Recently in Legal Category
This week during the general manager's meetings, they will try to decide what is
a legal and illegal hit
, and if it is illegal what the punishment should be. Althoughbig hits in the NHL is one big way in which the sport separates itself from the other
mainstream sports, it has recently been getting out of hand. For example on October
24th, 2009 Mike Richards of the Philadelphia Flyers went head hunting on David Booth of
the Florida Panthers. Booth was not able to get up on his own power and was taken off
of the ice on a stretcher. He suffered a concussion and had to be monitored by medical
staff for days after. While the speed of the game continues to increase, so do the number
of head injuries. Right now at this moment, there are three NHL players out with a concussion, with one of those three, Marc Savard maybe missing the rest of the season with a grade 2 concussion. While Marc lay momentarily unconscious on the ice, the Boston Bruins realized that they may have lost their top scorer for the rest of the season. At the end of these next few days, hopefully the NHL will have a more clear interpretation of legal and illegal hits, but only time will tell.
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Michael Phelps is a superstar within the United States and around the world after his unheard of 8 gold medals at the Olympic games. Before he became a superstar along with his swim team years ago they were signed to a promote a protein powder that was new to the market. They were all younger and unknown at the time just like the company. Now that they are all big stars in the world they must still continue to honor their promotion contract with this hardly known company and will be making close to no money off of it. I doubt Phelps really cares that much being now he is making over $50 million in promotions due to the national hero he became after the Olympics. This protein company known as PureSport certainly lucked out, and now may be able to make a name for itself having these celebrity figures endorse its product. This company has the chance to make itself known by riding its endorsement deal on some of the most well known people swimmers in the world.
In This week's edition of the sports business journal there is an article on a new rule in the NHL. This rule though is for the owners and not the players. The new rule requires all NHL team owners to disclose any business deals that are made with other team players. The rule was written in September because of a loan that was taken from AEG (who owns the LA kings) by the former Predators owner that had to list the loan when he filed for bankruptcy. The league never knew about the loan.
I am not sure about this rule for the NHL; this will just help to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. It really doesn't do anything other than that, some would say that this relates to collusion, but it doesn't. You have to remember that collusion is illegal so I am pretty sure that owners wouldn't make it a public document. It does however show which owners are having business relationships which could relate to something like that if a collusion case was ever brought up in the future.
The International Olympics Committee is considering not giving anyone the gold medal from the women's 100 meters in the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Marion Jones won this medal but was then stripped of it after she admitted she used steroids. Although the original second-place finisher normally would be upgraded to the gold, the International Olympic Committee is reluctant to give the medal to Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou because she was caught up in a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games.
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MADRID, Spain -- Future record books may show there was no winner of the women's 100 meters at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
IOC officials said Thursday they are considering the unprecedented step of leaving the gold-medal spot vacant following Marion Jones' confession that she used performance-enhancing drugs.
"That could be a solution," said IOC board member Denis Oswald, a member of the three-man disciplinary commission dealing with the Jones case.
Although the original second-place finisher normally would be upgraded to the gold, the International Olympic Committee is reluctant to give the medal to Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou because she was caught up in a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games.
"In a way, it's logical and consistent that we should just move her up, but there is another feeling," Oswald said in an interview during a break in the world anti-doping conference. "We'll see how insistent she [Thanou] is. The best way would be not to do anything and just leave it as it is and there is no gold."
IOC president Jacques Rogge told The Associated Press no final decision had been made but that "anything was possible," including leaving the result blank.
Last week, Rogge said the IOC only would upgrade athletes who were determined to be "clean."
Jones won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 and the 1,600-meter relay in Sydney, as well as bronzes in the 400 relay and long jump. After acknowledging last month that she started doping before those Olympics, Jones returned all five medals to the IOC.
Thanou and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris set off a major scandal at the Athens Games when they failed to show for drug tests on the eve of the opening ceremony and said they were injured in a motorcycle accident. They eventually withdrew from the games and later were suspended for two years.
