LSU Law School Sues Student Over Website

hij writes: "The NY Times has an article that gives details about how the LSU Law School is suing one of its own students for a web site he maintains. The web site contains information about the Law School and also includes articles that are critical of the Law School."

Comments

I think he should change his site.

[PD]

The site doesn't pop right out as a criticism site. If he named the site lsulawsucks.com and put his criticisms on the front page, I'd say that LSU was being a bully. But, the front page of his site has all sorts of helpful links to admissions, grading scale conversions, etc. that one would EXPECT to find on an official university page. He doesn't even have a disclaimer on the front page. Based on that, I'd say that his site could definitely be confused with an official LSU site.

He should change his site to make it completely obvious that it's not an LSU site. If it's a criticism site, then he should drop the helpful links to various university departments.

Re:I think he should change his site.

[rbeattie]

I agree with you - though he does have this at the bottom of the front page: "Not affiliated with the Paul M. Hebert School of Law" I don't think that's enough.

The design of the site isn't amatuer at all (a hell of a lot better than some University sites I've seen) it doesn't have a tag line that would help a random reader understand at first glance. Something like, "An actual student's helpful guide to LSU Law" near the top or something like that would go a long way to avoiding confusion.

Whether it's illegal or not, I don't know, but it doesn't seem like a horrible claim to me.

-Russ

Re:I think he should change his site.

[Saib0t]

The design of the site isn't amatuer at all (a hell of a lot better than some University sites I've seen) it doesn't have a tag line that would help a random reader understand at first glance.

So, by your standards, a person making a web site about his school or about any "official" organisation should make his website look crap for the viewers to easily make the difference?

And about the tag line, there's a line on the bottom of the site stating "Not affiliated with the Paul M. Hebert School of Law" just like the one present on the official site that states (on the bottom too) "Official website of Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center." I think that's enough to make a difference. Why would a "non official" website need to make its "not being official" clearer than the official one?

Why is there a need to say that you're not the official website anyway? Not to mislead people? AFAIK, that applies only if the website is (intentionaly?) misleading, which doesn't seem to be the case here...

this is what working in "acedemia"...

[globaljustin]

does to good people.

The school does not have a case using copyright infringement for commercial gain. As someone who has studied copyright law and the internet, I can say that they have no case. They are trying to contend that his site was confusing partially b/c it used school colors...ridiculous. Most judges would throw this out.

The professors at the school are taking themselves and their "academic reputation" way to seriously. The only thing this lawsuit will do is get alot of good press for the student.

Anyone (myself included) who has been blackballed by faculty in a University setting knows that some professors really do buy into the "Ivory Tower" idea. It's sad but true.

[off topic...the nytimes article mentions a suit against pensacolachristianschool.com. You should check it out if you want to know more about schools suing regarding web content.]

Saves me time and application fees

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually planning on going to law school next year, and this was one of the places that my radar picked up. I'm really glad they did this now, so I, and everyone else who ever thought of applying here, won't have to waste time, money, and energy figuring out that this is not the kind of legal education I want.

I wish more institutes of higher learning would identify themselves as being on the "never go here under any circumstances ever" list by attacking their own students like this.

Lawyers are the biggest abusers...

[Futurepower(R)]

Lawyers are the biggest abusers of the law, I've noticed.

Re:Lawyers are the biggest abusers...

[Kierthos]

The above is an example of truly astonishing ignorance (and flame-bait).

No, it's not. You cannot truly abuse a system until you know it. Lawyers have years of classes, easy access during school years to Lexis-Nexus (free during law school, after that you pay) where they can look up law cases and precedent, and they generally command more respect in a court of law then someone without a law degree representing themself (pro se).

Just as someone who knows the code, line by line, for a program can perform manipulations of that program much easier then someone who has not studied it, lawyers can easily manipulate the law to their effect.

Kierthos

Oh No!

[Greyfox]

He hurt our feelings! Hit a little too close to the truth these days and people get all bent out of shape. Apparently these folks have yet to realize that the negative publicity generated by taking action against their guy gives them 10 times more of a black eye than if they'd just ignored him. Most of the people considering the school would never have heard of this guy's site, but now the whole thing's been plastered all over the New York Times. And who wouldn't look at that and think twice, really?

Re:Looks like the student is gonna make a good law

[Binky The Oracle]

Had they talked to him before filing suit, they wouldn't have been setting an appropriate example for all of their students. Sue first. Ask questions later.

Yes, I'm being facetious (mostly) but kneejerk internet domain lawsuits seem to be the rule, not the exception. Why talk about it when you can probably bully the domain owner into a settlement?

That seems to be the rule for most corporate lawsuits anyway.

They should be paying him, not suing him

[Simon Brooke]

The Site in Question is lsulaw.com

OK, let's do a quick comparison.

lsulaw.com

• Clear layout, loads fast
• Consistent navigation
• Clearly labelled links to all major departments of the School
• Clearly labelled links to information about the school
• Clear links to other Web resources of use to law students
• Works well in all browsers including text browsers

law.lsu.com

• Flash intro screen, doesn't work on all browsers, alternative redirect doesn't work on all browsers..
• Gaphics-heavy site, takes for ever to load.
• No links to other web resources of use to students
• All navigation is graphics without appropriate alt text, so unusable on text browsers or by visually disabled users

In other words, his is a reasonably competent, reasonably professional Web site, accurately describing the school, and theirs is an incompetent, unusable pile of dross.

I think that's what the quarrel is about, actually.

It's worth pointing out that because of the poor provision for disabled access, http://www.law.lsu.edu/ would be illegal in most of Europe.