Don’t watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

Ravant

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,385
besides the nazi furries, they're objectively better than the nazis hiding among us
Which, the Furry Raiders are definitely a problem. They're the reason the GOP thinks there's litterboxes in schools, they're the reason conventions traditionally meant for adults to have parties with other adults at are disappearing in favor of "family-friendly" events that more or less ban any boozing, schmoozing, or otherwise enjoying one's self in a 21+ fashion. And because the Furries are doing it, it's expanding to other fandoms/conventions as well.

While I'm not much of a partyer in my day-to-day life, I do like to hit up a con once or twice a year just to let down my hair, so to speak. Increasingly moreso in the current political environment. (Seriously, there are people out there dealing with Mango Mussolini and his maggots who aren't driven to drink? Stronger individuals than I, for sure.)

Anyway, I just came in to this post to comment that putting this kind of watermark on a legal document is a Bad idea. A Bad Dragon if you will.
 
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Ravant

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,385
See, if this were his own personal fursona that he lovingly commissioned to the tune of several hundred dollars, I'd respect that. But some cheapo $20 art that he bought because "people like dragons"? Come on. Fursuit in the courtroom or bust.
This had me legitimately cackling. But also, you aren't wrong.
 
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ranthog

Ars Legatus Legionis
15,324
Which, the Furry Raiders are definitely a problem. They're the reason the GOP thinks there's litterboxes in schools, they're the reason conventions traditionally meant for adults to have parties with other adults at are disappearing in favor of "family-friendly" events that more or less ban any boozing, schmoozing, or otherwise enjoying one's self in a 21+ fashion. And because the Furries are doing it, it's expanding to other fandoms/conventions as well.

While I'm not much of a partyer in my day-to-day life, I do like to hit up a con once or twice a year just to let down my hair, so to speak. Increasingly moreso in the current political environment. (Seriously, there are people out there dealing with Mango Mussolini and his maggots who aren't driven to drink? Stronger individuals than I, for sure.)

Anyway, I just came in to this post to comment that putting this kind of watermark on a legal document is a Bad idea. A Bad Dragon if you will.
The GOP thinks there are litter boxes in schools because they are maliciously lying. It has nothing to do with anything going on in real life. (Like public schools could afford kitty litter.)

No amount of being careful or masking who you are is going to stop them from making this shit up.

Personally, I don't think the image is the problem, but the fact that it makes reading the filing difficult. There is no excuse to have a giant watermark like that in the middle of the page, especially since they appear to already have their logo on each page.

So yes it is unprofessional, but not because of the dragon lawyer image.
 
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Ravant

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,385
The GOP thinks there are litter boxes in schools because they are maliciously lying. It has nothing to do with anything going on in real life. (Like public schools could afford kitty litter.)

No amount of being careful or masking who you are is going to stop them from making this shit up.

Personally, I don't think the image is the problem, but the fact that it makes reading the filing difficult. There is no excuse to have a giant watermark like that in the middle of the page, especially since they appear to already have their logo on each page.

So yes it is unprofessional, but not because of the dragon lawyer image.
The public schools had kitty litter in them for a much darker reason: School shootings. The kitty litter sops up the blood pretty quickly and makes cleaning up much easier. It was just co-opted. Furry Raiders are just GOP/Furry Nazis masquerading as an "in group" to try and push their agenda. It's every bit as insidious and malicious as you say it is. I absolutely agree with you, and the capitulation on the part of convention organizers is erasing the foundations of the reasons for these events in the first place.

I don't blame them in this current political climate, but that's the long and short of it.
 
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ranthog

Ars Legatus Legionis
15,324
What is especially surprising to me is how prominent it is. They could have greatly reduced the visibility of it. (I can't think of the term. Transparency? Intensity?) I just played around with it and you can definitely make it way less intense. They deserve all the rebukes they got.
Honestly, I'm surprised the courts even allow watermarks in filings. If I'm a judge, I don't want anything to make reading harder.

Not only is it opacity still way too high, but it is too large and should be monotone. Full color illustrations don't make good watermarks.
 
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ranthog

Ars Legatus Legionis
15,324
The public schools had kitty litter in them for a much darker reason: School shootings. The kitty litter sops up the blood pretty quickly and makes cleaning up much easier. It was just co-opted. Furry Raiders are just GOP/Furry Nazis masquerading as an "in group" to try and push their agenda. It's every bit as insidious and malicious as you say it is. I absolutely agree with you, and the capitulation on the part of convention organizers is erasing the foundations of the reasons for these events in the first place.

