law

Chris Knight's avatar

About three years ago, this blog’s eclectic proprietor had to learn awful fast and hard about Viacom and its dispute with YouTube. If you recall, if you worked it out in your head then logically Viacom was accusing me of violating my own copyright after Viacom took my work without permission and used it for a show on VH1, and then accused ME of copyright infringement for posting the clip of that onto YouTube.

Well, I won that case as best I can imagine an individual could take on such a huge corporation and eke out a victory (again, thanks in no small measure to the good people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation). And I’ve been keeping an eye on Viacom ever since. One of the things that has galled me most is how Viacom and its mega-hypocrite of a CEO Sumner Redstone have shown such disdain toward ...

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Something very similar to this happened to me in 2002, but I don’t pretend to be an attorney so I couldn’t do it as awesomely kewl as Georgia attorney Regina Quick did in court this week. I had to speed through a red-light camera intersection in Greensboro ‘cuz the car behind me was about to rear-end me hard. A week later the citation came in the mail, and I didn’t think it was fair.

So I filed a subpoena at the courthouse in Greensboro to have the source code for the software operating the cameras be given to me, so that I could “cross examine” it. ‘Course, my real motive was to post it on the Internet so that better heads than my own could examine it.

Suffice it to say, my case was dropped like a hot rock.

At trial in Athens-Clarke Municipal Court on Tuesday however, it ...

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Word has reached me from a few places that on last night’s installment of What Does the Bible Say? (or as many people call it “What Does Johnny Robertson Say?” and “The Martinsville Taliban Show”) on WGSR, that local cult leader Johnny Robertson called me out by name for stating that his son Micah Robertson was convicted on May 7th in Danville General District Court on the charge of trespassing stemming from an incident on February 28th at Westover Baptist Church in Danville, Virginia.

It seems that Johnny Robertson – leader of the area cult calling itself “Church of Christ” (I now call them the “Sons of Hell”, see Matthew 23:15 and some are now calling them “Stalkers for Jesus”) believes I am being irresponsible as a journalist. It is his contention that Micah Robertson was not actually “convicted”, but has had his judgment deferred for one year. At which ...

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“Code Name Rodent” textified from the courthouse in Danville that Micah Robertson – son of local cult leader Johnny Robertson – has been found guilty of trespassing at Westover Baptist Church. Robertson won’t get jail time (he could have gotten up to a year in the slammer) but he’s been hit with a $100 fine.

More importantly, Micah Noel Robertson now has a criminal record. One directly stemming from his activities of harassment and intimidation as a member of the cult calling itself “Church of Christ” headed by his father, Johnny Robertson.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first such legal mark against the cult. Will Johnny Robertson and his followers pay heed to it? Probably not.

More soon…

EDIT 4:48 p.m. EST: To all the members of the press who are finding this blog this afternoon.

Please be advised that Johnny Robertson, the father of ...

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If the local cult calling itself the “Church of Christ” (which as I’ve stated before has nothing to do with the mainstream Churches of Christ that most people respectfully acknowledge) has any sense at all, then its leader Johnny Robertson had better direct those mysterious attorneys of his to begin filing amicus curiae briefs with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Shirley Phelps-Roper: his longtime nemesis (among many others) and spokesthing for the infamous Westboro Baptist Church run by her father Fred Phelps.

(Having been in the same room with both of these soulless wretches and witnessed them screeching at each other, I can only begin to imagine what the reaction of either Robertson or Phelps-Roper to that assertion would be like…)

But it’s true: if Johnny Robertson and his followers want to continue harassing innocent people in what should be the comforting environments of their places of ...

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This is gonna be a helluva fun thing to watch. I’m getting the popcorn ready even now…

Media conglomermonster Viacom – which has tied up the video hosting service in litigation for the past three years over “copyright infringement” – is now said to have been secretly uploading its own videos to the Google-owned website!

From the statement on the official YouTube blog, pertaining to court documents made public earlier today…

Because content owners large and small use YouTube in so many different ways, determining a particular copyright holder’s preference or a particular uploader’s authority over a given video on YouTube is difficult at best. And in this case, it was made even harder by Viacom’s own practices.

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its

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Constitutional rights are no longer applicable only to living citizens, but to the undead ones as well.

Here’s the story from Metro.co.uk…

US court rules ‘Zombies have free speech rights’

A court has allowed a group of protesters dressed as zombies to continue with a lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.

The appeal court overturned a previous finding that the group had correctly been arrested over a 2006 protest in a shopping centre.

The group had been wearing makeup designed to make them look like and extra in a horror flick, with white faces, fake blood and black circles round their eyes.

They then proceeded to stagger round the shops, urging consumers to “get your brains here”.

They also carried audio equipment, which police described as “simulated weapons of mass destruction”, even though they were mobile phones.

The appeals court ruled that the police had no

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What. The. Hell. ?!?

If you are a “subversive” person – i.e. if you are honked-off enough with the government that you think it should be overthrown or even coerced in any way whatsoever (which could mean anything) – and you happen to live in South Carolina, you must now register with that state’s government or else get slapped with a $25,000 fine and up to ten years in prison.

Hit here for the full text of the “Subversive Activities Registration Act”, which is now codified in the South Carolina law books.

Right off the top of my head, this law violates the First Amendment (right of peaceable assembly), the Fifth Amendment (protection against self-incrimination) and damn near everything that the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Who the hell in the South Carolina legislature voted for this abomination? Whoever they are, they should...

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One county to the west of my position in King, North Carolina, the authorities have banned the sale of guns and ammunition during the “state of emergency” there caused by the winter storm of the past few days.

From the story at the WXII.com website…

Authorities lifted a curfew and alcohol restrictions in King on Sunday, but said a state of emergency declaration remained in effect until Monday.

Authorities said the state of emergency declaration would continue until Monday 9 a.m., barring any unforeseen circumstances or severe changes.

Effective Sunday afternoon, alcohol restrictions and a curfew were lifted. All other remaining restrictions would continue until Monday, said Paula May, King police chief.

Other restrictions include a ban on the sale or purchase of any type of firearm, ammunition, explosive or any possession of such items off a person’s own premises.

King is a rather small town. If people are inclined ...

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Joseph Reyes (right) is seen taking his 3-year old daughter to church. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Except that Reyes did so in violation of a judge’s order that he not expose his daughter to anything but Judaism. For taking her to church (after previously having her baptized there) Joseph Reyes is now possibly in “contempt”.

Here’s more on this very twisted story…

Joseph Reyes knew he could be accused of defying a court order barring him from taking his daughter to church. But he did it anyway and now he is facing contempt of court charges and jail.

The 35 year old, holding his 3 year old in his arms, walked into Holy Name Cathedral on January 17. A news crew videotaped the act of defiance.

“I have been ordered by a judge not to expose my daughter to anything non-Judaism,” Reyes told a news reporter. “But I

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