Costume Bawl: Times Sq. Furrry Panhandlers Pose 1st Amendment Problem

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Times Square street performers cloaked in familiar costumes and the First Amendment are upsetting tourists and unflappable New Yorkers with aggressive panhandling and antisocial behavior, the Associated Press reports.

Dora the Explorer, the Statue of Liberty, Super Mario, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Spider-Man are among the Times Square denizens who pose for photos in hopes of receiving payment. Unfortunately, according to the AP story, in recent months a Cookie-Monster costume-wearing 33-year-old Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez was charged with assault, child endangerment and aggressive begging for allegedly pushing a two year old, while someone dressed as Elmo was not tickled when he was ordered to perform two days of community service for disorderly conduct that included an anti-Semitic rant. Who knew Sesame Street was such a tough neighborhood?

City councilors are hamstrung because they perceive folks merely walking around in a costume in Times Square as First Amendment protected activity. Indeed, court challenges halted police who were ticketing street performers who lacked proper tax documentation. Police can issue tickets carrying $60 fines if the furry posers block traffic, sell merchandise without a permit or demand money for being photographed, so there is some recourse if, for instance, Mickey & Minnie start acting Goofy. Still, any enforcement must be content-neutral to withstand a First Amendment challenge.

Neither Disney nor Sesame Street has given its blessings to the street performers for donning costumes that resemble the characters whose ownership rights belong to the companies, but as a practical matter,  mobilizing big-ticket law firms to round up the decidedly not deep-pocketed street performers for a trademark infringement suit isn't economically feasible.

The hard-working staff of "TUOL" grew up in the metropolitan New York area and has seen characters a lot scarier than Dora the Explorer roaming around in Times Square.  As the saying goes, freedom of speech comes at accost.

Fired Spider-Man Director's Copyright Suit Has Producers Climbing the Walls

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeOh, what a litigious web we weave....

Director/writer Julie Taymor, who last March was relieved from the helm of the controversy-plagued $75 million Broadway play, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, has filed a $1 million copyright infringement suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In her complaint, Julie Taymor & Loh, Inc. v. 8 Legged Productions, LLC et al (Case No. 1:2011-cv-08002), the plaintiff alleges the musical's producers, Glen Berger, Jeremiah Harris and Michael Cohl, breached a contract that allegedly gave her approval rights over changes to the play's book and owe her royalties for performances since April when the snake-bit (radioactive spider-bit?) production was revamped. She further alleges the adapted version of her stage directions and dialogue currently playing on Broadway constitute copyright infringement.

Other named defendants include Savior Productions, LLC, Goodbye Entertainment, LLC, and Hello Entertainment, LLC.  Judge Richard J. Holwell is presiding over the case.

The defendants have yet to respond to the complaint, which was filed November 8, but already, "TUOL"'s intellectual property-sense is tingling.