At Least One Disney Lawyer Needs to Be Launched Into the Sun

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:44 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1060. I'm your host Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life lawyer Matt Cameron. How you doing Matt?

0:00:52 Matt: I just found that I'm being sued by Donald Trump, and so are you. So, having quite a day. Yeah, he's suing the entire United States, so everybody listening who lives in the United States actually is covered by this litigation.

0:00:54 Thomas: Oh, really? Wow, wait, is that a joke or is he really? Oh.

0:01:03 Matt: Actually suing the Department of Justice, but no, no, he really is. It's

0:01:05 Thomas: Oh. Because, is, I don'tt know, with Trump you got to clarify like it might be real.

0:01:08 Matt: It is true. No, it almost is. I mean, he wants $100 million of your tax dollars, which is a really strange thing to do when you're running for president.

0:01:17 Matt: All these other cases have been US v. Trump, but this is actually Trump v. US. He's coming after us. So that's

0:01:22 Thomas: Yeah, he's like, see how you like it, it's like that's not how it works, man, you can't just

0:01:26 Matt: Right. I can do a witch hunt. Yeah, that's pretty much it. So he actually, this is a very lazy last minute thing because the two-year statute of limitation would have been the day after he filed. So they filed it just before, just got in under the deadline there. So I guess they just wanted to preserve their rights. But yeah, they're suing under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and they're relying, as you do in a Federal Tort claims act case on state law, that's how you do it. So Florida has a common law tort of intrusion upon seclusion. And he's saying basically that the DOJ violated his privacy by raiding his house with a valid search warrant.

0:01:59 Thomas: And you're so excited to tell us about this, you even let us take a break, we, that's okay, it could be a little priest, this is a quick one, right? Yeah.

0:02:02 Matt: It's the correct one.

0:02:05 Thomas: Okay. Well, We're giving you a bonus pre-break thing, everyone. How nice.

0:02:05 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little fun lawsuit up front because

0:02:08 Thomas: Nice. So invading privacy is worth $100 million, as I was going to say.

0:02:15 Matt: And the kind where you carefully negotiated a search warrant and made sure they did it when he wasn't home. Yeah,

0:02:20 Thomas: So I think there's this new thing called getting a search warrant and that being a reason to perhaps invade one's privacy. I think that's new as of like 1437. It's like one of the old oldest possible things.

0:02:32 Matt: It is a pretty well- -recognized exception at this point. Yeah and just because some idiot found that your prosecutor was illegally appointed does not mean that the search warrant was invalid. It's not really how that works. And I mean just the nerve on this Because, of course, the Smith case is still on appeal, and it could very well be overturned by the 11th Circuit. They've just set the briefing, and we're going to see how that goes. But yeah, just a little fun excursion in the meantime, I guess. Something to do.

0:02:35 Thomas: Yeah. So it's The kind of thing where it's like, well, statute of limitations is up. Let's draw file some crayon on a piece of paper and get it in by the deadline. Yeah.

0:02:59 Matt: Yeah. Right. Just make sure we got something, just in case. Trump campaign is full of unprecedented behavior, but I do think this is the first time that a leading presidential candidate has sued the United States while running. So that's a new one.

0:03:13 Thomas: Usually Try to butter up the United States before being president. Not Like mad.

0:03:17 Matt: Typically That would Be my advice.

0:03:18 Thomas: You Suck. Give me 100 million dollars. Also, vote for me. Please, please, uh, vote for me.

0:03:18 Matt: Also I get to decide

0:03:25 Thomas: Forgot

0:03:25 Matt: Who's black. Uh, yeah, what a week. What a couple of weeks. It

0:03:27 Thomas: That That Part of it too. Oh boy, there has been so much news. The news hose, Matt, as you say. Yeah, well.

0:03:35 Matt: Well We should break and come back to take another dose. Can't

0:03:38 Thomas: So, so much for that little pre, that amuse-douche. Is We're going to take a little break, get to our main stories. So many things to talk about that we, we could just spare one before break and it's not going to make a dent. Um, if you'd like to avoid the break and the ads and all this stuff, go to patreon.com/law. Right after, well, this break, we'll get to it. Met, you nothing else, I'm a great stand in for the common man. And requested these two stories today this week that also were the patrons top requests. So I just want to let the patrons know we are Simpatico. We're, you know, the crossed fingers thing.

0:04:09 Matt: Patrons Agreed. Got your finger on the pulse of the patrons?

0:04:14 Thomas: But this one Is particularly, this is such a nightmare that, I, right when I saw it, I was like, I just want Matt to tell me something's wrong in the coverage, and this isn't real, because especially for us, this is this triggering for us to say the least, because from what I understand, some Disney-related restaurant and resort or something, right, decided to ignore someone's allergy, which, you know, we have a son with a very very severe allergy, well, several, but one that's that's quite severe, and that is already just like the most triggering nightmares thing, I just

0:04:15 Matt: That's right.

0:04:25 Matt: Yeah. Sure. Sure.

0:04:46 Thomas: Please, please just take people's word for it on their effing allergies, it's a matter of life and death, like what's the best case scenario, oh, they were faking an allergy, okay, or or you kill them, like what, I don't understand how that trade-off could possibly ever be worth it, but anyway, Disney like killed a lady like that, which is horrifying, absolutely horrifying, and then the headline says, and this is what I need you to please, these, tell me is not real, the headline says they're trying to just dismiss it and and solve it under arbitration because they watch Disney Plus, and the Disney Plus like sign-up has an arbitration agreement to it, did I get that wrong, my

0:05:25 Matt: Unfortunately, I was really hoping the same. I was hoping this is one of those where I can come in and do the OA take and say, yeah, the media is overblowing this. And I was really going in hoping that was true, but that is not true. This is really what it is. And I got to take you through this.

0:05:35 Thomas: God. No.

0:05:36 Matt: This is an absolute nightmare in arbitration clauses. I'm going to say up front that Congress a couple years ago, the House Dems put up a bill to try to end mandatory arbitration clauses. And I think this should be exhibit A. This case should be the reason that people understand why we should not have mandatory arbitation built into click wrap, just should not be clicking through every time. So it's especially egregious with Disney because they have so many different kinds of things, and, you know, like clearly, you know, you're talking about somebody that has a streaming service and a theme park and all these, you know, other things, and restaurants and shops, and anyway, so let's start at the beginning, as you said, there wasn't, very unfortunately, a couple going out to dinner on October 5th, 2023, and this, again, the part I didn't realize until recently, was this is not on Disney World or Epcot property, this, they did not buy a

0:05:47 Thomas: Kidding. Yeah.

0:06:00 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. Right.

