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Private Fetishes

Max Mosley, one of the two architects of modern Formula One racing, has won a judgment for invasion of privacy in British court against a tabloid newspaper that accused him of having a Nazi-themed orgy with hookers. Mosley was awarded a record £60,000 compensation after winning his privacy action against the News of the World, which had accused the 68-year-old son of 1930s Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley of taking part in a “sick Nazi orgy” with five prostitutes. Turns out, of course, that Max is just into heavy S&M. Max Mosley Case: How Girls Described Fetish Scene In Court [Sky News]. His defense was that he liked to do this, in private, and it was no one’s business.

Yeah, right:

Mr. Justice Eady, who sat straight-faced through a revelation that sessions sometimes involved a man dressed in a judge’s gown, heard that [the hooker’s] wardrobe included a nurse’s outfit, a maid’s outfit, a schoolgirl outfit, a peasant girl outfit and an army girl outfit. It is ironic that Mosley’s action for invasion of privacy had the effect of letting daylight in on what [another hooker] called “private experiences in private places.”

That’s not the only irony. Now Mosley’s private — and rather embarassing — peccadillos have been exposed for the whole world to see. The tabloids are having a field day! Max Mosley Case: Inside the Hidden World of the Women Who Cane ‘Little Boys’ for Cash [Mail Online]. And among others, three-time F1 world champion Jackie Stewart said today that Mosley must step down. He may not be a Nazi, but little Maxie’s days in motorports are clearly numbered.

What is a Market?

The French have views that strike Americans as strange on lots of issues, like Middle East terrorists, mistresses, Web censorship and now trademark rip-offs. So it was a big relief when, after last month’s French decisions for Louis Vitton and Hermes against eBay, the U.S. courts disagreed. It’s Up to You, Tiffany, to Keep the Counterfeiters Away [Law Blog-WSJ.com]. (The French apparently never got the memo that the Internet is a borderless network where national law can’t be effectively applied.) Seems that Tiffany’s high-priced lawyers argued that there was so much counterfeit merchandise sold on eBay that the company somehow had a legal obligation to police its auctions.

Well, that’s backwards. Intellectual property owners already can demand “notice and takedown” of infringing materials; the same thing is undoubtedly true of eBay. All that Vuitton, Hermes or Tiffany’s had to do was monitor auction and sales listings and notify eBay when they found fake items. Well, it’s much easier just to shift blame — and money — to someone else than take responsibility. All this case was about was moving financial responsibility for the cost of running a business (jewelry) from the retailer to the “deep pockets” dot.com company. That’s shameful.

In fact, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Sullivan in New York ruled that eBay and affiliates can’t be held liable for trademark infringement “based solely on their generalized knowledge that trademark infringement might be occurring on their Web sites.” The judge reasoned that when Tiffany notified eBay of suspected counterfeit goods, eBay “immediately removed those listings.” That’s the correct decision and strikes the appropriate balance between IP holders and Web sites, IMHO.

Rules of War In Occupation

The Department of Defense is prosecuting a Marine Lieutenant, Ilario Pantano, for murder arising out of the shooting death, at an Iraq checkpoint, of two suspected “insurgents.” Allegedly, Pantano ordered other troops to remove the suspects’ handcuffs and look away, and then shot the pair in the back, vandalized their vehicle and hung a sign over their corpses bearing a Marine slogan: “No better friend, no worse enemy.”

Pantano protests that it’s impossible to differentiate between innocent civilians and potential terrorists in the environment of “post-war” Iraq. The problem, here, hoewver, is that both sides are at least partially right. As the 1968 Mi Lai scandal in Vietnam shows, a civilized society must have rules of behavior even in warfare. But the situation in Iraq is poised precariously between war and police-state security. More than 1,700 of our troops have been killed, the majority in car bombs and other “IED” attacks, after “major combat operations” ended in May 2003.

How in hell are these young men supposed to know who the bad guys are? Isn’t this just second-guessing combat decisions made in the fog of war? Genocide is one thing, but in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, this prosecution strikes me as one making a scapegoat of a solitary solider in order to offer a patina of legitimacy to the atrocious inhumanity of what’s really going on over there.

America decided long ago that we could not be the “world’s policemen.” Now the miltary is doing just that in Iraq. The “rules of engagement” need to be changed, fundamentally, so the troops can defend themselves and do their jobs without being blown up by rag-heads whose idealogy is to kill Westerners, not matter why, just because they are not Muslims. As long as America remains an occupying power in Iraq — which is what we are in reality — this problem will not go away by itself. Even worse, Pantano gave up a lucrative career as a New York investment banker to enlist in the Marines to defend this country. He deserves better thanks than a trumped-up murder prosecution.

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