On the Record

Chicago Bears middle linebacker Brian Urlacher’s football season ended in the first quarter of the first game of the year after he dislocated his wrist. Despite early rumors the injury was career-ending, various hand specialists say Urlacher should be able to play again next season.

His memorabilia company, however, is not so sure, which is why it terminated his $1.2 million contract in the days after Urlacher underwent surgery.

Now Urlacher is suing Dreams Inc. for breach of contract, seeking the remaining $600,000 on his four-year deal and any related damages.

The contract, signed in October 2007, was part of the court filings. Dreams ended its relationship with Urlacher based on a clause allowing the company to terminate the contract if he is out “for sixteen or more consecutive weeks” — a full season or more.

The contract is chock full of interesting items, including how much Urlacher’s signature is worth if he meets various on-field performance goals. If he is named Super Bowl MVP, for example, his price per autograph goes up to $100 (up $25 from his regular price) for the first 3,200 signatures and $80 a signature thereafter.

Urlacher was contractually obligated to sign thousands of items every year. I’m kind of surprised he injured his wrist on the field before he suffered carpal tunnel syndrome off it.

(HT to my colleague Steve Lash for telling me about the lawsuit.)

Capitalizing on its appearance in the new Renee Zellweger movie, “My One and Only,” Baltimore’s Peabody Court Hotel has come out with a romance travel package as a salute to the film.

The movie was released two weeks ago and also stars Kevin Bacon and Chris Noth. The film’s story line is based on George Hamilton’s upbringing by his mother along the Eastern Seaboard during the 1950s. To see a shot of the Peabody in the opening sequence of the preview, click here.

“My One and Only” was filmed in Baltimore last summer.

The Peabody’s package includes accommodations for two in a deluxe corner king room, breakfast via room service or in the hotel’s George’s Bistro, valet parking and a late check-out time (2 p.m.)

Has anyone seen the movie yet? How prominently was the hotel featured?

Who knows how much business this package will really stir up, but I do think it’s indicative of how local business here like being associated with Hollywood and the stars that pass through here.

Washington lawyer Edward McNally grew up with the late movie director John Hughes in the Chicago suburbs — and had 27 days off his final semester of high school — but says he is not the real-life Ferris Bueller.

At the same time, McNally admits the “Ferris-ian high jinks were the everyday stuff of our boyhood lives” in an essay from Wednesday’s Washington Post. And McNally also says he’s drawn on the “Tao of Ferris” throughout his legal career:

In my service as a federal prosecutor and as a defense attorney, one key lesson from Ferris is his repeated message to his despondent buddy Cameron. Your current situation doesn’t have to be your fate. There’s always another way.

My favorite part of McNally’s touching tribute is his final anecdote. Let’s just say Ferris would have been proud - and Abe Froman might have had reason to complain.

Kevin Cogill, the blogger who leaked songs from Guns N’ Roses’ new album last year, was sentenced to one year of probation last week by a federal judge in Los Angeles. Cogill will also serve two months of home confinement (which I heard a DJ joke will give Cogill plenty of time to leak more albums), allow the government to keep tabs on his computers and record a public service announcement for the Recording Industry Association of America.

Cogill, whose nom de blog is Skwerl, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of copyright infringment, a misdemeanor, according to the Associated Press. He faced a maximum of one year in jail and fines and restitution in the amount of $371,000.

Cogill’s site, Antiquiet, has a bit more colorful take on the case’s outcome. (Warning: “colorful” means “uses profanities.”) Cogill himself commented that he respects artists’ right to decide how their music is released.

“In that sense, I will concede to an error in judgement I do not intend to repeat,” he wrote.

With all of the various tributes to Michael Jackson, I was reminded this morning of one of his more underappreciated roles: preventer of gang violence.

I’m of course referring to his rad ’80s music video to “Beat It,” one of many hits from “Thriller.” I know the music video to the album’s title track is the piece de resistance, what with dancing zombies and a Vincent Price cameo all directed by John Landis. But it always felt a bit too high-concept for my tastes.

“Beat It,” on the other hand, tells the gripping story of two rival gangs whose leaders plan to settle their differences one night in an abandoned warehouse. The source of their anger is unknown, but you see it in every gang member’s face as he walks menacingly (but in rhythm) toward the battlefield.

Enter our hero, Michael Jackson, and his piano-key T-shirt. He leaves his sparse apartment (maybe he’s working undercover) and traces the gangs’ footsteps from an empty diner to an empty pool hall. It appears he might be too late, however, as the gang members have already assembled in the warehouse, the leaders with switchblades drawn and linked by a bandana tied to one of their wrists.

The leaders spin in a circle (my favorite part) and swipe at each other, their underlings cheering all around them. Suddenly, MJ appears out of nowhere, perhaps finding the warehouse location by following the strains of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo. The fighting ceases as Jackson makes his way toward the leaders. Two quick punches straight up in the air later and everyone is following his dancing lead and, I assume, lives happily ever after, proving that dance auditions should become part of any police department’s application process. 

(Then again, maybe not, as MJ appears to become leader of his own gang five years later in the video “Bad.”)

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Uqxo1SKB0z8" width="425" height="300" wmode="transparent" /]

Tuesday, I wrote about the WWE/NBA scheduling conflict at the Pepsi Center in Denver, which was resolved in the short-term when the arena owners (who also own the Denver Nuggets) said basketball would be played there Monday night.

Now comes word that WWE’s Monday Night Raw will be held Memorial Day at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the L.A. Lakers — the Nuggets’ opponent in the Western Conference Finals. Wrestling will return to Denver in August.

