Timeline for If someone falsely claims to have a Ph.D. on the jacket of a book and they profit from that claim, is that criminal fraud?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 20 hours ago | comment | added | ohwilleke | @Brian I wonder if authorship alone is an advertisement or a promotion of a business. A book isn't generally considered a business and advertisement arguably is modified by "business" and not just "other promotion" | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Brian | Just to provide an example of a state law which prohibits this, Texas PCC 7.32.52 disallows using a fictitious postsecondary degree "in a written or oral advertisement or other promotion of a business." | |
| yesterday | comment | added | eps | @NuclearHoagie oftentimes corps will settle even if the case against them is legally dubious if the settlement amounts to a pittance, particularly when compared to the amount it would cost to fight it out in court (along with the potential for bad press). looks like MLP is a pretty good example of this, given the actual refunds only cost them at most about 20k, with the bulk of their hit being lawyer fees (~1 mil). FIghting it in court, even if it was extremely likely or even guaranteed they would win would have cost much more, along with dragging out the controversy. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | bdb484 | I'm waffling on whether there's a uniform federal answer. My first thought is that lies are generally protected by the First Amendment, but then my next thought is that that's less true in the context of commercial speech, but then my next thought is that the only commerce here is the sale of pure speech, so we may be back to the beginning. Not sure how it would shake out. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Nuclear Hoagie | Makes me think of the Million Little Pieces controversy - Random House was sued by (and settled with) readers who felt defrauded by the author's claimed identity and the book's misrepresentation as a true memoir. Although that's an unusual case where the author's identity is inextricably entwined with the material, even more so than Kiyosaki as you mention. The personal identity of an author won't usually be as relevant to the book itself. | |
| yesterday | history | answered | ohwilleke | CC BY-SA 4.0 |