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Before we get into copyright infringement, first let me do you a favor. If you haven’t watched the video of Weird Al Yankovic’s “Word Crimes,” you have to check it out on YouTube. Weird Al has been churning out great song parodies since the 80s, but Word Crimes may be his magnum opus. It’s so good. Word Crimes is a parody of “Blurred Lines,” a song by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams that generated controversy from the start. First there was the music video, which was a little, uh . . . PG-13? Then people started scrutinizing the cringey lyrics. […]

Checking in on our favorite non-compete fact pattern You might be wondering what happened to our friend Dawn Davis. Well, with the housing market booming, the window business is doing well. Dawn just had her best year of sales at Paula Payne Windows. But Dawn felt like she wasn’t getting a big enough cut of the profits. So she jumped ship and went to work for Real Cheap Windows. Trouble is, Dawn had a two-year non-compete with Payne, and Payne sued, asking for an injunction and damages. The judge denied the injunction, but the case is about to go to […]

Try This One Weird Trick for Denying the Right to Vote On this Juneteenth holiday, let me introduce you to Dr. Lonnie Smith. He was a dentist living in Houston’s Fifth Ward in the 1940s. Dr. Smith wanted to vote in the 1940 Democratic Party primary elections in Harris County. This was important, considering Democrats dominated Texas politics at the time, as they did in the other Southern states. The winners in the primary would effectively be the winners in the general election. But Dr. Smith could not vote in the primary for one simple reason: He was an African-American. […]

It seems like everybody has a podcast, including lawyers. So why don’t I have one?

Sometimes the conventional wisdom about business development isn’t exactly right.

Should we do the deposition in person or by Zoom?

Ok, I don’t really want to lose. But I don’t want to be *afraid* to lose.

Does an injunction have to specifically identify the restricted customers and confidential information?

Lessons learned from parachuting into a lawsuit midstream (I know, mixed metaphors).

Is the balance of hardships relevant in a non-compete lawsuit?