"Family at war with cemetery over 6ft 7,000lb SpongeBob SquarePants headstones they had made for soldier daughter 'murdered by her boyfriend' on Valentine's Day."

The cemetery says it must "balance the needs of families who have just suffered a loss with the thousands of families who have entrusted us in the past" and offers to pay for "a solution...that will properly memorialize Kimberly, within the context of Spring Grove’s historic landscape and guidelines."

But the family is fighting for the garish cartoon sculptures. The murdered woman's sister says: "I thought it was the greatest thing in the cemetery. I even told the people there that I think this is the best monument I’ve ever seen. It’s the best headstone in the cemetery and they all agreed. It came out really nice."

Yes, SpongeBob seems inappropriate in a cemetery, but who is to say what characters belong? If statues of angels are permitted, someone might be offended by angels. We all have our different religions and religion-like beliefs and spiritual supports. Who's to deny this family the solace they find in SpongeBob?

(Other than Nickelodeon, which owns the trademark.)

Robin Thicke, getting the jump on copyright claims that "Blurred Lines" ripped off Marvin Gaye and Funkadelic.

After the owners of the rights to Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" and Funkadelic's "Sexy Ways" threatened to sue Thicke, Thicke filed a preemptive lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Thicke [and others] have "the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies," but must "reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists."

You can listen to all 3 songs at the link. I like this lawsuit, because "Blurred Lines" isn't copying those other 2 songs. It's a tribute to that old style, not a copying. Naturally, the Gaye and Funkadelic property owners feel the normal human greed and would like some "Blurred Lines" cash thrown their way, but these threats of lawsuits deserve legal pushback, and I like seeing the new artist doing something that will deter that tactic. I'm not an intellectual property expert, so I'll let others weigh in on the likelihood that Thicke will get the judicial remedy he seeks.

Those earlier artists benefit when the younger generations get their ears tuned to the old sound. If you go to the YouTube "Got to Give It Up" page, you'll see people saying things like "The Blured Lines lawsuit brought me here." Me too! When's the last time you listened to "Got to Give It Up"? I'm a long time Marvin Gaye fan. I bought the single "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" when it came out in 1962. It was one of the first records I bought, and it was Gaye's first single if you don't count 3 failed efforts at marketing him as "the Black Frank Sinatra." But "Got to Give It Up" is late 70s Gaye, the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called "disco." I listened to it today, and I probably would otherwise never have listened to it.

Gaye has been dead for almost 30 years, so there's no way of knowing what he would think of the claims the owners of his intellectual property are making today. And why isn't stuff this old in the public domain already and completely open to picking over and reenvisioning and outright note-for-note copying? It seems odd to clutter the court with a preemptive lawsuit, but what is Thicke supposed to do about the predation his success attracts? Congress should redo the copyright law, shorten the terms of ownership, and thereby limit the potential for lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, which are especially bad when the artist is not around even to have a belief about whether his rights are infringed.

ADDED: Look at how Madonna reacted to what was much more of a rip off:

“I certainly think [Lady Gaga] references me a lot in her work. And sometimes I think it’s amusing and flattering and well done”... Madonna said sometimes Gaga’s work also appears to be a “statement about taking something that was in the Zeitgeist, you know, 20 years ago and turning it inside out and reinterpreting it.”

“There’s a lot of ways to look at it. I can’t really be annoyed by it... because, obviously, I’ve influenced her.” But the Material Girl became coy when the conversation turned to “Born This Way.” “When I heard it on the radio …I said that sounds very familiar,” Madonna said.

Asked if that felt annoying, Madonna responded, “It felt reductive.” Pressed as to whether that was a good or bad thing, Madonna told Cynthia McFadden to “look it up” — we did; the term means “minimal” or “crude” — before smiling slyly and taking a sip from her tea cup.

Maybe Gaye, had he lived, would have displayed a similar attitude. Unfortunately, Gaye was murdered, and so we are deprived of the chance to see him sip tea and smile and use words we need to look up — or whatever his version of that would be — when some reporter pushes him to say what he thinks about the similarity between "Blurred Lines" and "Got to Give It Up."

CORRECTION: The text is corrected to show that Gaye died almost 30 years ago (not almost 40 years ago).

Is Will.i.am suing Pharrell Williams for using "I am OTHER" and horning in on his "I am"?

I am so you can't be. Will.i.am's lawyer provided this legalistic argle-bargle:

"Will.i.am is not suing Pharrell Williams... What Will.i.am has done is what any trademark owner must do to protect and maintain a trademark. This is a run-of-the-mill trademark dispute that has been going on since late last year. In order to avoid weakening or losing his trademark, Will.i.am has an obligation under trademark law to monitor and defend his trademarks against confusingly similar marks. Will.i.am has registered several trademarks, including 'I AM', which is also emphasised in, and a significant element of, his professional name. We think their proposed trademark is too close to our registered and common law trademarks. They disagree. We hope to work out a sensible compromise that will allow both parties to move forward without unnecessary acrimony."

So don't call this suing AND don't call yourself "I am," especially in the music business and where you seem to be exploiting the "William" name and the simple cleverness of seeing the "I am" in William, and anyway, your name is Williams, with an "s," so that's some awkward appropriated cleverness. Like I ams. So go infringe on that dogfood, why don't you? Or... I mean... cease this unnecessary acrimony.