Oswald, a Swiss lawyer, said Thanou's situation presented tricky legal and moral issues.
"In 2000, although there were some suspicions already, nothing was established," he said. "At that time, there was no positive and nothing against her. We never did anything to challenge her silver medal. The rules say you move up. Legally, it's pretty clear. But it's more an ethical issue."
Finishing behind Jones and Thanou in the 100 in Sydney was Tanya Lawrence, with fellow Jamaican Merlene Ottey fourth. They also stand to move up one spot in the placings.
Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas won the silver behind Jones in the 200, with Sri Lanka's Susanthika Jayasinghe third and Jamaica's Beverly McDonald fourth.
The IOC is awaiting recommendations from the International Association of Athletics Federations before deciding on how to revise the medals. The IAAF council is scheduled to consider the case next week.
The IAAF and IOC also must decide whether Jones' American relay teammates should lose their medals. Jamaica finished second in the 1,600-meter relay, with Russia third and Nigeria fourth. France was fourth behind the United States in the 400 relay.
The IOC ruling could come at the Dec. 10-12 executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. If not, the next IOC board meeting is in April in Beijing.
WADA director general David Howman, meanwhile, cited the Jones case as an example of how police investigations are increasingly crucial in catching drug cheats. He noted that Jones only confessed after being accused of lying to investigators about her steroid use and her association with a check-fraud scheme.
"She is an example of how an athlete can beat the system of sample collection," Howman said. "One-hundred-sixty samples were taken from that athlete and not one resulted in an adverse finding. ... It was only when faced with the unenviable prospect of going to jail for a long time that the athlete confessed that she had cheated."
from espn.com
From New York Daily News
"Isiah has to start me," Marbury reportedly said, according to the Daily News. "I've got so much [stuff] on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can [get] me. But I'll [get] him first. You have no idea what I know."
Is this new information about Isiah or did Marbury pergur himself during the previous lawsuit? The Knicks are one of the great soap operas in sport right now.
Another battle between copyright holders and the general public. At issue now, is the posting of amateur video on YouTube that contains copyrighted material- music is most common. In the example that follows, music publishing house, Universal, serves notice to persons for using their copyrighted material. Now the self-publishers are fighting back and trying to establish their rights by claiming a fair use exemption.
Fair use is the legal defense where a person legally uses a copyrighted material for parody, comment, political speech or changes (transforms) the material.
Here, it is difficult to see how the material is changed or is used to comment on the material. An example in the article is a mother taping a child dancing to "Lets Go Crazy." Is this similar to using the song in a movie? Both result in a commercial venture- movie tickets and advertising revenue. Is this similar to playing the song on a jukebox? I think in both cases the answer is yes. But instead of going after the individual mother, perhaps the payment should come from YouTube.
This year's Chicago Marathon was faced with a tremendous weather challenge. The overwhelming heat and humidity caused many problems for the runners. In fact, the race was shut down about 3 hours into the race meaning most runners were not allowed to finished half the race.
Tragically a runner who suffered a heat related injury was picked up by a suburban ambulance service. Because of the size and scope of the event, using additional medical personnel was a very good idea. However, this ambulance was not given proper instruction to where they should deliver injured runners. The ambulance got lost while trying to get to the hospital and the runner died.
As event managers, this should not happen. The athlete and spectator's welfare must be the highest priority. The fact that the ambulance did not have the correct information is inexcuseable.
As mentioned in Professor Han's info tech class last week, a lawsuit was brought by MLB to control fantasy leagues. MLB argued that other companies were illegally providing web users with player statistics thus infringing on players right of publicity and profiting from unlicensed material. MLB wanted the fantasy leagues to license the information in similar way that a tee shirt company would license MLB logos. MLB viewed player stats as an intellectual property.
The court held that fantasy league operators have a First Amendment right to use the information (similar to viewing the stats as "news") and that its use does not cause injury to the players' ability to use their names for revenue generation.
From our friends at Sports Law Blog, comes a very educational comment about the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence. The terms are usually misused in the media.
