Law Prof Rapper

My Civ Pro colleague Adam Steinman has already published several major articles in less than three years in this business.  He reveals another side of his talent in this Tax Rap video, entrant #145 in TurboTax's Tax Rap Contest (hosted by Vanilla Ice and blogged here):

The grand prize is $25,000.  The deadline to submit entires is March 30.  Voting begins March 31 and ends April 8.

Adam is an important contributor to Cincinnati's strong showing in the SSRN law school rankings.  Perhaps Cincinnati will be at the forefront of a new law school ranking metric:  YouTube video views!  Schools wanting to jump ahead of the curve may troll next year's meat market for joint J.D.-Music degrees!

My colleague Tim Armstrong, our IP guru, blogs an interesting legal aspect of Adam's video.  His original entry contained a reference to Tony Danza, which caused TurboTax to reject the video on the ground that it infringed Mr. Danza's intellectual property rights. Tim's detailed post contends that Danza does not have any rights under either copyright or trademark law, and that his only arguable claim rests on the right of publicity.  In the end, Tim concludes that "perhaps Intuit is right; hearing the words “Tony Danza” might indeed call to mind Tony Danza, the celebrity, and perhaps that’s enough for liability. I’m inclined to think that ... there’s room enough for Tony Danza to make a comfortable living off his natural talents without forbidding Adam to utter Tony’s name in a rap about tax preparation software."