Intellectual Property

Disney to No Longer Seek to Trademark "Dia de los Muertos" [UPDATE]

UPDATE, 6 P.M.: After a flurry of online outrage, Disney has decided to no longer pursue a trademark on "Dia de los Muertos." See Also: *Lawsuit: Disneyland Employee Dressed as White Rabbit Refused to Hug Black Child *Disneyland and AIDS Charity Sued for Darth Vader Swinging at Bird But Hitting Lad ... More >>

Gokhan Kucuk, John Giang Ly and Joon Heung Son Busted in "Operation Fashion Faux Pas"

Gokhan Kucuk of Huntington Beach, John Giang Ly of Westminster and Garden Grove shoe shop owner Joon Heung Son are facing felony charges stemming from "Operation Fashion Faux Pas," an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation of Orange County retailers suspected of dealing in counterfeit des ... More >>

Nestle Purina PetCare Sued by Garden Grove Nonprofit Hemopet for Copyright Infringement

A Garden Grove nonprofit that provides animal blood banks and veterinary diagnostic services is suing Nestle in Santa Ana federal court for copyright infringement.Hemopet accuses Nestle's Purina PetCare unit of infringing on four patents related to determining nutritional programs for dogs and cats ... More >>

Five Ways to Make a More Efficient Ramadan Kitchen

Ramadan--the holy month where Muslims forgo food and drink, including water, from sunup to sundown--is here. One of the five pillars in Islam, this month is one of spiritual discipline and renewal, as Muslims are instructed to spend extra time in worship and try to cut back on bad habits. The fast t ... More >>

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead

Theatre Out

Derek Reeve, SJC Councilman, Loses Teaching Gig as Newspaper and Website Scrum Over Plagiarism

​The Orange County Register and AOL's Patch have served as home and away courts for a series of journalistic volleys involving Patch's San Juan Capistrano news site and that city's controversial lawyer, educator and city councilman, Derek Reeve.The latest kill-shot involves Reeve losing a teaching ... More >>

Wine Company Trying to Trademark Term 'Taco Truck'

​Today is something called National Taco Day, which is a total bullshit holiday made up in 2000 by Chuy's in Austin. It started as a marketing ploy, and Chuy's actually filed a trademark application for it, but it let its rights to the term slip, meaning hundreds of lazy bloggers and reporters can ... More >>

German Liquor Maker Can Now Legally Call their Drink "Fuck Schnapps"

​In a cheap media ploy that obviously worked, a German liquor company applied for a trademark for a brand of schnapps they wanted to call "Fuck." Their initial efforts were stymied by authorities--but now, a German high court has ruled in their favor in the most important free-speech battle since ... More >>

Pearl Jam's Ten Club: Are They Eddie Vedder's Copyright Police?

​We don't condone the violation of copyright law. But if you try to upload a video on YouTube featuring a live Pearl Jam or Eddie Vedder performance, chances are your account will be blocked due to a copyright claim filed by a third party. At least that's what happened when I attempted to upl ... More >>

WTForever21.com Finds Out Its Muse is Forever Litigious

[Trendzilla] Support this hilarious website in its fight against the humorless, unoriginal corporate giant

Charo

Cerritos Center

Volcom Sues Jay-Z

[Mental Notes] More important, what's going on for Record Store Day in OC?

Petition Filed with US Patent Office to Cancel "Urban Homestead" Trademark Held by Dingbat Dervaes Family

The Ma and Pa Kettle of the legal world?​Remember that humongous controversy earlier this year when a weirdo Pasadena family not only successfully got a trademark for the term "urban homesteading" (used in American English for decades), but began sending threatening legal letters to entities who u ... More >>

Battle for the Diamond: Surf Brand Volcom Sues Jay-Z Over Trademark Infringement

Jay-Z may need to find a new shape.​De Beers lied to us. A diamond is not forever. Jay-Z has been throwing around that diamond hand signal for a few years now and using it as the logo for his music company, but a Costa Mesa surf brand is taking legal action to get its diamond back.Volcom is suing ... More >>

Louis Vuitton Has No LV for Parody

[Trendzilla] The fashion icon continues to ridiculously pursue legal action against artist Nadia Plesner

[UPDATED] Pasadena's Dervaes Family Trademarks the Terms 'Urban Homestead' and 'Urban Homesteading,' Now Cracking Down on Bloggers

