Monday, September 16, 2013

Judge Nathan is Dope, Probably Reads G:TB

Judge Alison Nathan has a lot in common with Judge Paul Engelmayer, who our loyal readers will remember from our "Dope Little Lawsuit" post. According to her Wikipedia page, Judge Nathan clerked for the Supreme Court and practiced law at the same fancy firm as Judge Engelmayer. President Obama nominated both to S.D.N.Y. where they both sit on the bench. Unlike Judge Engelmayer, Judge Nathan was born in 1972. She was nominated to the bench in 2011 when she was 39 years old. I suspect that she was the youngest Article III judge in the country at that point and even if she wasn't, her biography show that she is a remarkably high achiever.

Perhaps because of her young age, Judge Nathan appears to be a fan of (or to at least have a nominal amount of familiarity with) the Beastie Boys, unlike Judge Engelmayer. I say this because she recently issued an opinion in the case of TufAmerica Inc. v. Diamond, and it's an entertaining read. Here's how she introduces the Beasties:


Then she got dope and dropped this footnote:


You don't see Urban Dictionary getting much judicial notice these days outside of S.D.N.Y. where the judges keep it real. Then she drops further science:

The case itself involves music "sampling," which the Oxford Dictionary defines as "the technique of digitally encoding music or sound and reusing it as part of a composition or recording."
Judge Nathan then drops a footnote citing further support explaining what a sample is for the benefit of readers trapped in a cultural black hole:


Judicial opinions are by and large drier than sawdust and about as much fun to ponder. Winking acknowledgements from a judge showing that she's down makes my job at G:TB so much better.

The dispute at issue in the case stems from sampling performed by the Beasties of various Trouble Funk songs. Here's a handy chart:


And here are links to the songs at issue:

Say What
Drop the Bomb
Let's Get Small
Good to Go

Shadrach
Car Thief
Hold It Now Hit It
The New Style
B-Boy Bouillabaisse/A.W.O.L. - EMI blocked it on YouTube for copyright infringement but if you don't have Paul's Boutique in your iPod already, stop reading, go get a clue, then go get the album. I'll wait for you to catch up.

The Beastie Boys moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. In explaining her reasoning as to which test of infringement to apply, Judge Nathan noted that one test examines "the 'parroting [of] properties that are apparent only when numerous aesthetic decisions embodied in the the plaintiff's work of art ... are considered in relation to one another'" and in contrast, "[u]nlike this latter type of copying, in cases of fragmented literal similarity, there are no blurred lines between what was or was not taken." Get it? There are blurred lines when you parrot another artist's aesthetic decisions? Because despite what Robin Thicke says, Blurred Lines (SFW version) parrots another artist's aesthetic decisions? Judge Nathan clearly reads GTB.

Challah at me if you want a copy of the opinion because after she slogs through various procedural issues it's a fun read. The Beasties won on four of the six claims, but the Say What and Let's Get Small claims survive. Probably because Judge Nathan is eager to issue another opinion where she gets to write "and we love the hot butter, 'say what,' the popcorn" and "Now I want y'all to break this down."

Just when I thought the opinion was winding down, Judge Nathan turned to a new issue ... claim accrual!!! And her decision to apply the injury rule turned on ... wait for it ... Urbont v. Sony Music Entm't!!! Judge Nathan totally reads this blog. And as a result, the Beasties are only on the hook for infringement that occurred after May 12, 2009, to the extent that they are on the hook at all. And if they wind up on the hook I'm sure they'll Harry Houdini out the cuffs and kick the screw in the knee. Just a hunch.

39 comments:

rob said...

good stuff, z. i've been advised that we're now the internet's third-leading source of hip hop jurisprudence. or, science-dropping, as it were.

zman said...

Thanks. Her infringement analysis is honestly fun to read if you like music and/or the Beastie Boys.

Clarence said...

"Car Thief" is actually on Paul's Boutique, and "The New Style" is on LTI. Some paralegal should have fixed that if she didn't know.

zman said...

That's an amazingly good catch. Maybe Judge Nathan (or her clerk) isn't as down and/or dope as I thought. Assuming the table appeared in someone's post-trial brief, this falls most heavily on the associates responsible for cite-checking.

T.J. said...

Great, we have some loon shooting people at Navy Yards this morning...DCA just shut down as a precaution...