By the way, I thought God owned the trademark on "I am":

I Am that I Am (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ʾehyeh ʾašer ʾehyeh...) is a common English translation...  of the response God used in the Hebrew Bible when Moses asked for his name (Exodus 3:14)....

Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (often contracted in English as "I AM") is one of the Seven Names of God accorded special care by medieval Jewish tradition. The phrase is also found in other world religious literature, used to describe the Supreme Being, generally referring back to its use in Exodus.

If God is I Am that I Am, then Will.i.am must already be an OTHER I am. Suggested legalistic argle-bargle: one more reason for Pharrell Williams to step back.

"So, In-N-Out Burger sent a cease & desist letter to a trendy restaurant in Houston, complaining that their use of 'Double-Double' as a hamburger name infringed on In-N-Out's marks."

"The response? You can now order a 'Cease & Desist Burger.'"

"It may be the world's most popular song, but to perform it on TV and in movies requires a license fee."

"A new class action lawsuit aims to change that."

ADDED: The point isn't that it's so popular, it should be in the public domain. It's that it's so old.

Waiting for Fisher....

Another Supreme Court opinion-announcement day... 

ADDED:  First up is American Trucking v. LA, a Kagan opinion. They announce opinions in order of seniority, and Kagan is least senior. Something about trucks... and preemption. [ALSO: This case has a concurring opinion from Justice Thomas saying Congress's statute is not supported by the Commerce Clause, "at least in certain contexts."]

AND: A second opinion, Tarrant Regional Water Dist. V. Herrmann, from Sotomayor, the second-least senior. Something about water... and preemption.

NEXT: Third: Ginsburg's opinion, U.S. v. Davila. "This was a case in which the issue was whether there must be an automatic reversal if the judge played any role in the plea bargaining...  Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 prohibits judges from participating in plea agreements, but another subsection of the rule also provides that a 'variance from the requirements' of Rule 11 is 'harmless if it does not affect substantial rights,' so this one did not come as a huge surprise."

ALSO: "We have gene patenting. The Court holds that natural isolated DNA is not patentable. Synthetic DNA is patentable." This is a very important case. Unanimous. Thomas wrote the opinion, so that means only Kennedy, Scalia, and Roberts are left to have opinions that might come out today. Here's the PDF of the case, Myriad Genetics. It's a unanimous opinion but Scalia concurs to say:

I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.

AND: That's it for today.

"The onslaught of litigation brought by 'patent trolls'..."

"... who typically buy up a slew of patents, then sue anyone and everyone who might be using or selling the claimed inventions — has slowed the development of new products, increased costs for businesses and consumers, and clogged our judicial system...."

Because they don’t manufacture products, they need not fear a counterclaim for infringing some other patent. They need not be concerned with reputation in the marketplace or with their employees being distracted from business, since litigation is their business.

AND: Here's an excellent episode of "This American Life" about patent "trolls":

"When you’re in public, you’re in public. What happens in public, is the very definition of it."

"I don’t want you telling me that I can’t take pictures in public without your permission."

Jeff Jarvis, quoted in an article about the intrusions of Google Glass.

Mr. Jarvis said we’ve been through a similar ruckus about cameras in public before, in the 1890s when Kodak cameras started to appear in parks and on city streets.

The New York Times addressed people’s concerns at the time in an article in August 1899, about a group of camera users, the so-called Kodak fiends, who snapped pictures of women with their new cameras.

“About the cottage colony there is a decided rebellion against the promiscuous use of photographing machines,” The Times wrote from Newport, R.I. “Threats are being made against any one who continues to use cameras as freely.” In another article, a woman pulled a knife on a man who tried to take her picture, “demolishing” the camera before going on her way.

Interesting things about that old NYT article:

1.  The word "kodak" — with a lower-case k — is used repeatedly in place of the word "camera," and the word "camera" appears once, toward the end, and only after "photographing machines." Less attention was paid back then, it seems, to the interest in preserving the trademark in brand names. (The loss of "aspirin" and "heroin" as Bayer trademarks came after WWI.)

2. The word "fiends," used repeatedly, connotes evil and addiction. From the same time period, the OED quotes: "The autograph-fiend; the cyclist-fiend; the interviewer-fiend; the newsboy-fiend; the organ-fiend" (1896), "‘A dope fiend’... A victim of the opium habit" (1896).

3. The word "promiscuous" fits with the nature of the perceived harm: women are victims. The article refers to "married men" wanting to bring lawsuits against the photographers. One man is said to have consulted a lawyer about whether "an assault could be charged" if the photograph is taken "against the will." But how sexual is the word "promiscuous"? The etymology connected it to "mixed up," and the oldest meaning is, according to the OED: "Done or applied with no regard for method, order, etc.; random, indiscriminate, unsystematic." The OED has some great quotes for the specifically sexual meaning that seems so central to us today:

1804   S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 1119   He is..addicted to almost promiscuous Intercourse with women of all Classes.
1879   Harlequin Prince Cherrytop 29   Better frig, howe'er the mind it shocks, Than from promiscuous fucking catch the pox....
1924   C. Connolly Let. Dec. in Romantic Friendship (1975) 32,   I am not promiscuous but I can't be loyal to an icicle....
1978   S. Herzel in P. Moore Man, Woman, & Priesthood viii. 119   It is precisely because men can compartmentalize that they are more easily promiscuous than women.