This guy just gave a talk in Orange County. . . . Better change the title of that book, son!​UPDATED, 10:50 P.M. Those dingbat Dervaeses won't give up. Rather than take their licking and apologize to the authors, bloggers, and libraries who dared use the term "urban homestead" or "urban homeste ... More >>

The Vandals

House of Blues

[UPDATED:] Matthew Lloyd Crippen Escapes Charges of Illegal Modification of Xbox Consoles

​Update, December 6, 12:07 p.m.: A tip to you budding prosecutors out there: When a judge says, "I really don't understand what we're doing here," your case is in serious jeopardy. That's what U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez said last week in Los Angeles before the U.S. Attorney's Office anno ... More >>

Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance and Negativland

UC Irvine, McCormick Screening Room

As If Mike Myers' "The Love Guru" Was Not Enough of a Crime

​The Federal Bureau of Investigation says an Irvine man pleaded guilty to a felony charge of uploading a pre-release version of The Love Guru to a website operated by a piracy group that made the Mike Myers movie widely available on the Internet.Th ... More >>

Baja Fresh in Irvine Doing "Baja Kogi"

My friend Christian over at OC Mex Food just discovered that a Baja Fresh in Irvine has started serving "Baja Kogi" tacos. My initial reaction was one of disbelief. But Christian has the pictures to prove it.  Mmm, smells like trademark infringement.

Collected Stories

South Coast Repertory

Eek-A-Mouse

Eek-A-Mouse

Spare the Flesh

The Merhchant of Venice

NIN to Play LA Sept. 6

As part of their Lights In The Sky North American tour, Nine Inch Nails will play the Forum Sat. Sept. 6. Atlanta space/drone rockers Deerhunter will open (a surprisingly, bold choice by Mr. Trent Reznor). Tickets go on sale June 28 at 10 a.m. through LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.com. Since Rezn ... More >>

Kid Rock says steal music, gas

I think I have to start liking Kid Rock now.....eeeewwww..... From BBC News: "Kid Rock said his record company Atlantic had asked him to 'stand up for illegal downloading' a few years ago because it told him 'people are stealing from us and stealing from you'." Kid Rock has just played his fi ... More >>

"Don't Copy That Floppy"

Even back in 1992, copyright holders and their earnest propagandists were battling against illegal duplicating. This clever video puts human faces behind the adverse effects of piracy. Real people's livelihoods are at stake here, now more than ever in the brave new world of 2008. Think about that be ... More >>

OC Sex Inventions

Inspired by an exhibit of sex inventions at the New York-based Museum of Sex, I thought I'd do a little trolling through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online search for anything interesting coming out of our fair county. Anaheim inventor Wayne Manska was awarded patent #6,645,164 in 2003 ... More >>

Pigs* Bust OiNK

The BBC reports that British and Dutch police today have shut down the popular and flagrantly illegal music-downloading site OiNK and arrested its overlord, a 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough, England. That sound you hear is the celebratory high-5ing of major-label employees worldwide and Metall ... More >>

Most boring drink ever?

It's always tedious to hear health-freaks go on and on about the benefits of this or that special shake. But now there's a drink that gets right to the point, putting you to sleep all by itself. (I thought such a thing already existed, and was called "whiskey." The things you learn in this job...) ... More >>

Mickey Mouse: Member of Hamas?

Disney is a notoriously litigious corporation that defends what it feels belongs to them, whether intellectual property rights or the city of Anaheim. So it'll be interesting to see what, if any, reaction, they'll do after this children's television show aired on Hamas' Palestinian television networ ... More >>

Su®f City

Because nothing evokes the true spirit of surfing like the smell of lawyers and advertising executives in the morning, we can all rejoice at the news that Huntington Beach is now officially "Surf City USA", in the very real and legally binding sense of those words. According to the L.A. Times, "[The ... More >>

a Clockwork Orange

Tran Wreck

In a miscarriage of justice the only Little Saigon video pirate in jail is the one who praised Ho Chi Minh

Video Porn

According to the Westminster Police Department and the Orange County district attorney?s office, we can rest easy: Little Saigon?s infamous video pirate is now behind bars.

Full Metal House

Rifling Victorias Drawers

The Smoking Gun picks copyright fight with panty peddler

Flaming the Fans

Buffy-lovers fight Fox

Making Copies

The menace threatening the global entertainment industry? Linux users!?

Off Tran's Case

Republican DA plays partisan politics in Little Saigon