Articles

TASA ID: 22108

"Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech… the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately," according to its October 25 news release. That statement conveys a principled and admirable stance against the antisemitism shown by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West after his anti-Semitic tweet on October 10 that he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Yet Adidas waited much, much longer than other companies that cut ties with Ye. Even Ye’s own talent agency dropped him before Adidas. In fact, Adidas delayed so long that Ye taunted them on his October 16 appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, saying, "I can say anti-Semitic things, and Adidas can't drop me. Now what? Now what?"

TASA ID: 22108

Imagine you are driving along the highway, and see an electric sign saying, “79 traffic deaths this year.” Would this make you less likely to crash your car shortly after seeing the sign? Perhaps you think it would have no effect.

Neither are true. According to a recent peer-reviewed study that just came out in Science, one of the world’s top academic journals, you would be more likely to crash, not less. Talk about unintended consequences!

The study examined seven years of data from 880 electric highway signs, which showed the number of deaths so far this year for one week each month as part of a safety campaign. The researchers found that the number of crashes increased by 1.52% within three miles of the signs on these safety campaign weeks compared to the other weeks of the month when the signs did not show fatality information.

That is about the same impact as raising the speed limit by four miles or decreasing the number of highway troopers by 10%. The scientists calculated that the social costs of such fatality messages amount to $377 million per year, with 2,600 additional crashes and 16 deaths.

TASA ID: 21826

“Hey, that sounds familiar…where have I heard that before?”

To answer this type of question, copyright infringement cases often require the assistance of a musicologist.  But what can you expect when hiring one?  There are essentially three areas where a musicologist can be a resource: musical comparisons, prior art searches and expert testimony as to similarity.

TASA ID: 1056

The social impact of the Spanish Flu and Covid-19 are eerily similar. There are many things we can learn from the 1918 Pandemic’s impact on society, the economy and employee behaviors. Similar to Covid-19, businesses and schools were forced to close, social distancing was the new norm, economies took a terrible blow and production was slowed. One of the most important lessons we have learned from the Spanish Flu is that we cannot ease our guard too quickly. In the summer of 1918, we thought we had conquered the pandemic; however, it lasted through the spring of 1919 because we underestimated its resistance.

TASA ID: 321

As a former law enforcement officer, a security expert and an expert witness, I have seen countless videos of police using force on a suspect or perpetrator. In today’s world, the use of cameras by the police and by the public in taping an incident, while creating a picture of how the incident went down, do not always tell the entire story or even show the events as they actually happened. The assumption is that if a video shows a police officer using force on someone, it explains the entire scenario. That is not always true! The video can only capture an event and it does not take into account the human elements of fear and other specific details that must be considered. As attorneys, knowing how these human elements play into the use of force by the police in any given situation is imperative when trying a case that involves a use of force video of the police.