law

Chris Knight's avatar

During the past few days American Rights Counsel LLC has forced YouTube to pull more than four thousand videos that are critical of the Church of Scientology. At this time it’s unclear whether American Rights Counsel are representing the cult and did so at the behest of Scientologists. What is known is that a butt-load of Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices went out from the firm over a period of twelve hours this past Thursday and Friday, and YouTube had no legal alternative but to immediately yank the contested clips.

The affected YouTube users have already begun responding with DMCA counter-claims (which might explain why this blog has been registering a ton of visits to how I filed my own counter-claim a year ago against Viacom). That is indeed a wise step to take in fighting back.

But YouTube users shouldn’t be forced to deal with this anyway. ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

A few days ago was the one year anniversary of that very strange situation between multi-billion dollar multimedia conglomerate Viacom (owner of CBS, Paramount, Comedy Central and many other brands) and Yours Truly. If you’re fairly new to this joint here’s my first post about what happened and here’s the list of all the news articles that I could find about it. Long story short: that wacky first TV commercial that I made for my 2006 school board campaign was broadcast on VH1’s Web Junk 2.0, which even though neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom asked for permission I was still fine with it, ‘cuz I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Anyway, I posted the short clip of my commercial on Web Junk 2.0 on YouTube, ‘cuz I was so proud of it and that Rockingham County, North Carolina got such a shout-out. A month and a ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

A few months ago my wife Lisa shared on her own blog her thoughts and experiences about the problems with the federal government’s teacher loan forgiveness. She’s received quite a bit of correspondence since then from teachers all over the country who have experienced similar frustrations.

Well, now Lisa is taking it an extra mile further by directly petitioning not only her own senators and governor, but some of those who created the legislation that led to this. You can read the full text of the letter she has sent out here.

Wouldn’t it be neat if we wound up seeing Lisa testifying on live television before a congressional committee in Washington D.C.? 🙂...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Walt Disney World has declared that its employees will be exempt from a new Florida law allowing citizens of that state to keep personal firearms locked in their cars while at work.

And how exactly does a company like Disney – which is Florida’s largest single-site employer – get around law like that?

By taking advantage of a loophole that was added to the bill just as it was approved as legislation that “creates an exception for companies whose primary business is to manufacture, use, store or transport explosives regulated under federal law.”

Since Walt Disney World has a permit for the vast arsenal of fireworks it keeps on its grounds for its famous pyrotechnics shows, the company is construing that this exception can apply to them and is thus legally declaring their company to be a munitions dealer!

Maybe Disney can transfer John Locke from its Buena Vista division ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

In spite of what I said about no hard feelings, there ain’t no way that I’m gonna let this one slide…

Many of you no doubt remember what happened between me and Viacom several months ago, regarding the first TV commercial from my 2006 school board campaign.

To quickly recap: months after the election, Viacom’s network VH1 chose to use my commercial for a segment of its show Web Junk 2.0, without bothering to ask me about it. I didn’t mind, heck I thought it was pretty funny. So a few days after that episode runs I posted the clip of Web Junk 2.0 running MY commercial onto YouTube, so that I could share it on this blog.

A month and a half later, I was notified by YouTube that Viacom had demanded that the clip be removed, and YouTube was acquiescing with the order. Viacom ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

WorldNetDaily is reporting that the Bush Administration has stated that if Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean want to go free, they should ask for clemency.

Ramos and Compean are the two former Border Patrol agents who were sent to prison by spineless George W. Bush lackey U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton. Their “crime”: opening fire on a Mexican drug lord, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was later given immunity for prosecution in exchange for testifying against Ramos and Compean. Aldrete-Davila later admitted in court to smuggling marijuana.

The Bush Administration has been a pack of complete bastards in regard to its treatment of Ramos and Compean: two good men who were doing their job, in a time when too many others in this government don’t give a damn. Although the Bush Administration is usually a pack of complete bastards on just about everything else, but on this issue they are particularly vile.

Here ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I’ve been so busy with other things, I didn’t catch at all that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is suing the webmaster of a popular website based on her books. For the past several years Steven Vander Ark has run The Harry Potter Lexicon, an “online encyclopedia” of sorts devoted to the Harry Potter novels. Which otherwise wouldn’t be a problem: for fans to pay homage to such an acclaimed property is something the Internet has long been used to.

Except that Vander Ark has been set to publish – as in “printed volumes” – his website as a hard-copy edition to sell for personal profit.

Big no-no there, Steve. And you and your publishing company should have known better.

So now Rowling is suing Vander Ark and RDR Books for copyright infringement. I don’t blame her. Vader Ark’s website is a nice, succinct resource for Harry Potter facts. ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

In light of my current activities, which no doubt will soon become widespread public knowledge, I understand what it’s going to look like to come out with an opinion on this. So for sake of clarification: the views and commentary that I express on this blog are my own, and not necessarily those of anyone else.

(What I mean by that will be made clear in the very near future.)

A California appeals court has ruled that most homeschooling is illegal. Only parents with the proper teaching credentials are now legally allowed to homeschool their children.

In other words, the vast majority of homeschooling families in California, per the 2nd District Court of Appeals, are now criminals if they continue with teaching their own children.

And according to Justice H. Walter Croskey in his decision, “Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.”

That ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I wouldn’t mind saying out loud, even though I’ve now given on-the-record testimony during deposition, that Ron Price’s lawsuit against Richard and Debbie Moore is a steaming pile of horse manure. Except that doing so would be a dire insult to horses everywhere.

(Here is my own report about being deposed and here is Richard’s account, which includes not only my own time on the “witness stand” but his own and that of Debbie and Ron Price… who I especially heard did not do so well.)

In my admittedly non-legally trained estimation, this case is going to be laughed out of court. But that won’t be before Price and his attorney Doug Hux will have (a) wasted a lot of our valuable time and money, (b) wasted a lot of the public’s valuable time and money, and (c) continued to set a horrible example to this county’s young ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

So yesterday afternoon – and a half-hour earlier than I had earlier been summoned to appear – I appeared for deposition in the lawsuit that Ron Price has filed against Richard and Debbie Moore.

What can I say about it? I’ll hold off on too much about it right now but I will say this: the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

It was mostly about Price’s attorney Doug Hux showing me a photo from last year’s Reidsville Christmas Parade (?!?!?). Hux asked me if I recognized it and I was like “Uhhh well DUH ‘cuz THOSE ARE MY PICTURES that WGSR is using in their commercial for this year’s Reidsville Christmas parade so OF COURSE I was right there!” Those weren’t my exact words but you get the idea. Anyhoo, Hux showed me a photo that’s very much like this one that I ...

Read more