I don't blame them in this current political climate, but that's the long and short of it.
That isn't why they had kitty litter. They had kitty litter, so the students didn't have to pee their pants during an extended lock-down.
 
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McKoogly

Smack-Fu Master, in training
78
I worked with a ex-DOD personnel. At one point in time, he printed out in 10% greyscale Leslie Nielson wearing a bustier on a couple of reams of paper. He walked around the Pentagon putting a few sheets here and there into top secret labeled printers. So somewhere, probably floating around still, from 35+ years ago, behind a top secret government printout is Leslie Neilson....
 
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Sabirythia

Smack-Fu Master, in training
75
Subscriptor++
Are you still a furry if the thing you are into doesn't have any fur?
Yes.

Furry is short for Furry Fandom, a community of people into anthropomorphic animals. This also extends to non-anthro versions of characters within the fandom. For instance, a scaly quadruped dragon lying in a field can still be "furry art" despite having no fur and not being anthro.

Not sure the logo is even really furry though. It is anthro, but furry characters tend to have meaning ascribed to them as individuals. This is just a logo to sell stuff, and a cheap one at that.
 
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steelcobra

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
9,863
Yes.

Furry is short for Furry Fandom, a community of people into anthropomorphic animals. This also extends to non-anthro versions of characters within the fandom. For instance, a scaly quadruped dragon lying in a field can still be "furry art" despite having no fur and not being anthro.

Not sure the logo is even really furry though. It is anthro, but furry characters tend to have meaning ascribed to them as individuals. This is just a logo to sell stuff, and a cheap one at that.
1746221579933.png
 
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Echohead2

Ars Legatus Legionis
61,767
Honestly, I'm surprised the courts even allow watermarks in filings. If I'm a judge, I don't want anything to make reading harder.

Not only is it opacity still way too high, but it is too large and should be monotone. Full color illustrations don't make good watermarks.
I think they should have made it so light that someone reading it would be like "Is there a watermark there or something?" So barely noticeable that you could miss it.
 
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starglider

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,147
Subscriptor++
LOL the website is amazing. Seriously, go look at it. The links at the bottom don't have a URL associated with them. "Divorce" just links to "divorce" for example (and some of them don't even link to the same text that's in the description). The picture of their headquarters is a screenshot of an iphone camera roll, including the button to OCR image text.

Maybe he used LLMs to build the entire site? It's kinda fun to click around; it has strong Geocities energy.

Edited to add: ROFL! It has a shopping cart! hahaha there's actually a shopping cart component. You can't add anything to said cart, but it's up there! There's even a login page. This is definitely the funniest lawyer site ever, especially because it's clearly meant to try to be professional, but it's like he tried to build a house out of spare parts from a Pontiac Aztek.
 
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Grey Bird

Ars Scholae Palatinae
759
Subscriptor++
Probably an individual judge thing. Judges have very wide latitude in how their court rooms are ran. Pretty much the rule is "Do what the judge wants, even if it violates the law. You can appeal later." Hard to win a case when you are in jail for Contempt of Court. Very possible a different judge would have been rolling on the floor laughing.

At least the lawyer seemed smart enough to pay for the rights to use the image.
...but was he smart enough to pay for commercial usage?
 
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Shavano

Ars Legatus Legionis
68,863
Subscriptor
I think even more horrifying is

I'm sure eventually it get to be useful, but AFAIK it's mostly more trouble than it's worth to lawyers because you have to go through and check every single link and citation/etc.
Only if you care what happens when you get caught out with fakes.

They don't strike me as the kind of lawyers who care about little details like that.
 
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LOL the website is amazing. Seriously, go look at it. The links at the bottom don't have a URL associated with them. "Divorce" just links to "divorce" for example (and some of them don't even link to the same text that's in the description). The picture of their headquarters is a screenshot of an iphone camera roll, including the button to OCR image text.

Maybe he used LLMs to build the entire site? It's kinda fun to click around; it has strong Geocities energy.

Edited to add: ROFL! It has a shopping cart! hahaha there's actually a shopping cart component. You can't add anything to said cart, but it's up there! There's even a login page. This is definitely the funniest lawyer site ever, especially because it's clearly meant to try to be professional, but it's like he tried to build a house out of spare parts from a Pontiac Aztek.