0:06:20 Matt: Ticket to get to this restaurant, this was was just in a shopping center called Disney Springs, and it's nearby, it's it's in the vicinity of Disney World, but the reason that Disney is really having to reach here is because you didn't buy a ticket to get in, so you couldn't do the usual sort of baseball ticket exception, right, where it says in the back of the baseball ticket that if you get hit by a ball, that's on you, right, because you know you're at a baseball park, um at

0:06:39 Thomas: If you get poisoned to death by somebody, that's kind of, you expect that at a restaurant, 20 percent of the time Yeah, but it is a, obviously, a Disney-owned thing, so what, wait, do they just have restaurants not related to any parks or anything, I thought it was part, I just assumed, I guess, it was part of some resort or something.

0:06:43 Matt: Disney World, obviously. I mean Yeah, right. Sure. Yeah. That.

0:06:55 Matt: Whole. Area, having been there, it's like a little little city-state. It's just a whole little empire that Disney has its own city going on there. So this Disney Springs thing, they really had to get creative. And I some theories about how this happened. And this is also not only a classic example of why mandatory arbitration is a really bad idea, but also just why lawyer brain is just a bad idea.

0:06:55 Thomas: Huh. Yeah. God.

0:07:15 Matt: Generally, just having a lawyer brain, because this is the kind of thing where you just know someone was very proud of themselves in this law office for coming up with this.

0:07:16 Thomas: Look. I was, I'm, I've been holding, waiting for when I can yell, but if you're telling me this is essentially what's happening, I just want to say, there are some things you just shouldn't do, I'm sorry.

0:07:31 Matt: No.

0:07:31 Thomas: Lawyers. Just don't, there's no, there's... there's no, I can't, what, on what world, what, how do you think that whatever the amount you're going to pay for damages for this, whatever that is, is going to be worth the awful headlines and just being horrible. Like just to say nothing of morally being horrible, but the awful deadlines of, hey, they killed a lady. And then because she watched Disney Plus, then then, you know, you can't really do anything about like, what are you? You're Disney. They have a bajillion dollars. Are you kidding me?

0:07:31 Matt: Yes. Yeah. Sure.

0:08:03 Matt: It's actually even worse than that. She did not sign up for Disney Plus. So I got to take you through this. I just have to. It is so bad. All right. So the surviving spouse is named Jeffrey Piccolo. He is the plaintiff in this case. And his wife, Dr. Kam Kapoor and Tang Soon, apparently a very well liked, very well respected doctor. Sounds like a great person. And a very sad thing here. They They checked in at this restaurant to be sure ahead of time that they could make accommodations, and they believed that they would. And of course, later, she collapsed and had to administer an EpiPen, and she's out by herself. I'm actually surprised that Disney's not trying to make some kind of argument.

0:08:06 Thomas: Oh my God. That's okay.

0:08:35 Thomas: Oh, she was by herself. Oh.

0:08:37 Matt: Yeah, at the time when she – because it was later. I'm surprised they're not trying make some sort of argument that there's some intervening cause, that she must have eaten or touched something else, right? But that doesn't seem to be what they're doing.

0:08:44 Thomas: Is that something you do after you know what forum you're in,

0:08:47 Matt: That depends on a lot of the discovery that they – so here's part of the issue. So obviously, family files a complaint, and pretty much we'd expect that we went to this restaurant, we thought that they were going to protect us, and they didn't.

0:08:50 Thomas: Okay. Not kill us. And they killed

0:08:58 Matt: And Disney did not come back with, in its answer, the answer is actually attached to some of the other documents, they didn't come back and mention this arbitration thing until a little later. They actually participated in discovery, which is a problem for them, fortunately, in this case. They actually started going forward in the case. And then, suddenly out of nowhere, they filed this motion to compel arbitration. And that's when they kind of had this light bulb moment. And they realized that her spouse – you're right, we could do a bad thing – that her spouse, Mr. Piccolo, had registered for Disney Plus. He'd actually registered for three different Disney accounts. And this is where it gets super dystopian, because they clearly sat down and tried to to figure out which of the three accounts would be the worst for them. And then they just went with that. So there were multiple terms of service. And so there's Disney Plus, there's the Disney terms of use for the Disney website when you register, and then My Disney Experience when you buy tickets.

So they'd actually purchased tickets for Epcot. Were supposed to go two days after she passed, and so they didn't get to go, obviously. An extremely dystopian footnote in here I just wanted to note. I don't mean to laugh. This is horrible. But the plaintiff's note in a footnote that Disney was kind enough to refund the cost of those non -refundable Epcot tickets,

0:08:59 Thomas: Us. Yeah.

0:09:12 Thomas: Hmm. Huh. Evil. Yeah.

0:10:08 Thomas: Oh,

0:10:08 Matt: But you're not even ready for this, but explain to Mr. Piccolo that it was not guaranteed he would receive this kind of exception in the future. The next time we kill one of your family members.

0:10:09 Thomas: Wow. Oh my God. No, no, no. That can't.

0:10:18 Matt: Yeah.

0:10:19 Thomas: I'm sorry. No.

0:10:19 Matt: That's what they said.

0:10:20 Thomas: I don't.

0:10:20 Matt: Yeah, we'll give you your money back this time.

0:10:21 Thomas: Matt, I don '—come on. No

0:10:23 Matt: Yeah that's what, they tell us it's in the filing.

0:10:23 Thomas: One is this evil. I can't—I

0:10:28 Matt: It's so bad.

0:10:29 Thomas: Mean, it must be incompetence or something, right? Because nobody could possibly—is that an automated response? Because that can't...no one would ever...

0:10:38 Matt: Must have been in some kind of, I mean, it doesn't seem like a human or someone with human emotions was involved in any of these decisions. Again, lawyer brain, if you can do it, you do it. And if you can make the argument and if you Can solve the crossword puzzle, that's all that matters. This is the worst kind of layering. Just want to point out, though, that between these three terms of service that he clicked into, and also note that they are very clear about the fact that this is ClickRap, and they think that ClickRapp is fine. Obviously, we're all familiar with ClickRamp. We've all clicked through dozens of these things, hundreds of them in our lifetimes by now, if you're our age.

0:11:10 Matt: Piccolo entered into a quote-unquote ClickWrap agreement by selecting both a checkbox and agree and continue to create a Disney account, and again, when logging into the account in September 2023 to buy the Epcot tickets. So they're just openly saying that you signed on to this 15, 20-page terms of service binding arbitration, and exactly.

