Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin, whose Rebels have won often this season ( 9-3 overall, 5-3 in the SEC ), won in a Mississippi federal court on Monday. U. S. District Judge Michael P. Mills granted Kiffin’s movement to dismiss counselor Keith Bell’s trademark infringement lawsuit, which centers on Kiffin tweeting a duplicate image of Bell’s” Get Section” in 2022.
Mills brutally criticized Bell. Bell is a” known aggressive litigant” who “uses shakedown claims” to try to “obtain towns from defendants who made the mistake of tweeting a article” from the WIN Section, according to the judge. Bell has filed more than 25 rights claims, some against public institutions and organizations, over their use of the section on social advertising.
Bell created the paragraph, which is about 230 thoughts, years ago and obtained accompanying trademark protection. The paragraph maintains that winning is “highly unexpected” and requires “extraordinary” activity. Bell provides licenses for the section for those who want to use it, but Mills noted that “anyone who visits the defendant’s web today can view the entire Get Passage for free, at various links on that site,” Mills noted.
Mills also criticized Bell for “appearing to have an incredibly high opinion of the artistic value of his WIN section,” Mills continued. Mills ridiculed Bell’s claim on his website, saying it is “probably the most read &, commonly used literary work in background”!
” This unusual claim, with which Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Faulkner may get issue”, Mills maintained, “frankly causes this jury to wonder whether it is dealing with a plaintiff whose feet are firmly planted on the ground”.
The judge determined that Kiffin’s use of the WIN section was protected by good use, which is a legitimate form of reproducing. Mills wrote that “anyone reading Kiffin’s post would believe that this was merely him saying, in impact,’ somebody said this, and I thought it was for sharing.'”
Although Mills acknowledged that it would have been “preferable” for Kiffin to have” credited Bell with authorship of the quote,” the lack of attribution is not legally meaningful.
Mills argued that courts should be “very hesitant” when determining copyright violations from people who post “inspirational quotes” on social media.
” Many Americans”, Mills maintained, “would find to represent an appropriate, or even laudable, use of social media, even if the poster is unable to remember exactly who said it”.
Mills wasn’t persuaded by Bell’s suggestion that Kiffin had economic motivations when writing the tweet, either. According to Mills, Bell believed that Kiffin’s tweet was intended to “help him recruit players to Ole Miss” and to “drum up business for his motivational speaking side gig.”
The judge argued that “each of these allegations has no actual basis for them,” and that” Kiffin clearly appeared to be indicating that he was expressing his feelings by donating a photocopy of a published work.”
Mills mentioned that if Kiffin had made a comment in his tweet that suggested economic motivations, the analysis would have been different. The judge said Kiffin might have written,” come play for me, and you’ll get motivational coaching like this”! or” come to my motivational seminar, and you’ll hear inspirational messages like this”!
But he didn’t, and Mills surmised a mere tweet containing a photograph of an inspirational message doesn’t indicate economic motivations.
The situation is not always over. Bell can appeal to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Meanwhile, in granting Kiffin’s motion to dismiss, Mills mentioned that Kiffin could file a motion that would seek to compel Bell to pay his attorneys ‘ fees.