Take a look at the events!
1746312368457.png
 
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SeanJW

Ars Legatus Legionis
11,923
Subscriptor++
Where legal pad meets trapper keeper. Big Lisa Frank energy.

It's a very real thing. I knew a legal practitioner with the initials MRC. So his domain was mrclaw .... as a joke (seeing he was a personal friend as well as client), the graphics team mocked up a vulture squeezing blood from a stone for the corporate letterhead. It took a very long while to talk Mr Claw down from actually using all that as his corporate image.
 
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LOL the website is amazing. Seriously, go look at it. The links at the bottom don't have a URL associated with them. "Divorce" just links to "divorce" for example (and some of them don't even link to the same text that's in the description). The picture of their headquarters is a screenshot of an iphone camera roll, including the button to OCR image text.

Maybe he used LLMs to build the entire site? It's kinda fun to click around; it has strong Geocities energy.

Edited to add: ROFL! It has a shopping cart! hahaha there's actually a shopping cart component. You can't add anything to said cart, but it's up there! There's even a login page. This is definitely the funniest lawyer site ever, especially because it's clearly meant to try to be professional, but it's like he tried to build a house out of spare parts from a Pontiac Aztek.
I'm sure the five star review from "anonymous" totally didn't come from Perrone himself either.
 
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caseybee

Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
108
Is there actually a legal reason for this? Or is this just a "Judge doesn't like it" sort of thing?

I mean, it IS juvenile and I get why it would be annoying as hell, but I'm curious as if to there's anything beyond a dislike in this.
It shows a lack of respect for the court. Kind of like if the lawyer showed up to court wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
 
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meh
copy & pasted a blog full of bad grammar on a properly headed court document, saved as .pdf & filed a small claims case against uber for human labor trafficking...

uber settled for $7500 during mediation the max allowable in that county

so did it again with house money & uber settled again during meditation for $10,000 . $2500 over the max

figured Id go for 3 as I never bothered to read anything I signed to get the money(who cares or entertains human traffickers documents? )

apparently I wasnt allow to sue a 3rd time

oh well
screenshot those ride requests human trafficking victims of uber / lyft / gig apps

appears you cant agree to work for 2-5 times LESS THAN minimum wage (99% of ubers requests since 2015 lmao)

CONtracts that require labor to drive 1-10+ miles & pick up a burger or human & drive another 1-10+ miles taking 20-40 minutes & paying $2-4 GROSS is literally human trafficking

costs $200 to file

cheers

ymmv
oh uber human traffickers did include a nda in the settlements but again who the fuck listens to human traffickers? lmao

bet all u tech winners with these modern slave apps who get food other than pizza & chinese delivered tip big too

newsflash delivery aint free it aint 3.99 either its costs more than the poison your getting delivered, kinda like the bottle costs more than the vodka inside

an "indpendent contractor" needs a mininum $10ish that goes 100% to them on every delivery are you tipping $8+ every time? driver got $2 haha

if not congrats you didnt use a whip or chain you did just use a modern slave though

techilnically anything under min wage is illegal & modetn slavery no?

typically pizza delivery got min wage + mileage + tips...

gig apps get $2 net on 99% of rides if you didnt take a 30+ miles yup yous a slave user & if you did go 30 miles it was at a 1971 taxicab rate but technically over minimum wage still so not illegal but ethically really

shame mericans shame
 
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It shows a lack of respect for the court. Kind of like if the lawyer showed up to court wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
I go to small claims in a mask with jeans full neck gaiter on looking like a bank robber or crooked cop, doo rag & gang affiliated hat included lmao

fuck a court that shit deserves no respect thought it was blind so clothing matters in "justice" ?hmmmm

the lack of respect was the 7 people in an empty building stealing tax payers money including the judge since apparently my case was only one scheduled & it takes over 6 months for the one case

how much the city spend on just poor ol me that day lmao clowns all over

amazon sent 4 lawyers really fancy suits

uber sent 7 lawyers to small claims only to continue it since they ignored it & were late then settled 2 times

corporate land lord sent 3

techinally 5 for 5
victorious

i mean i only got 200 from lanlords but apparently red lining is legal if you put it in page 666 of the lease, I mean im old school leases were on 1 page & cant really negotiate corporate ones

so yes you can be kicked out for sending a rude email : )

no hard feeling bet the chicken in the walls, 30K spent goin to court was actually rude of me ; )
 
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