0:11:27 Thomas: That part of Willy Wonka where, et cetera, et cetera, and he does the magnifying glass and gets super tiny and whatever, and you're like, boy, that sure is some absurdist humor right there. That's more transparent than this, 100%, or

0:11:41 Matt: Yeah, no. And the plaintiffs point out, it borders on the surreal, the entire argument. They actually put that into their response. Because first of all, they waived this. And fortunately, I really think that I hope that Disney is going to lose on the merits here because they did start to participate in the lawsuit and they suddenly realized they might have this defense of the Disney Plus thing. Just to get this out clearly, they're saying that when Jeffrey Piccolo, the spouse of the deceased, went through this click ramp, that he was doing it on behalf of the non -existent estate of his wife who was alive. She did not have an estate because Disney hadn't killed her yet. They were were binding on anybody who might be visiting the park great party to let me read the actual language.

0:12:18 Thomas: Any ghosts that might one day haunt the park is the thing.

0:12:19 Matt: Yeah. Much, uh, signify your agreement to these terms for yourself and for all persons, including minors, for whom you're purchasing or otherwise securing benefits and are managing these benefits, etc., etc. You represent that you have all necessary rights and consents to agree to those terms on behalf of your party. And that's just by using the website essentially eventually. The that Disney Plus was, he only had it for about a month.

It was a trial thing, but he registered for this account and then used this account to go through the site and buy Epcot tickets. So there's just kind of a stacking thing here of saying there's just enough of contact with Disney and enough of these arbitration things were waived. But there's a conflict even between the different multiple terms of service agreements that he had. Disney Plus agreement said that everything has to go to arbitration. So obviously that's the one they want to use.

The website agreement says that they're subject to the jurisdiction of New York State, but the My Disney Experience that was used to buy the Epcot tickets has no arbitration clause and says that any claims should be brought in Orange County, Florida. So it's a mess. They want to go with the one that's simple and straightforward and says you're going to mandatory arbitration, and that's why they're doing this.

0:13:17 Thomas: Let me ask you this, because on one hand, obviously this sounds insane, but it's not as though arbitration exactly means you lose, right? Arbitration is still something. Isn't it, but what it, what it would it be in this case, like, what would it look like? How does it change you? The difference is between someone's in your office, I mean, this isn't the law you do, but like someone's, uh, in a law office, Matt, and they're like, well, I can sue these people because they killed my wife, or we have to go into arbitration. What's your different, like, kind of outlook? How does that change what you're telling them?

0:13:27 Matt: Sure. Oh, sure.

0:13:46 Matt: Well, Well, I don't know exactly what to say about Florida, but generally speaking, I want to put a case like this in front of a jury because I want as much money as possible. Because I think that any jury who sees this case, and it's pretty much per se negligence if I'm understanding the facts correctly, so you're never going to get what you would get from a jury and of arbitration. So just straight up right there, you're going to lose some rights.

0:13:46 Thomas: Right just An arbitration is just like, usually like an old retired judge, judge, maybe. And are they Judge Judy and Executioner? They do everything?

0:14:13 Matt: Yeah, you are going to have to go with whatever you can negotiate there, and that's your only avenue. And that's why companies love these things, because it limits your damages so much. That's why Republicans were strongly opposing the bill I told you about in Congress on behalf of business interests. They

0:14:26 Thomas: In bed with big wife murder, I

0:14:29 Matt: Want to be able to use these things to do these things for people. And they brought the suit just to qualify for bringing the suit in the Florida Circuit Courts. They brought it for $50,000. That's the minimum that you have to have. Their lawyers have said they expect to get a lot more. I would expect they would get a little more because you're talking about a young doctor who was killed by a company that had noticed that she had an allergy. So, I mean, that's pretty substantial earnings just on top of everything else.

0:14:42 Thomas: Oh, No kidding. Yeah. Who what do you expect to happen here, Matt? I mean, this doesn't... Look, I want to ask the non -lawyer brain questions. For one, okay, for there There was some sort of part of the restaurant that was like, hey, by eating here, you agree to arbitration if we kill you. OK, you got me. Like, I guess I accidentally agreed to that. What on earth is the connection to Disney Plus or even buying tickets to something they didn't even go to? What is the connexion?

0:15:20 Matt: Let's ask Walt Disney's Disney. Piccolo ignores, in fearing this complaint, he ignores that he previously created a Disney account and agreed to arbitrate, quote unquote, all disputes. All disputes.

0:15:26 Thomas: Yeah. Guilty. You got me? I did ignore this un -[bleep] -totally -irrelevant thing that has nothing to do with anything. It was a joke.

0:15:38 Matt: I wanted to watch The Mandalorian for a month. Yes, thinking about eating. They're saying that because he created this thing in which he agreed that all disputes would be arbitrated against the Walt Disney Company or its affiliates arising in any contract, tort, warranty, statute, regulation, or other legal or equitable basis. So of course, the restaurant being owned by Disney, it's an affiliate, but nobody would ever think of that, it's just I mean, of all the things you wouldn't think of, then

0:15:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So The principle is, unlike what normal humans would think of, it's like, well, you've agreed. This is a company. The problem is we live in the year 2024, back when, you know, all of this law was invented. Or a lot of these principles. It was like, wow, a company would be like your mom and pop. Or maybe you'd have a couple locations in town of something. Thing, not a massive international mega corporation that owns every single different kind of entertainment and things, just massive, just the biggest thing in the world. And so the idea is, because you used any sort of Disney like thing that had an arbitration click wrap thing that said, it's not just about that thing. It's not like, hey, if you have any disputes with, you know, like this, the third season of Mandalorian kind of sucks and you want to sue us. It's not just as that is, like, no, any dispute at all with the Disney company anywhere for anything that can't be right I'm sorry that

0:16:50 Matt: If you get murdered by Goofy, apparently that, that's, I'm just trying to think of every possibility here, no

0:16:54 Thomas: Can't be right, I'm sorry, it can't be right, no, mad, I say no, not only that, here's why these lawyers should kill themselves, I'm so sorry, is that, can I say that, actually, strong real question, here's why they should jump off a bridge for real, the fact that you're gonna to pull this bullshit and you're going to do the the snarky lawyer writing to the dead wife guy, well he ignores the kill yourself, I'm not even joking, I'm so sorry, Matt, is tell me if I'm allowed to keep this [bleep] kill yourself anyway, I came so mad at this that

0:16:58 Matt: I cannot be Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Or know, just do like the Tower of Terror without a seat belt or something, I don't know, but uh

0:17:32 Thomas: Just what are you doing, what are you who lets that, Matt, what's going on at law schools, we, I want to find out who did this and where they went and what, and we need to burn it down, what is happening yeah

0:17:32 Matt: Yeah specifically what is happening at Lewis Brisboy Biz Garden Smith LLP of Tampa, Florida, that's what I'd like to know, uh, representing the restaurant and Disney in this, uh, is just, it is shameful and

0:17:53 Thomas: I mean if you looked up their Yelp and the the partner's picture is like a cartoon devil or whatever with like the pitch for and then I'd be like, oh okay yeah sure, that's, that would make me feel a lot better actually, all

0:18:04 Matt: Without too much comment, I think there are a lot of these kinds of lawyers in Florida, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

0:18:09 Thomas: Right. Well, you let me know how much of that everyone heard, but what do you expect to happen, like is this really a winning argument, no?