T.J. said...

z, love the post - hope you don't mind, but i enlarged the snipped images cause they were a bit hard to read.

rob said...

in defense of judge nathan's clerks, clarence is a music minutiae savant. idiot, too.

zman said...

Thanks Teedge. You can click on the images to enlarge them too.

And no excuses rob. That's the type of error that makes blood boil--if they can't match the songs to the right albums how can we be sure that the rest of the citations are accurate?

rob said...

i'm working on a business case to fund the addition of musical lyrics/songs/albums to westlaw.

zman said...

Classic or Next?

rob said...

next. that be enough to get you to switch?

zman said...

Only if I can stream the music.

zman said...

Smashburger >> Five Guys. Yeah, I said it.

Clarence said...

Well, that's just great, Z. I'm hungry and there's not a Smashburger within 3 hours of me.

What makes it better?

zman said...

Aaron Rodgers went 34/42 for 480 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT. That's 11.4 yards per attempt with an 81% completion percentage and no turnovers. His QBR was 80.9. What more can he possibly do to receive an additional 19.1 points? Philip Rivers had a QBR of 93.5 despite trailing Rodgers in every metric (except he threw more completions on more attempts) Vick was 81.5. Peyton also trailed Rodgers in every metric but had a QBR of 89.1. Methinks ESPN puts a little too much emphasis on sacks with their QBR system.

zman said...

Smashburger infuses their beef with crack. Or something like that. It's very flavorful and their rolls are outstanding. The fries are better too.

Mark said...

In n Out >>>>>>>

Shlara said...

I love the Beastie Boys. Really glad this post pushed the naked girl photo further down the page.

And, this Navy Yard situation is so sad. Twelve people reported dead at this point. For you non-DC people, this is a place were a lot of civilians work and its about 3 blocks from the baseball park,

T.J. said...

side boob does not equal naked

T.J. said...

Nats have yet to cancel the game, cause apparently they're fucking moronic douchenozzles

Shlara said...

TJ--that was WAY more than side boob

rob said...

if mlb doesn't allow them to cancel the game, the nats should forfeit it. preposterous that this decision still hasn't been made.

zman said...

There was definite underboob.

All these mass shootings are sad. Afterwards talking heads with perfect hair clench their jaws and frown and say that "something needs to be done" but no one ever says what that something is.

rob said...

also, there was no naked girl in that previous post. justice potter stewart told me so.

T.J. said...

the fact that the Nats, on their own, haven't already cancelled this game is preposterous

for god's sake they're using one of their parking lots to reunited family with people who work at Navy Yards

T.J. said...

it's cancelled. finally.
still, it took that long? morons

Shlara said...

TJ, I agree that it took too long to cancel the baseball game. But, the Nats can't make that decision, MLB makes it...so my guess is the Nats front office was on the phone all day yelling at Selig to pull the plug...

Mark said...

And the Nats had to leave messages on Selig's old school answering machine because Bud was taking his daily 2.5 hour afternoon nap.

Geoff said...

FWIW, friend at MLB tells me Nats wanted to play and MLB overruled.

T.J. said...

Geoff, if true, that is fucking ridiculous.

Also ridiculous? The Washington Post just now tweeting a link to a slideshow of America's worst mass shootings, ranking today's tragedy #12. Are you fucking kidding me?

Geoff said...

They just wanted to beat Buzzfeed to the punch.

rootsminer said...

Nice one Z. I was jamming Paul's Boutique on my ride into work this morning - cool to see this.

I saw our old pal Juan Moritz last weekend, and he recalled a traffic court judge being so impressed with your arguing skills that he suggested you become a lawyer. Is that true?

zman said...

100%. I may dig that story out one day.

zman said...

This anthem is much classier than getting, say, Miley Cyrus.

Danimal said...

watching the bama a&m replay in yet another hotel room in charleston, sc. don't fret, after tonight it's north florida for a while.
local brews sold here in the hotel...Westbrook White Thai and Westbrook IPA...made in West Ashley which is a part of Charleston...good stuff...white thai better.

Mark said...

Oh man. I had a bad run with white Thai in the early 2000s. Wait, what?

zman said...

I thought the NFL's new rules made passing easier. This game is hideous.

Mark said...

Giovani Bernard is quite fast. He from Florida.

zman said...

Big day at GTB!!