Somewhat tongue in cheek, we looked on Wednesday at the potential copyright implications from a back and forth between Governor Charlie Baker and Barstool Sports, which sells “Free Brady” T shirts (playing on Shepard Fairey’ famous Hope image) challenging the New England Patriots’ quarterback’s suspension by the National Football League (“DeflateGate” or “Ballghazi,” depending on who you ask). Gov. Baker recently wore a competing vendor’s “Free Brady” T shirt when doing the Ice Bucket Challenge. Given the sales potential arising out of one of the biggest stories in the country right now (insert decline-of-society comment here), however, the financial stakes are no laughing matter. The response to Wednesday's post has been overwhelming; we had more visitors in a three-hour window than we typically get in a month.
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Topics:
National Football League,
Copyright Act,
David Portnoy,
Free Brady,
Barstool Sports,
DeflateGate,
I Love Boston Sports,
Ice Bucket Challenge,
Shepard Fairey,
Copyright,
Senator Obama,
NFL,
Hope,
Tom Brady,
Ballghazi,
Charlie Baker
Tom Brady will be in New York today at a hearing in the litigation over his 4-game suspension by Roger Goodell for allegedly being “generally aware” of the deflation of footballs in the AFC Championship thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts last winter. For good legal analysis of the absolute fiasco that is the NFL’s attempt at a middle-school science project (instigated by the condition of a football introduced from the opposing team—but congratulations on another AFC Finalist banner) and the resulting adjudicatory process, I suggest John Dowd’s blog (“The NFL's investigation of and rules against Tom Brady are a travesty, and they've resulted in uncalled-for penalties. And it's all based on a report that lacks basic integrity, fairness and credibility.”). Dowd is an experienced federal prosecutor and led the investigation, among others, into Pete Rose and gambling for Major League Baseball. Most notably, he was sufficiently offended by the whole exercise to take the issue up with no relationship to the parties. Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk and Steph Stradley have also covered the story well.
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Topics:
Left Shark,
ProFootballTalk,
ALS. Metro,
Copyright Act,
Pete Frates,
David Portnoy,
Indianapolis Colts,
AFC Championship,
Free Brady,
Mike Florio,
Barstool Sports,
Jacqueline Kennedy,
John Dowd,
Ice Bucket Challenge,
Shepard Fairey,
Major League Baseball,
Copyright,
Roger Goodell,
Senator Obama,
Hope,
AFC Finalist,
Andy Warhol,
Tom Brady,
Charlie Baker,
Massachusetts Governor,
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