0:18:10 Matt: Um, If they'd raised it initially, unfortunately, it's possible this might survive a motion to dismiss. Maybe. I don't know. It's hard to say. But fortunately, they raised it late, and they'd already waived it by starting to participate in the case. But I am concerned that there is a possibility, at least, that they could make this argument that your Quick Quack Agreement did cover every possible thing that you could have when you interact with any Disney product ever, um, at least litigable, I think, but I don't know, yeah yeah

0:18:23 Thomas: God, Jesus. And so they did all this. They risked all this bad press and just being evil for something they had already waived by participating in the lawsuit. So they're just, this is just like, hey, we just want to add a footnote to the lawsuit of, we're evil and everyone should hate us, like we just wanna add, plus here's some embarrassing photos from when we we were in high school just to add it to it for no reason, what a stupid thing, yeah and fire whoever did this, fire whoever put this in your lawsuit, unbelievable I'm so glad we did that first, Matt, because that is, I need to cool to off while we talk about better things, maybe, oh

0:18:48 Matt: So it seems mean this is the point where you just offer some money and that should be the end of it, but yeah yep with you all the way yes I think we

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0:22:24 Thomas: Right, Matt, this was one that you really, uh, wanted to have some fun with. So more artists than ever, I mean, this happens every election to some extent, but more artists than ever are objecting to Trump using their songs and rallies and stuff. So what's the, that's kind of like, I feel like this happens Every Election Cycle. What makes this different?

0:22:42 Matt: Does, but I think that Trump might have set the record for the number of artists that do not want him to be associated with them. And just real quick, I mean, most recently, just as of a couple of days ago, he was playing My Heart Will Go On, right? And Celine Dion's had some things to say about that. The Titanic song, At Your Empty Rallies, it's a perfect compliment.

0:22:48 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

0:22:58 Matt: But, you know, we've had Shane O 'Connor, The Smiths. I thought it was very strange that he used Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want was actually a song that he use at one point, which I think is a great song.

0:23:05 Thomas: Well, and isn't the Smiths guy horrible? Wouldn't he be like into it?

0:23:06 Matt: But yeah, Morrissey is pretty right-wing. Yeah, you would think. And you got Panic at the the Disco, Guns N' Roses, Elton John, Adele, Prince, Tom Petty.

0:23:10 Thomas: Yeah. If you even lost Morrissey, what are you doing?

0:23:15 Matt: That's true. Very true. List just keeps going on.

0:23:18 Thomas: If you want to quantify it, Matt, I believe it's the mathematical expression is all the artists in the known universe minus Kid Rock, I think, is the the equation.

0:23:27 Matt: And Ted Nugent, also. Big fan. So, yeah. They've got Ted Nugent. They'll always have him. So Young, of course, you might remember, I think that was in 2016, he was very concerned about Rockin' in the Free World, which is pretty funny. That was kind of like when Reagan was using Born in the USA, right? It's just another example of just not understanding the song. If you think think Rockin' in the Free World is about Donald Trump, and if you think that Born in the USA is about making America great.

0:23:29 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Are not sophisticated consumers of art. The

0:23:50 Matt: Lyrics, no. I'm a big Neil Young fan myself, and I was disappointed. I actually went to the docket, just incidentally, before we get to the main story. The Neil Young case, it's a big mystery, because it looks like his lawyers, I just don't know how else to say this, but they just messed up the complaint in several different directions.

0:23:50 Thomas: Right, yeah. Oh.

0:24:07 Thomas: Wait.

0:24:07 Matt: The case ended up being voluntarily withdrawn with They agreed to that. I think Neil Young just kind of gave up. And I think he would have had a pretty good claim from what I saw. But Eddie Grant of Electric Avenue fame, the Guyana artist, he actually is still litigating this. And he was surprised to learn, I hadn't, this one was off my radar, but Donald Donald Trump was actually deposed in this lawsuit. Yes. He wasn't deposed for January 6th, and he was deposed for using Electric Avenue.

0:24:34 Matt: Yes. There's a 40 -second clip that was used in a really dumb Biden parody video, and Eddie Grant was rightfully very upset. Said that the of his song was encapsulated into a video production that can only be construed at best as being wicked, thereby causing me considerable emotional distress. He called it sordid abuse. Abuse.

0:24:25 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Come on, no way, is That a Legal Term? Why would you

0:24:52 Matt: I think it's a Guyana term. I Think he's a, it's like cultural thing probably, but he's, he seems like a cool guy and he's really insistent on his rights here. And he had Trump deposed. This case is still open as far as I can tell. And I think he's got a pretty good suit because well, This is the other thing. A lot of the deposition is sealed and the Trump campaign Asked For it to be sealed because they said it would expose sensitive campaign strategy. I don't know what that's about.

0:24:52 Thomas: Call it wicked? Huh. Oh. Okay, I Love it. Could he ask him January 6th stuff, or would that be up off Limits? Oh, Man. Man. You can't see our Spotify playlist. That's, uh, it's under wraps.

0:25:21 Matt: That's right. And our stupid parody videos that we're putting out on Truth Social. Just kind of generally speaking, let's back up and explain the legal concepts here. Because the suit we're talking about is actually from Isaac Hayes' family. And Isaac Hayes is pretty well known as a decent guy. His son seems like a good guy and has been out trying to defend his father's legacy. And apparently the Isaac Hayes's family has been asking the Trump campaign to stop using Hold On, I'm Coming, which he wrote with Sam and Dave back in 1966, since he appeared at an NRA rally after Uvalde in 2022. So two years of requests. They say about 134 times he's used it. They didn't say how many times they've asked,

0:25:24 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

0:25:58 Thomas: Wow.

