The Questionable Authority

The "command relies on trust" part is important, and I may not have made that explicit enough.

Two words:
Clip
On

Yes. But to be fair it's possible to have reasonable confidence that prior FBI directors had the ability to tie a necktie.

Gray is a simple man 🖊️🦑

"I stand by him and the combat decisions he made" - what a toad.

Look, I didn't know it came in a goldfish bowl when we ordered them, OK?

Times like this, I love both that I'm now back on the outside looking in, and that I'm doing so with the insights I got from being inside (and you, and certain of your former colleagues in the industry).

Honestly, had a good chat with the streamer, and probably will do a collab. It's similar to issues we've seen in the game space, where there are legitimate concerns about the abusability of provisions that we find utterly necessary.

Also mentioned your Eldar while we were chatting.

It's not like we've never run into this problem ourselves - people are so conditioned to getting screwed over in those things that bad-faith reads are legitimately protective, but you can't do the good stuff without opening abusable avenues either, leaving you vulnerable to the bad-faith read.

OK, that was a hell of a lot of fun. Thank you.

Is streamer W4sted Space an attorney?

Agreed.

But also the only Christmas special even arguably in the same league as Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is Charlie Brown.

Honestly, I really don't see much in here that alarms me.

The "we may use automated and/or algorithms" is probably nothing they can't do without a license and has a good set of limiting terms.

I am very much not seeing what you are seeing.

A non-exclusive license lets them do what they want (they almost certainly could even without one, at least under US law, anyway) but doesn't give them ownership.

Don, any thoughts? You've got more in this area than me. But to me, on superficial read, this looks like the rare case of a well-counseled company that's looking to support modding and streaming. Actually wondering if I know anyone who helped with this.

@legalminimum.bsky.social

But was not quite as good as the John Denver and the Muppets TV special.

I'm not asking that you articulate the concerns. Just that you identify - as in give me section numbers - the stuff that's standing out so I know where to look.

I think the reasonableness is going to be context-dependent. Probably would be patently unreasonable with a 50 lawyer firm. This is apparently a 5 lawyer firm, which I think changes the calculus on that at least slightly.

I agree that it's an interesting question to enjoy from a safe distance.

So, again, maybe you're seeing things I'm not, and please feel free to point me at specific provisions - I'm not engaged enough to do a deep dive read for everything - but this looks to me like the kind of TOS I'd prefer to see more of.

Honestly, while I can see why people might think there are issues, this looks overall to be one of the more UGC-friendly TOS I've seen. And the license-back provision is...I'm not sure it's strictly necessary to allow that level of permitted modding, but I'd want it if I was drafting that for sure.

To what extent does a Court's inherent authority over the profession coincide with the model rules (or jurisdictional equivalents)? Particularly 5.1(c)(2)?

Can a Court conduct an inquiry as to who knew what and when for the purpose of assessing responsibility under that principle?

Long way from that, still, but the benefit of the doubt will start to see a slide in the amount of doubt that can be found soon - if it hasn't already.

We're a knowledgeable bunch.

Representation agreements are generally with the firm, not the individual lawyer, and even if the whole firm has not appeared, I think they're on the hook.

*Might* not extend to associates, but IMO partners are probably screwed and unlikely to get out of it on jurisdiction.

Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

The Lion in Winter is a *better* Christmas movie.

Thanks, all. It feels very good to know the support that I have for Law Dork and the work I do there.

It’s been a really long year and this last month is going to be a LOT, but I am grateful to everyone who chipped in over the past 4 days. You gave me space to focus on the work. It means a lot.

I used to joke-but-not-totally that the international dispute resolution I studied (the kind @jjgass.bsky.social does) was difference because it's about money, which you can put a value on, unlike human life, and therefore it had to work.

holyfuck

But also:
Thinking that Iraq would move the needle, when that would require most of the world to admit that they'd been played, strikes me as a little sweet summer child-ish.

Yeah, there's a lot pushing against it. Balance of probabilities, safe money bet even, is nothing happens.