What began as being too lazy to shave while on vacation last week has morphed into my first deliberate attempt at facial hair.

My goatee will be gone by the weekend, when I have to be in pictures for a family wedding, but for now it’s growing on me. (Ha!)

Whether I sport a goatee in the future will largely depend on what a future Mrs. Jacobs thinks of it. But then I read about Head and Shoulders insuring the flowing locks of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu for $1 million.

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Paul Allen

Happy Monday! While Danielle tries not to be a hurricane, finding those delicious legal tidbits is up to me. Here we go:

• Law Shucks calls it Paul Allen’s “gift to BigLaw”: the Microsoft founder is suing Google, Apple, YouTube and other Internet giants for patent violations.
• A group of Kansans is arguing the state’s selection and appointment process for Supreme Court justices violates the 14th Amendment because some commission members are only selected by lawyers. (HT: Constitutional Law Prof.)
• Thank you, Legal Marketing Blog.com!
• Meet the lawyer who will be representing Roger Clemens in the star pitcher’s federal perjury case. (HT: WSJ’s Law Blog.)
• Disturbing, potentially devastating news from the Jersey Shore. (I never thought anything could overshadow “That’s one shot!“)

If I had a time machine, one of my first stops would be newsrooms across the country in the mid-1990s. (My second stop? Where Hall met Oates, of course.)

“This ‘Internet thing’? Not only is it here to stay but it is the future of information sharing,” I’d tell the assembled newspaper people. “Start charging people for your online content now or you’re going to be in a heap of trouble in 20 years.”

I thought about this while reading a story in The Las Vegas Sun about its rival paper’s attempt to prevent websites and bloggers from posting entire stories instead of just links to the source. The Las Vegas Review-Journal‘s “copyright enforcement partner” has sued at least 86 websites for copyright infringement, seeking $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the domain names.

Here’s how it works, according to the Sun: the R-J’s partner, Righthaven LLC, scours the Internet in search of a copyright infringement. It then purchases the copyright of that specific story from the R-J’s owner and sues the website owner.

Critics acknowledge the paper and Righthaven have copyright claims but accuse them of using heavy-handed tactics on “mom-and-pop” websites, like the lawsuit filed against the cat-centric blog. One journalism professor calls the lawsuits “the McDonald’s coffee cases of copyright litigation — lawful but preposterous.”

I recommend the Vegas Sun’s story, if only for the fantastic analogies involving a 1967 Corvette and a pig. The lesson here is always give credit and link to an original source in your blog posts. (Thanks for the tip, Above the Law! Thanks for the illustration, e-how!)

Because you never know when private eyes are watching you.

Uh oh, sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!!! Hopefully our law links provide the antidote. (Note: Loyal readers recall Caryn Tamber writing last week that Danielle Ulman would take over the blog round-up. Danielle will, but today she is getting situated in her new business-of-law chair, so you’re stuck with me.)

“Is there a legal angle to the WikiLeaks story?” The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog asks — and answers that it’s unlikely the government can successfully prosecute anyone connected to the leak.

• Who knew pomegranate juice had so much bite? A D.C. judge prevents the National Law Journal from publishing details from documents it legally obtained in a lawsuit involving Hogan Lovells and POM Wonderful.  (HT: ABA Law Journal)
• Above the Law wishes good luck to everyone taking the Bar Exam this week. (As do we. But really, shouldn’t you be studying?)
• Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the best ways to recruit clients, and here’s a study that proves it. (HT: LawMarketing Blog)
• First Mel Gibson. Now Oliver Stone? Oy!

One of the best parts of the World Cup is the national teams’ nicknames. You’ve got the champion Furia Roja and the runner-up Oranje, not to mention El Tri, the Super Eagles and the Blue Samurai, to name a few.

(You can see a full list here. The U.S. is nicknamed the Yanks, which is, well, kinda lame.)

Outside of the Socceroos, however, the best nickname is Bafana Bafana, which belongs to South Africa. Sort of.

That’s because the phrase “Bafana Bafana” (Zulu for “boys, boys”) was actually copyrighted by a South African businessman in 1994. The South African Football Association, which uses the name, lost a lawsuit before the country’s highest court for control of the name in 2002.

Earlier this week, a South African government official suggested Bafana should be changed because of the lack of a copyright. As the AP noted in its story, “There is no indication the current owners of the brand will sue SAFA for using the term, but the country’s soccer association is unable to market it and make money from it.”

SAFA officials said this week they might seek the public’s help in choosing a new nickname. One thing’s for sure: whatever is chosen will probably be better than the Yanks.

(Hat Tip to vuvusela2010bafana.wordpress.com for the photo above.)

Last time I wrote about Southwest Video, the Halethorpe business was closed even after the county Board of Appeals ruled it was improperly shut down by county officials. Southwest did eventually reopen – only to be shut down last week once again by county officials.

Meg Ferguson, the county hearing officer, ordered the business closed July 1 until it removed all of its “viewing booths and video display devices.” Ferguson also fined Southwest $13,200 on top of the $50,800 she fined the business in the spring for operating an adult entertainment business in a prohibited commercial zone.

Mike Mohler, deputy director of the county permitting office, said he and colleagues would be returning to Southwest today to make sure the video booths had been removed.

Howard Schulman, Southwest’s lawyer, called the closing illegal, alluding to his earlier, successful argument that a court order and the accompanying due process are necessary to shut the business down.

“The county unfortunately has resorted to illegal methods to enforce what it says is the law,” he said.