0:25:58 Matt: But quite a lot of times. There's an interesting question here, which I started to dig into. I got really fascinated by this because I hadn't really thought about the legal implications of performance rights and copyright in this circumstance, right? When you don't want your song associated with somebody that you do not like and do not support and think is bad for the Country. Don't have a concept in this country of moral rights for artists, which is something I was briefed in IP law when was in law school, took some classes. And I really liked the idea of moral right, which was the idea that as an artist, you have some right to determine how your work is used and if it somehow contravenes your beliefs, your ideals, your reputation. Canada and Europe protect you in that kind of way, and you can bring suit. Suit. But we don't do that because our copyright system is only concerned about economic rights. So we have to kind of jam this idea into that.

0:26:13 Thomas: Hmm. Huh. Nice. Well, okay. I, but I thought I remembered something. I remember back in the day, just looking into like, you know, doing cover songs on YouTube or something like that still, that's still something, right? I mean, I know it's not like a moral, right. But But I remember I remember at the time, just my lay person's understanding was like, well, even though it's just you performing their song, they still have some say over like how their song is done. Like that. Maybe they don't want you doing it. Maybe I misunderstood.

0:27:03 Matt: Yeah, no, It's honestly, so there is, this stuff is really complex. I did the same research for myself because I play a lot of covers and I actually have had multiple piano videos removed from Facebook because this is really creepy, but using AI, I guess my covers were good enough that they recognize them right away. So I guess I'll take this as a compliment. Yeah. I just have a number of them that haven't been taken down, so I guess I'll have to improve those.

0:27:18 Thomas: That's a compliment. Keep practicing,

0:27:24 Matt: But the streaming streaming stuff is really complicated. I'm not getting into that right now, but we're talking today about performance rights.

0:27:24 Thomas: Matt. Yeah. OK, I guess the heart of my question is that's something, right? Right. Don't you have don't artists have some say over like that apply like the same reason they could stop you doing a cover? Does that apply to why they could stopped you playing the song at a rally or is that just different?

0:27:35 Matt: Yes, it is somewhat related in the sense that you have to go through the performance rights organization, and there are two of those. It's a little different when you, okay, then again, this is extremely complicated just from our knowledge of it.

But like I said, streaming rights are new, and that's a whole new thing, just completely different from what we're talking about, we're going to talk about performance rights specifically, and I just want to back up and talk about these performance rights organizations because I think this is pretty interesting. Uh, got the two big ones I think most people probably heard of, ASCAP, which is American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. And then there's Broadcast Music Inc., BMI, and they're both over 100 years old.

And they together hold about 90% % of the copyrights for performance of all music, pretty much. And you might be thinking after last week, maybe that sounds like an antitrust problem when you've got two companies that are managing all of that. And the DOJ thought so too in 1941. And they brought antitrust against both of them in 1941, and they reached a consent decree, whereby they would basically manage this in a way that wouldn't risk antitrust stuff.

0:28:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:36 Thomas: 1941, they're like, hey, you shouldn't own the rights to all 300 songs. Songs?

0:28:41 Matt: So it's fine, an interesting open question, which I got a little obsessed about, about whether any of this is actually legal at all. And I'll wrap up by talking about that. But sense to have big organizations that can handle your public performance rights, because it's a huge hassle for everybody who might want to ever use your song to check in with you, you, it makes sense. And so the BMI holds something like 22 million songs from 1.4 million artists. ASCAP has a somewhat fewer, uh, they manage all of this stuff, and they issue blanket licenses, which was the DOJ's problem in the beginning, is that blanket licenses kind of seem like a competition issue. They also seem like you're tying in products that people maybe don't want when you're buying something, you know, it's just too broad, right?

0:29:17 Thomas: What do you mean by that? So a license for all the songs in their catalog?

0:29:20 Matt: In their catalog, yeah.

0:29:20 Thomas: Oh, why? Yeah, that's okay.

0:29:21 Matt: Yeah. It's a pretty good deal, uh, that's a lot of songs and exactly, I don't right.

0:29:24 Thomas: A lot songs I'd be like, no thanks though. I don't want the rights to a Kid Rock song. Like, please, please.

0:29:29 Matt: It's like all those streaming bundles that include ESPN, like I just, you know, I don't need it. Uh, sorry. And uh, but so that, that's the idea is that this is just, the DOJ originally brought this and said you can't have this kind of exclusive thing where to license a song you actually have to buy this huge package of licenses, right? Right.

So the way that they did this with the consent decree is they left it open that individual artists can still negotiate their own thing, or you can get these blanket licenses, that it doesn't violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act that we talked about last week.

Now, where it gets really interesting is that within the last 10 years, BMI and ASCAP have both created a process by which the artists, specifically for political events, because pretty much because of Trump, people who are mad about their stuff being used for Trump, you can put in a request. And it's actually as easy on the ASCAP page as just logging in and sending ASCAP a message through your account. It's just that simple to say, I don't want this played by the Trump campaign.

0:29:34 Thomas: Did he play

0:30:20 Matt: So if anybody has anything in the ASCAP database, go ahead and do that. You never know. Be running out of songs sometime soon. So that we know of, but let's keep a watch. Watch.

0:30:26 Thomas: Like any of my podcast intros or anything? It. Oh, okay. Right. Stay away from him.

0:30:33 Matt: He's probably not doing anything in my piano covers either. A really interesting conflict here that has not been resolved, before I get to the actual Hayes thing, Copyright, where the artist should have the right to withdraw from something like a blanket license, and the antitrust, where the blanket license has to be kind of an in-or-out thing. It's a little hard to explain, but there's really good law review article I found from from Cardozo that I'm going to link to that makes a very strong argument that I've now seen other places that seems pretty credible, that this entire system of exempting certain songs from the blanket license just for political campaigns is actually illegal. So it seems

0:30:33 Thomas: Too good for you.

0:31:06 Thomas: Despite

0:31:06 Matt: Like maybe if they push this, that it may not come out well for them, potentially. But the thing is that almost always, when somebody brings suit like this, usually the campaign just backs down because it's not worth it to them to spend all this money to litigate just to use one song.

0:31:18 Thomas: Fact that they were playing the song, I won't back down. They That's actually, it was one of the ones that comes up a lot.

0:31:20 Matt: They backed down, right? Yeah, no, I'm sure. It's a great political song. And I'm sure the Don't Back Down PAC was also using it all the time before they indeed backed down. So Hayes family obviously Hayes Sr. in 2008, fortunately did not live to see Trump using his music, but they are convinced, and I think this is probably correct, that he would not be happy with Donald Trump using music.

0:31:29 Thomas: Yeah. I had No idea he wrote for the Sam and Dave, and I just, I love oldies, but I don't know that much about who wrote what. I love that song, this is the the

0:31:46 Matt: Yeah. It's a good tune. Soon.

0:31:47 Thomas: Coming, what was it again? Oh, I love that song, fantastic.