Oh, but if only everyone could live happily ever after. The WWE has already begun referring to the incident as the “double-booking debacle,” and Chairman Vince McMahon has said he will make an apperance Monday in a match between the ”Nuggets” and “Lakers.” (I wonder who will win?)

The WWE and the Pepsi Center are also still bickering, though there is no word yet of a formal lawsuit. The arena claims the sides had a deal in place whereby the wrestling would go on as planned Sunday night in Denver, but then McMahon decided to go to Los Angeles without telling the arena owners, who called McMahon “a master of propaganda.” McMahon countered by saying the Pepsi Center tried to “strong-arm” his organization into an agreement and pointed out the show is called “Monday” Night Raw, not “Sunday” Night Raw.

The most delicious twist of all? The two events will air head-to-head Memorial Day evening. Should make for some enjoyable channel surfing.

From the Lawsuit Waiting to Happen Dept.:

Last August, World Wrestling Entertainment reserved the Pepsi Center in Denver on May 25 for its Monday Night Raw show and has already sold more than 10,000 tickets. It signed a contract confirming the date last month. But now, because of results in the ongoing NBA playoffs, the Denver Nuggets are scheduled to host the Los Angeles Lakers at the Pepsi Center on May 25 in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

The Pepsi Center’s Web site lists both events on May 25, with 7 p.m. listed for the Nuggets’ game and “TBD” listed for the WWE.  On Tuesday, the Pepsi Center’s ownership announced the basketball game will be held as scheduled, bumping the WWE to a future date. (Note: Some would argue that, with the NBA’s notorious playoff officiating, the Pepsi Center is merely substituting one scripted event for another.)

The best part of all this has been the response by Vince McMahon, chairman of the WWE. He spoke some legal-ese today, pointing out there was no pre-emption provision in the WWE’s contract. But in an interview yesterday, he brought the showmanship his wrestlers are famous for, declaring Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke should be “arrested for impersonating a good businessman” and challenged him to a steel-cage match.

He also got in this zinger in a company news release:

Even though the Denver Nuggets had a strong team this year and were projected to make the playoffs, obviously Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke did not have enough faith in his own team to hold the May 25 date for a potential playoff game.

No word yet on where the WWE will put on Monday’s show.

The NFL released its entire 2009 schedule Tuesday, but it’s eight specific games on the calendar that are the focus of a courtroom hearing in Washington, D.C. this week.

The octet of games will air later this year on NFL Network, which is owned by the league. Comcast has put the network on its premium sports tier, which costs extra on top of the standard digital package, where the league wants its network to be.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, claims it put the network in the premium tier because of high costs associated with carrying the channel; the NFL says Comcast put the channel there so as not to compete with Comcast’s own sports channels. 

An administrative law judge with the Federal Communications Commission will make a ruling that could have implications beyond sports:

It is the first big test at the FCC of a 1992 federal law that prohibits cable companies, such as Comcast, from favoring their own entertainment content over that of independents, such as the NFL Network. …[A ruling in favor of the NFL] could make it easier for independent programmers to gain access to cable systems, experts say.

This case is one of three that will be heard in the next few months by Judge Richard L. Sippel; another one, interestingly enough, involves MASN, the Orioles’ and Nationals cable network. After settling a separate federal suit against Comcast (over “split feed” advertising in the Baltimore and D.C. region) a little more than a year ago, MASN now wants Comcast to carry the channel in several southern Virginia markets.

OK, this post may get a tad convoluted, so please bear with me.

Yesterday I got an email from the listserv at Ram’s Head Live, the downtown Baltimore concert venue where I’ve seen two concerts in the last month, advertising a newly-announced show by indie-pop star Santigold. Now, the reason this caught my eye — I’m not a huge fan of her brand of punk-meets-reggae-meets-hip-hop-remix style — is because until a few months ago, the singer was known as Santogold with an “O.” This is important because 2008 was a break-out year for Santogold. She toured in support of British supergroup Coldplay, her album made influential music website Pitchfork.com’s Top 50 “best of” list, and her songs were remixed  by big-name DJs.

So I did some googling in search of an explanation, and ended up lost in a weird world of infomercials, space aliens, fake rock stars, and ’80s pro wrestling movies shot inside the Baltimore Civic Center (now 1st Mariner Arena).

Let me explain. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me say I never once illegally downloaded songs or videos when I was in college. Let me also say I’m glad not to be under oath right now.

However, if neither one of those things were the case, I’d be happy to have Charles Nesson on my side. Nesson, a Harvard Law School professor, has come to the aide of Joel Tenenbaum, a 24-year-old Boston University student who’s being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for downloading at “least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004.”

They want $12,000. Yeah, that sounds fair.

According to an AP story, of the more than 30,000 RIAA complaints issued, only one has gone to trial — “nearly everyone else settled out of court to avoid damages and limit the attorney fees and legal costs that escalate over time.”

Nesson is hoping to stop the RIAA by challenging the constitutionality of the law it’s using to bash people about the neck and shoulders.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.

Nesson, the founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said in an interview that his goal is to “turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency.”

Now I have no idea whether this will work, but I do think it’s an interesting tactic. Any lawyer out there have an opinion on the merits of Nesson’s position?

(In the interest of full disclosure: Entertainment attorney Jay Cooper, who is quoted in the piece and who specializes in music and copyright issues, works for the same law firm as my father, though in a different field of law and on a different coast.)

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist