The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). From 1958 to 1970, Philadelphia’s professional football team, the Eagles, played its games at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The stadium, which could hold a maximum capacity of 60,658 fans at the time, hosted legendary games, including the 1960 NFL Championship (the precursor to the Super Bowl), in which the underdog Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi. So how much did this NFL team pay Penn to use their facilities? Well...they didn’t.
0 Comments
By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). In November 1970, former Beatle George Harrison released his first solo single, "My Sweet Lord" in the United States. Upon release, the song made waves on international charts and held the No. 1 spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 list for four weeks. Not even John Lennon’s legendary song “Imagine” can claim that distinction. By 2010 – nine years after Harrison’s death – the song had sold over 10 million copies. However, with incredible popularity comes enhanced scrutiny, as Harrison duly learned. On February 10, 1971, Bright Tunes Music Corp. filed a lawsuit against Harrison and his international record distributors. Bright Tunes claimed that “My Sweet Lord” plagiarized the 1962 song, “He’s So Fine” by the all-girl band the Chiffons. Bright Tunes demanded 75 percent of the royalties and wanted Harrison to surrender officially the copyright for “My Sweet Lord.” After a protracted legal battle, the judge ruled that the two songs were essentially the same, with only miniscule differences in melody. Despite the judge’s affirmation that the songs were decidedly similar, he maintained that Harrison did not intentionally pillaged the song. In stunning legalese, typical of musical plagiarism cases, the judge found Harrison guilty of “subconsciously plagiarizing” the Chiffons’ song. Harrison kept the copyright to his song, but had to cough up $1,599,987 to compensate Bright Tunes. [1] By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Fitting for a work with parallels to The Odyssey, James Joyce’s Ulysses had a journey of its own. Wandering from Joyce’s beginnings with the novel in 1915 to its official publication in the U.S., the work finally reached “home” in 1933. [1] The ensuing 18 years proved to be a voyage marked by litigation, illicit publication, and more litigation…eventually producing one of the most classic defenses of the freedom to express and create works of artistic value. The battle over Ulysses began in 1921, when Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, publishers of The Little Review, were convicted for publishing “indecent matter” after serializing an especially scandalous chapter of Ulysses. [2] The Little Review had been serializing the work since March of 1918. [3] When Anderson and Heap were first introduced to Ulysses, they were so enamored with the work that they swore to “print it if it’s the last effort our lives.” [4] Their noble effort ran into trouble, however, when they published the Nausicaa chapter. In this portion of the work, protagonist Leopold Bloom voyeuristically lusts after the young Gerty MacDowell. Joyce’s signature stream-of-consciousness style reveals the erotic nature of Bloom’s emotions in an intimate, overtly sexual manner. Without looking at the novel’s merit in its entirety, the judges ruled against The Little Review, convicting Anderson and Heap on the charges of presenting obscene material in the Nausicaa chapter and fining its publishers $50 each.
|
Archives
January 2024
|