0:31:48 Matt: Hold on. I'm coming. Yeah. I mean, I can hear the horn line as I'm saying it. It's a great horn line. It is so good.

0:31:51 Thomas: Oh, yeah, who can't let's all at once, imagine it in our mind, because we can't play it. I don't have permission, but

0:31:58 Matt: Yeah, right, right.

0:32:02 Thomas: No.

0:32:03 Matt: So yeah, it's right there. And so they sent a cease and desist this last week and it pretty straightforward and it's saying, you know, we've asked and we've asked and you haven't stopped using this song. And there's an interesting argument here. I'm not going to get into too much, but the Hayes family is also claiming they actually have exclusive copyright to the song, even though it seems that BMI is still controlling performance rights as well. That copyright expired on March 15th, 2022 and returned to the Haynes family.

There's an argument, but BMI, The Haynes family's lawyers are still acknowledging that there's this BMI agreement in place and they're working with it. They have requested, of course, that BMA include this as an exemption and that they not allow the Trump campaign to use it, but they put them on notice. I think it'll be be stronger if they use it again.

The other interesting part about this is that the Trump campaign did get this political entity's license, because you actually have to have a special license from BMI. That way, that's how they control which of these artists are able to exempt themselves. But it looks like there might have been some gaps they can't prove. So potentially, they got 2016, 2020, 2024. there might be gaps from 2022 to 2023. I don't know. There's nothing nothing public about this, so it might be interesting to litigate.

Just the amount of paperwork and the complications of all of this, I think is kind of interesting of something as simple as using a song at your campaign rally.

0:32:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:11 Thomas: Sorry. I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. So is Is the political, you know, event thing a new subdivision of this performance rights or how long does it date back?

0:33:20 Matt: Is right. I think it is about 10 years old from what I saw. I am looking at it here. I will link to it. But it is a music license for political entities or organizations. And it just kind of allows them to do that. Yeah,

0:33:30 Thomas: And now is that something that needs to be codified into law or is that merely just how the company itself does it? Like, here's our package that, you can buy it for bar mitzvahs and for whatever, but not for that. Like, is it just kind of up to them, BMI or whoever it is, or does it need to be somewhere encoded in our, you laws or whatever that is?

0:33:47 Matt: No, I looked into this. This is something that is not really controlled by law. It is something that the artists had requested and that BMI thought would be a good idea to just create a separate system because there's so much controversy in so many different places about this. As I said, the consent decree doesn't necessarily allow for partial withdrawals from individual artists.

0:34:05 Thomas: Okay, explain that. Sorry, I think that was a lot of words I didn't slow you down enough. So the consent decree was between whom and whom?

0:34:10 Matt: So, DOJ in 1941.

0:34:11 Thomas: But that's way before this political thing. So wait, sorry. So that was was from an artist perspective, like, we don't want to be a part of a of sold all the rights to the 300 songs that existed at the time, my one, you in blue too good for that, which it was, oh.

0:34:25 Matt: That consent decree was just about how BMI and ASCAP were going to handle their blanket licenses. It's been expanded. It's been reviewed. It was most recently looked at by DOJ a couple of years ago, and it's been amended over and over again since then, obviously to update for things like streaming and other online stuff.

0:34:42 Thomas: I guess what's the problem then, because that sounds like it's all fine, was said there's something about like the years they did it and

0:34:48 Matt: Has to opt in specifically for this music license, and And it looks like there's an allegation, at least, that they might not have done that every year. So there's that. There's also the fact that if they really wanted to push it, it does look like there is a good argument to be made that this entire exemption is illegal under the consent decree. And it's a really interesting clash copyright law and antitrust law that probably needs to be resolved. Allowing for any kind of partial withdrawal from the blanket license. License.

0:35:12 Thomas: So individual artists are not allowed to

0:35:14 Matt: To do a quasi -withdrawal, to say, you can't use it for this purpose that is arguably not allowed under the consent decree, and that's just never been litigated.

0:35:19 Thomas: Okay. Okay. So So BMI, the companies that hold these rights, were cool with artists being like, no, Don't allow any political thing, but it's less clear if you can do like you party or is not you, that the difference, or is it just subdividing any the political thing. Anything

0:35:26 Matt: Yeah.

0:35:35 Matt: Carving out anything, any kind of exemption from your blanket license, right? And to be clear that the request the artist would be making was saying the Trump campaign specifically can't use this song, right, not just any political. I will point out that Kamala Harris on the the other side of this, is using a Beyonce song with Beyonce's full encouragement.

0:35:36 Thomas: Oh Okay, huh. Specifically Yeah Yeah Yeah

0:35:50 Matt: So that's how much cooler we've got it. But yeah, this is potentially an interesting issue. I hope it doesn't actually have to be litigated. It doesn't seem like it should have to be. They should just stop using the song.

0:35:59 Thomas: Well But it sounds like there's some ambiguity to clear up, because I, for one, still Don't understand it, let

0:36:02 Matt: Yeah. There's a lot of different moving parts on this one.

0:36:06 Thomas: Were cool with the artists saying, hey, don't allow the Trump thing. But like, I guess I'm not clear why that would be like would somehow go against the law, because I thought I asked earlier, like, isn't that a question of just what BMI's like policy is or what they're kind of what?

0:36:18 Matt: May have set a policy that doesn't fit with a consent decree. It's just never been challenged before. Because It's not really regulated. The thing with a consent decree is you have to have DOJ come back and check on it and see if you're following it properly.

0:36:22 Thomas: Oh, okay. From 1941. They got to get the ghost of some old 1941 DOJ guy. Ah, see? But like, so exactly conflict there?

0:36:33 Matt: Sure. Right. Because you're allowing a partial withdrawal, you're allowing an exemption. The reason that DOJ allowed this in the consent decree, as I said, you can have this kind of blanket protection for artists if they just want to have one big license. Or you can have the artists individually licensed. And that's what protected BMI and ASCAP and allowed them to do what they do is because they still allow individual artists to make deals if they want to. You can't have a halfway deal where you're doing a blanket license where there's also a possibility for exemption. Then you're actually getting into some competition issues, if There's a very long law review article that I'm going to link to that everybody can dig into if they wants to.

0:37:07 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, I think I get it. Giving them the ability to opt out of the blanket thingy solved, solved some sort of problem, but then giving the artist further choice to like, not thought the issue was, oh, this blanket thing maybe is a problem, giving the artists the the ability to do something on an individual level, that kind of helps that, but then this instance where it's like giving them a little more choice, that somehow would go against it.

0:37:36 Matt: Because you're starting to carve out exceptions in a way that violates the consent decree, potentially.