Schulman said Southwest is considering its legal options, one of which is to sue the county for damages in order to “decide the matter once and for all in a judicial setting.” (Southwest has filed two mandamus-related lawsuits against the county stemming from the zoning and code enforcement actions.)

All of this comes as the Baltimore County Council approved Tuesday more restrictive zoning laws for adult entertainment businesses. Among other changes, stores with adult content that exceeds 15 percent of the total inventory would be classified as adult entertainment businesses and must be located in manufacturing zones. That’s down from the 20-percent threshold but more than the 5-percent figure proposed in response to Halethorpe residents’ complaints about Southwest during a council session in May.

Schulman, who skimmed the legislation when I called him, said it seemed “too broad in terms of its scope and reach.”

A gloomy day like today feels closer to winter than summer. But warmer days are ahead and, as Frederick Rasmussen points out in his always-entertaining Sunday Sun column, we’re days away from Straw Hat Day.

It seems Baltimore men of a bygone era took out their straw hats May 15, unofficially marking the start of summer the way a Memorial Day weekend traffic jam on the Bay Bridge does today.

“In those days it was the mandatory finishing touch for a man when dressing,” said Eddie Jacobs of the eponymous men’s clothing store. (As far as I know we are not related.)

Jacobs also noted that “June 1 to Sept. 1 was seersucker and cotton season.”

Rasmussen has more:

After an eight-month slumber, out from hat boxes and darkened closets emerged jaunty straw boaters, sometimes called butcher’s, sailor’s or skimmers, and Panamas, with their center crease and thin black band that circled the hat’s crown.

In turn, they became the crowning touch for the lightweight Palm Beach, linen and seersucker suits that men wore in an attempt to deal with Baltimore’s infernal heat.

Loyal readers know exactly where I’m going with this. Be on the lookout!

The last time I wrote about the Prigel Family Creamery was in July, when Bobby Prigel and his Bellevale Farm Inc. received a $250,000 loan from the county for their proposed creamery and store.

It turns out that shortly after the loan was announced, opponents of the Glen Arm business filed a second lawsuit against the creamery seeking to halt its opening. (The first lawsuit, arguing the creamery is prohibited under a state easement regulation, is on appeal.)

The second lawsuit, which also names the the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, alleges Prigel did not submit all “plans, specifications and other information” as required by DHMH, and that DHMH is awaiting final plans even after the building’s shell has been completed. The lawsuit is specifically concerned about a “lack of a plan for wastewater treatment,” which could harm the groundwater used by the Prigels’ neighbors.

Lawyers for Prigel, in seeking to dismiss the complaint, point out the creamery has not applied for nor been issued a milk processing permit and that the building itself remains unused and vacant. A lawyer for DHMH, in a similar motion, called the complaint “premature” and said the public would be better served by the lawsuit’s dismissal.

“DHMH’s willingness and availability to work with permittees prior to the submission of an application is exactly the kind of service the citizens and State desire and deserve,” the motion states.

Judge H. Patrick Stringer denied a defense motion to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing last week in Baltimore County Circuit Court on grounds that the defense did not directly address the plaintiffs’ claims in its motion to dismiss. Stringer denied the motion without prejudice, however, meaning Prigel could file another motion to dismiss in the future.

Following the hearing, Prigel’s lawyers indicated they were gathering evidence from DHMH to show compliance with state building regulations.

Certain people would have no problem being snow-bound for a couple days at the Bethesda home featured Friday in a fabulous Washington Post story. The Tone Drive mansion has hosted several BDSM parties the past few months.

(“BDSM”, as the story notes, stands for “bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism.” If you want to find out more, I suggest using your home computer, not your work one.)

The story is about how one of the home’s renters received a written warning from Montgomery County zoning officials because he has been charging admission to the parties, commercial activity largely prohibited in residential areas.

The zoning issue alone would have been enough for me to blog about this story. But then there’s this gem of a quote about the type of people who attend the parties:

“An amazing cross-section of humanity,” says Susan Wright, founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. “Men, women, transgender, heterosexuals, gays, bisexuals. Every ethnicity. White-collar and blue-collar. It’s really very, very diverse — though we do have an unusually high percentage of lawyers. I don’t know why.”

Sounds like I have a story to work on after I dig out of the snow.

I wrote in today’s paper about the third lawsuit filed against Scott D. Shellenberger in his role as Baltimore County State’s Attorney.

That begs the question: What are the other two lawsuits? Glad you asked. The first one, filed in April 2008, came from a prisoner in Cumberland seeking to waive a filing fee prepayment, a request that was promptly denied.

The other one, filed last May, remains open and could have widespread ramifications. An Arbutus distributor of gaming devices has asked a judge to declare pull tab gaming machines legal in Baltimore County.  Acme Amusements argues the machines are not slots in part because the element of chance comes from the pull tabs, not the machine containing them.

“The machines at issue in this case do not read the pull tabs or any tickets electronically, do not alert the user to a winning or losing ticket and do not tabulate a player’s winnings or losses,” the company states. “As such, they fall outside the definition of ‘slot machines’ and are not illegal devices.”

The company cites the Court of Appeals’ Chesapeake Amusement decision in 2001 to explain why it proceeded with its declaratory judgment action. The defendant in that underlying case was the Calvert County State’s Attorney.

Tim Maloney, Acme’s lawyer, said he expects lawyers from the Office of the Attorney General to argue the case during a hearing scheduled for April.