President-elect Donald Trump has reached a multimillion dollar settlement in the fraud cases against his now-defunct for profit Trump University. Trump will pay a reported $25 million settle the case, and will pay up to $1 million in penalties to the State of New York for violating state education laws.

There were three lawsuits pending against Trump University; two class action suits in California and one case brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. According to Reuters, all of the cases would be covered in the settlement.

Schneiderman has said that more than 5,000 students were defrauded out of $40 million after paying up to $35,000 to learn all of Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors.

Trump’s settlement comes across a bit ironic; Trump has said many times that he doesn’t settle cases. In fact, at the Republican presidential debate in Detroit, Trump said:

I don’t settle cases. I don’t do it because that’s why I don’t get sued very often, because I don’t settle, unlike a lot of other people.

However, he seems to have reconsidered his staunch stance.

So the orange sleazeball is going to avoid trial on the Trump U case! Settlement with no admission of guilt. What a load of crap!

— philip harris (@pharris830) November 18, 2016

U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel urged both parties to settle. He is the same judge that Trump claimed couldn’t be impartial in the case because he was “of Mexican heritage.”

Trump has categorically denied any wrongdoing in the case, and even claimed that 98% of the people who signed up for the courses expressed satisfaction with them.

A spokesperson for Schneiderman said he “has always been open to a settlement that fairly compensates the many victims of Trump University who have been waiting years for a resolution.”

Interviewer: so it says here you went to TU? What school is that?

Trump University

Interviewer: pic.twitter.com/J9WJCu5pXK

— Kevin Flood (@FLOOKLYN) November 18, 2016

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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As a future law student who plans to focus my studies on Intellectual Property, I navigate news aggregation sites thirsty for some juicy copyright and trademark infringement stories. Protecting and recovering property is what I’m about. After all, there’s ingenuity, labor, and profit to protect!

Therefore, when Getty Images turned over a new legal leaf this week, I found myself confused, annoyed, and relying on my inherent sarcasm to get me through this bit of tough IP news.

Getty Images, a large and well-known image licensing company, is seeking to make less aggressive copyright enforcement a priority. Aww, so endearing, isn’t it? *Cue eye roll*

For years, Getty has been equipped with (and fully utilized) software that flags illegal reproductions of its images on the Internet. Once flagged, Getty would send a rather stern note to the party that is allegedly infringing its content. Threats in the letter include costly litigation avoidable by settlement penalty payments and licensing and enforcement fees.

Recently, the leader of Getty Images’ global legal team, John Lapham, explained to GigaOm how Getty’s “enforcement policies are being ramped down…We’ve changed the program quite a bit to remove penalty and fees.”

Retrospectively, there were hints along the way. In March, Getty allowed free embedding of a majority of its images. For Getty, the move allowed access to more user data, advertisement insertions, and metered payments to Getty photographers. For users, the watermark was removed from this group of images, but critics still say “the implementation is hideous.” Ouch.

A Getty spokesperson extended Lapham’s explanation, stating in an email:

Our aim is to approach infringers as customers and to educate them—and anyone else who is new to licensing—about how to license imagery properly. To this end, at the beginning of this year we changed our approach to remove additional fees—“fees” being a percentage of the costs we incur in detecting unauthorized use and recovering the cost of the license. We now endeavor to recover the cost of the license fee only—there is no additional fee or penalty—and we only seek payment from registered businesses that are using an artist’s exclusive content to promote their own business.

So, Getty wants to treat infringement as just a customer mistake. A far cry from the intense lawsuit spree it executed earlier this year.

I appreciate the little licensing lesson that Getty is offering. But I disagree. A photographer worked hard for that photo, positioning the subjects, adjusting the lighting, staging the background. As Getty tries to promote its new tactic as one that helps the creative community, my years of studying communication and media make that hard for me to believe. The credibility associated with Getty is built upon the corporate and legal muscle it provides for artists. By diluting that practice, I worry and feel for the artists who license their work through the company.

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What is really going on in the patent world these days?  Last week I told you about the allowance of Apple’s ban on Samsung’s imports of infringing products. The Obama administration proclaimed Samsung ban bad, Apple ban good. And the American Gods were pleased. But this week, there seems to be a different narrative in the loop.

Nokia, the maker of my first flirtation device, doesn’t seem to be having the same luck as Apple these days. InterDigital, a company that states they are in the market of developing and licensing wireless technology, brought a patent infringement suit against Nokia for the use of certain mobile phone technology. The International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in Interdigital’s favor, and Nokia appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And here’s where it gets juicy: among the arguments presented, Nokia asserts that the ITC shouldn’t even have jurisdiction in this case.

Nokia contends that the ITC should not hear a case if the company’s business is solely to patent troll. I agree! The ITC can prevent the import of products that infringe on a patent to the detriment of a U.S. business. But is patent trolling conducting business in the US?  I think not. The ITC is allowing itself to become a shopping mall for these patent mongrels that just acquire patents with the sole purpose of litigation them and collecting royalties. Of course, InterDigital contested this label by stating that they actually research and develop patents versus just buying them to defend or sell the rights. Some of our favorite companies – Amazon, Hewlett Packard, and Red Hat – filed briefs against InterDigital with supporting evidence to the contrary. But ultimately, the whole discussion proved to be futile as the ITC determined that a business with the purpose of patent collection is still a “US business” and, thus, may be protected by import bans imposed by the ITC.

Here’s what really chaps my cheeks: the purpose of the ITC is to “treat information quality as integral to its development, including creation.”  How are they furthering this purpose when they’re hindering innovation and promoting the procurement of patents, not as a means to protect creation but as a way to obtain licensing fees?  Why should InterDigital be able to stop the import of certain 3G devices when they aren’t even making any themselves?

Given our current economic deficit, you’d think we would refrain from sustaining unfair trade practices against our own businesses.  I’m not following the logic behind the rejection of this case when it’s an issue that so conspicuously needs further discussion.

Gena.

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Featured image courtesy of [ngader via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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