0:37:41 Thomas: Just how they happen to like draw it up.

0:37:43 Matt: And then Supreme Court is upheld, by the way. I meant to mention that before, that blanket licensing is actually otherwise, in some other circumstances, it would be a Section 1 violation for the Sherman Act. But the Supreme Court found that it's an acceptable mechanism because it can't be automatically declared illegal to just allow artists to band together this way and do this blanket licensing. It makes sense as a convenience thing.

0:38:01 Thomas: Okay.

0:38:01 Matt: It the way that it is, and potentially allowing these kinds of carve-outs and these kinds of gray areas could be a real problem if it were to be challenged. And so that's what I thought was interesting, is that this is kind of like poking at an edge of the law that hasn't really been explored, and that, of course, once again, we can count on Donald Trump to open up for us, as he so often does.

0:38:11 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, but the point is, this is all law review articles, so this isn't part of the current fight, wrinkle that you're talking about? It's just something that could happen?

0:38:25 Matt: It could be, but yeah, it's good to be. But right now, they're just litigating whether or not, yes.

0:38:27 Thomas: Okay. Right now, they're just like, stop using our effing songs, really.

0:38:32 Matt: And I'm just thinking ahead to where it goes, you I think, and I think maybe you agree with me here, is that we should just recognize moral rights for artists. I think that that's a really good idea.

0:38:33 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, okay, interesting. Do like that, yeah.

0:38:41 Matt: I really would like, if I were an artist, to be able to control where my art is used and how it's used, and just to not happen to be asked questions about me saying I don't want it used by a proto-fascist political campaign. The thing is, we are a signatory to the 1988 Berne Convention, which does actually recognize moral rites. But the Berne Convention, like a lot of these international agreements, especially on copyrights, it's not self-executing. So we have to actually pass something. And for whatever reason, Congress saw fit to only pass this to protect visual artists, which is fine. They should also be protected, but there's a lot of other artists out there.

0:39:10 Thomas: Harder to do than, you know, that's like, oh, you have a painting up somewhere where you're doing something. I don't know, that seems like less relevant than like you're playing a song at a political rally, but all right, oh

0:39:20 Matt: The classic example, actually, of moral rights in a painting was that there was an American company that was going to buy a Picasso painting and cut it up into pieces and sell it as a keychains, which was sacrilegious. And obviously, the Picasso estate said we have a moral right to not have turned into keychains.

0:39:28 Thomas: My god, okay, yeah, no, yeah never mind, please, yeah okay, I

0:39:34 Matt: He wanted us one big picture.

0:39:34 Thomas: Didn't know that was what they're talking about, yeah

0:39:37 Matt: But obviously, if you had a right-wing fascist dictator who tortured people, prominently featuring your art in his logo or something, you can see that being all kinds of moral problems. I just think this stuff is interesting, and I just think that we should come around to Canada and Europe and catch up with moral rights. I think that would solve this entire problem, because right now, as we just talked about for the last 20 minutes, this is super complicated, and it's based in economic rights, which I don't think it should be when you're talking about art.

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah yeah absolutely, Uh, hopefully enough time to talk about a really uh interesting story here, um, currently am working on in my mind a a long series that it's like, so many things will never probably be published anywhere called "Transphobia Ruins Brains," because that's what's happened, is it's ruined everyone's, Richard Dawkins' brain. It's ruined.

0:40:21 Matt: Sure does.

0:40:25 Thomas: It's really incredible. So this is about the, uh, yeah, the boxer.

0:40:32 Matt: Ugh. Disgusting. But Iman Khalif. She's an Algerian boxer. Here, she just won gold in women's boxing. She just killed. She did a great job. I think it was something like 46 seconds or something. Not really into boxing, but that sounds pretty impressive. So people who are as online as we are might remember that there was this firestorm around all these people just saying without evidence or without any reason to say it that she was either a man or that she was actually trans. And that Algeria of all places had sent a trans person. I mean, if you know anything, it's about as woke as it gets. So, you know, this is awful.

And I just can't even imagine, you've worked this hard, you go to the Olympics, and you have to deal with people commenting not only on your appearance, but making all these speculations and saying these things, and somehow that you don't deserve the victory because you're actually a man, right? This is really kind of what it comes And using law, as we were just talking about with moral rights, is much more expansive in many ways, especially on things that would otherwise be protected by our First Amendment. So there is a statute in France that allows, well, I'll just read it because this is, honestly, this is like reading law from another planet when I read this kind of stuff. It

0:40:37 Thomas: Um, Those Pride flag waving people, yeah. Totally.

0:41:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:43 Matt: Is so strange. Change. Harassing a person by repeated words or behaviors with the aim or effect of deteriorating their living conditions, resulting in an alteration of their physical or mental health, is punishable by one year of imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euro, when these acts have caused a total incapacity for work of less than or equal to eight days or have not resulted in incapacity, et cetera, et cetera. So essentially, it's just saying if you cyber -bully somebody intent of causing them physical and mental distress, that you can actually go to prison for that, and we don't have anything like that. Obviously, that is not something that would survive a First Amendment challenge, yeah.

0:42:16 Thomas: Clarify if it sounded for a moment that she have to have been unable to work because right away I was like, well, she won the gold medal, so it would be hard to how does that work.

0:42:23 Matt: But I don't know how they're claiming that right now. That the actual complaint that was filed was just a paragraph, it's very short, uh.

0:42:23 Thomas: Exactly Was it just about intent though, like yeah

0:42:31 Matt: The question is the aimer effect, right? So that if you can show that there's at least an intent to cyber bully somebody into having that kind of a physical or mental health problem. And, you now, it's just, it's been referred to a local prosecutor. I believe she initiated the complaint. And it's a little complicated because obviously we're talking, talk about these charges prominently, Elon Musk, JK Rowling, and I believe Donald Trump. I don't know if he's actually acquitted, but Donald Trump was also commenting on this.

Rowling, of course, being a British citizen, Musk being South African and American citizen, neither of them being in France at the time, which could be a problem. Does seem to be a jurisdictional issue here. It's pretty straightforward, as you might expect, that this is not an act committed by a French national. It was not an act committed against somebody of French nationality, although maybe arguably the Algerian might've had, I don't actually know if she had dual citizenship. That's say I think they might be doing this to make a point. And it's a good point. There's no reason not to, to publicly say that this is a disgusting thing to do.

0:43:18 Thomas: I Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:20 Matt: To say that France doesn't stand for this kind of speech. But the fact is that you're talking about people who are not in France, who are are not French citizens who did not send the messages while in France, as far as I know. So it doesn't seem like this is probably going to go very far.

