NYT TECHNOLOGY: Lawyers Barred by Madison Square Garden Found a Way Back In
By Kashmir Hill
Section: Technology
Source: New York Times
Published Date: January 16, 2023 at 02:00AM
Since last summer, MSG Entertainment, which operates Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, along with other venues and restaurants, has sent letters to adversarial lawyers at around 90 firms: “Neither you, nor any other attorney employed at your firm, may enter the Company’s venues until final resolution of the litigation.” The purpose, according to MSG Entertainment officials, is to prevent the collection of evidence “outside proper litigation discovery channels.”
Benjamin Noren, an employment lawyer, called that “ludicrous.” His firm is representing ticket resellers in a lawsuit against the company, and he is on the banned list though he is not involved in the case. He called the ban “a transparent effort” by MSG Entertainment and its chief executive, James Dolan, “to stop attorneys from suing them.”
A ban based on employment status alone would generally be difficult to enforce, because someone else could always buy the ticket. But MSG has effectively deployed facial recognition, a technology it has been using for security reasons since 2018; over Thanksgiving weekend, MSG’s technology spotted and turned away a lawyer accompanying her daughter’s Girl Scout troop to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.
And in recent months, lawyers on the watchlist trying to go to Christmas shows, concerts, and Rangers and Knicks games were turned away after they passed through a metal detector where the facial recognition system matched their faces to photos taken from their firms’ websites.
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By Kashmir Hill
Section: Technology
Source: New York Times
Published Date: January 16, 2023 at 02:00AM
MSG Entertainment resorted to facial recognition technology to kick out legal foes, but some have undermined the ban using a law passed to protect theater critics in 1941.
The problem with going to battle against thousands of lawyers is that it is likely to lead to lawsuits. And then the battle will inevitably head to their home turf.Since last summer, MSG Entertainment, which operates Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, along with other venues and restaurants, has sent letters to adversarial lawyers at around 90 firms: “Neither you, nor any other attorney employed at your firm, may enter the Company’s venues until final resolution of the litigation.” The purpose, according to MSG Entertainment officials, is to prevent the collection of evidence “outside proper litigation discovery channels.”
Benjamin Noren, an employment lawyer, called that “ludicrous.” His firm is representing ticket resellers in a lawsuit against the company, and he is on the banned list though he is not involved in the case. He called the ban “a transparent effort” by MSG Entertainment and its chief executive, James Dolan, “to stop attorneys from suing them.”
A ban based on employment status alone would generally be difficult to enforce, because someone else could always buy the ticket. But MSG has effectively deployed facial recognition, a technology it has been using for security reasons since 2018; over Thanksgiving weekend, MSG’s technology spotted and turned away a lawyer accompanying her daughter’s Girl Scout troop to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.
And in recent months, lawyers on the watchlist trying to go to Christmas shows, concerts, and Rangers and Knicks games were turned away after they passed through a metal detector where the facial recognition system matched their faces to photos taken from their firms’ websites.
Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/technology/madison-square-garden-ban-lawyers.html
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