Saturday, November 04, 2006

"I've put people in jail for this kind of shenanigans"

That's what Judge Kaplan said to attorney David Einhorn during Friday's hearing. Although the Einhorns promised in court back in April to de-register Edward Einhorn's unauthorized derivative "blocking and choreography" script, they still haven't done it.

Apparently the Copyright Office will only accept one of three reasons (in writing) as valid for the de-registration of a copyright - the material wasn't copyrightable; the derivative copyright wasn't authorized; or fraud.

Instead of multiple choice, the Einhorns tried to turn it into an essay question and get extra credit for creativity. Instead of picking the choices the Copyright Office offered, David Einhorn wrote a letter saying that since they no longer had any intention of suing us over the copyright, it was no longer needed (!!!!)

As a result, the Copyright Office wouldn't de-register the copyright. Which is why we asked the judge to have a talk with David Einhorn. Judge Kaplan was not pleased to see David Einhorn, and gave him two weeks to de-register the copyright. He said many other choice things and I hope to post the court transcript here soon.

One of the most appalling parts of the hearing is that at one point Einhorn seemed to be trying to convince the judge that since the Einhorns promised they wouldn't take action against us in the future for violating an unauthorized derivative copyright, we should all just forget about cancelling it. As if the entire trial, and their agreement to de-register the copyright, and the $100K+ we spent never happened. The reason we had a trial is because that is exactly what they kept offering us during settlement hearings - a promise not to sue us in the future for violating Edward's unauthorized derivative copyright.

We will NEVER accept Edward Einhorn's unauthorized derivative copyright on TAM LIN. The Einhorns may live in some dreamland where people go through hell to get a copyright deregistered only to say - "oh, you don't think you should have to admit it was unauthorized because you (incredibly) say you don't believe it was? OK then, never mind." But I don't live in dreamland. And neither does Judge Kaplan. And if the Einhorns don't snap out of their dream and do the right thing in the next 2 weeks, Judge Kaplan may well throw a bucket of ice water in their faces.