0:43:30 Thomas: Interesting. But the Here's what I want for all these assholes. I want them to not be able to enjoy the luxuries of Paris. It would be great even if it was like, well, you never set foot here again. You know, like that's something. But can it even be that? Yeah.

0:43:42 Matt: Yeah. Put out an arrest warrant. You could try. And they could certainly try to quash that warrant.

0:43:48 Thomas: Does the fact that she's not a French citizen mess that up somehow?

0:43:51 Matt: They probably would be able to stop the warrant from what I I don't want to comment too much on French law, but there was a French French legal commentator who was saying that it's very unlikely that this could actually work. That they can try if And the thing is, there might have actually been people who are less prominent than Elon Musk and JK Rowling who were in France at the Olympics at the time when they're sending these messages. So if you can get a couple of those actually to make an example of them, then you've got something.

0:43:54 Thomas: Sure. Hey, yeah.

0:44:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, hey, it goes to show maybe when you're massively powerful in terms of reach, You shouldn't just make up something, repeat completely false information about someone. Maybe that's not a thing you should do.

0:44:23 Matt: I have complicated feelings about sending people to prison for that kind of speech as much as I hate it. I don't know that I support Americans having a law like that, but as long as you got it in France, you might as well use it for this kind of thing to protect people who are just being, I mean, it was a global assault on this poor woman.

0:44:38 Thomas: Yeah. Now, so this is a criminal thing. So this isn't, oh, she's not yet like filed a suit or something then.

0:44:44 Matt: She filed a complaint asking the local prosecutor to look into it. They've announced that they're going to to do that

0:44:47 Thomas: Oh, that's what I saw. Okay. So I thought that, I think my brain just assumed that was like, okay, civil complaint kind of thing. Because yeah, I don't know about prison time, but like, yeah, certainly civil penalties at least possibly for that kind of thing might be in order.

0:44:48 Matt: Right right Yeah, right. Right. Would Think Uh, yeah, as Americans, I mean, immediately, obviously we don't think of criminal consequences for speech. It's just not something that happens here for the most part, unless it's, you know, direct threats. Um, this is a lot more subtle, and it's interesting kind of look at a different way of doing speech regulation and a different way of dealing criminal law. I, I don't, again, I, I just have a real problem with criminal consequences for speech in most cases. But it's, like I said, if you got it, you might as well use it. And I think it's a good statement. Good on France for at least making the statement that they're willing to look into this and that they take it seriously.

0:45:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:28 Thomas: And I maybe have quite the revulsion to that. I think I used to, and then I think we argued about it in some year about free speech and hate speech and criminal hate speech laws like that. And there's just a a lot of other countries that do have that kind of thing. And, um, the sky hasn't fallen, you know? So like a lot Of the, I'm just saying like a Lot of the sky will fall stuff is like, well, maybe not necessarily. I mean, I think that one guy taught his dog to do the high old Hitler. And I think he, I Think he either had to, had to do some jail time or pay a fine or something. And guess what? Good.

0:45:52 Matt: It's not about the sky. Where was that?

0:46:00 Thomas: Yeah. It's in, it's in the UK. Yeah, what

0:46:02 Matt: Oh, wow. I missed that one. Real issue that I have is with criminal aspect of libel. I think that's really strange change, because that's really chilling to speech. And I get it somewhere with hate speech. I mean, certainly there's so much disgusting hate speech that's actually dangerous at this point.

0:46:08 Thomas: Hmm. Sure. Yeah. Mean, I would argue this is hate speech, but that's just me.

0:46:19 Matt: Is hate speech, yeah, it is, and it is. But

0:46:19 Thomas: Yeah? Oh, okay. I thought you were saying this was liable. I mean could both but yeah,

0:46:23 Matt: No, no. Yeah, you could definitely say it's libel, because you know it's not true, or you should know. I mean she's been registered as a woman in the Olympics. No, I guess when I'm talking about criminalizing speech, that's always been my big one. I think that's a really dangerous not sky -falling territory, but I think it'd be a pretty serious restriction on our liberties and our ability to say these things. Yeah, I can be convinced on extreme acts of hate speech.

0:46:34 Thomas: Yeah sure. Well, love, uh, to see it. I like them at least trying, you know, we'll see what happens because of that, but now did she issue an apology? Because I thought somebody, you, of wisely, there was someone who was like, hey, whoops, you know, who among us has not started a massive online campaign of bullying, but by just assuming someone's a man for no reason that anyone can tell other than racism and transphobia, okay.

0:46:47 Matt: Yeah, make the statement.

0:47:07 Matt: Rowling has not apologized. Don't know if there's anybody else who has, but

0:47:08 Thomas: I feel like there's some, like, MMA fighter, boxer, who did or something

0:47:13 Matt: Rowling should apologize because Rowling talked about the smirk of a male who's been protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying, you know, punching a woman in the head. I mean, it's just, it's awful, it's like you don't like everything else, you just don't have to say this. I had a trans client actually yesterday mentioned Rowling and was talking about Turf Island. I thought that was a pretty good way to talk about the UK because it does seem like you have well maybe they're a fan

0:47:32 Thomas: I've called it, that I feel like I coined that no, maybe not, I definitely said it, it's Turf Island over there, maybe I absorbed it from somebody else, but yeah, it's crazy, it's the Turfdom that's going on over I, I don't understand. It's ruining, it's melting all of these people's brains. It really is. It turns you stupid. You do really dumb things. Me. Like if you think you're so right about these arguments and it's so basic and it is so biology and all that, why is it making you do such stupid things that aren't actually based in any evidence? Why do you have to resort to that if your arguments are

0:47:49 Matt: Yeah another degree yeah no becomes your life it just becomes everything, so there's this whole Twitter accounts that are just this, so many of them it's obsessive

0:48:08 Thomas: Right? Yeah, crazy. Crazy. Why is that? Like, it's such a small population of people. Why are you so worried about that? Anyway, my forthcoming In My Brain video series on why transphobia melts everyone's brains. Right. Well, is that our episode?

0:48:13 Matt: Yeah That's what we have for today, me

0:48:30 Thomas: Good stuff. So many stories. That was fun, Matt. As always, thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting patreon.com/law and looking Looking forward to getting Gorsuch's book out of Matt's brain for good. He can just dump it and then you're done.

0:48:42 Matt: Too so much to say, okay

0:48:46 Thomas: So And thanks for listening and we'll see everyone Monday.

0:48:48 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

0:49:06 Thomas: Suck. Give me 100 million dollars. Also vote for me, please, please.

0:49:09 Matt: They do love Alan Dershowitz. We don't have to use that.