Tom Waits won $2.5 million against Frito Lay and its
advertising agency for imitating his voice in a jingle for Doritos. Infinity
settled with Chris Isaak for using a guitar riff almost identical to his hit
song "Wicked Game." New York Times s.2 p.23 (July 5, 1992). Did
"Honeymoon in Vegas" pay the King's estate for permission to film the
finale in which the Jumping Elvises sky-dive into the city?
57 New York Times B1 (April 21, 1922).
58 New York Times s. 1 p. 12 (April 19,1992). Litigation is pending between
the editor of the two-volume, 1750-plate "Facsimile Edition of the Dead
Sea Scrolls" and the Israeli editor who claims a copyright on the 2000year
old manuscript. Los Angeles Times B4 (October 3, 1992).
59 New York Times s.2 p.26 (April 12, 1992). The North American software
industry estimated that $2.4 billion was illegally copied in 1990, compared
to sales of $5.7 billion. Codes that prevented copying were
eliminated because they interefered with loading programmes on hard
disks. New York Times A1 (July 27, 1992).
In 1991 the National Institutes of Health sought patents on thousands of
gene fragments, even though their functions were unknown. The Office of
Patents and Trade Marks rejected the application, and the Department of
Health and Human Services was considering resubmitting. Now both its
General Counsel and numerous scientists (including Nobel laureate
James Watson) have advised against this for fear of slowing the human
genome project. New York Times A16 (October 8, 1992).
60 New York Times A1 (December 11,1991) (making it easier for victims to
sue criminals for their profits). When KLM Productions paid high school
student Amy Fisher $60,000 for the story of her shooting of Mary Jo
Buttafuoco, with whose 39-year-old husband Amy claimed to have a
year-long affair, Ms Buttafuoco sought to seize the money before Ms.
Fisher could use it for bail. New York 777nesA16(August7, 1992). A New
Jersey judge has imposed a lien on any money paid for the story of the
convicted kidnap-killer of the Exxon International president. New York
Times A13 (October 7, 1992).
The market naturally resists such regulation. Networks base 35-40 per
cent of the movies they produce on real events, paying informants as
much as $125,000. NBC's senior vice president for movies received
seven pitches in a single day for the Amy Fisher story. "One agency called
and simply said they were offering the L.A. riots. I said, what exactly are
you representing?" HBO Pictures bought the story of a Texas mother who
hired a hit man to kill her daughter's rival on the high school cheerleading
team; an executive said "we're going to do it as a dark comedy." New
York Times C1 (June 15, 1992).
Richard Nixon is still suing the government for payment for some of the
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