It's practically illegal!

by crowscrowcrow

Rating: everyone
Tags: Other, Flim and Flam, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mistmane, Comedy
Length: 4426

Ponyville's first court of law is now in session. Flim and Flam are suing Mistmane for copyright violations on her own likeness?

At long last, Ponyville has its very own court of law.

Now it is up to The Honorable Judge Lady Justice to guide the citizens of Ponyville through their trials and tribulations. She's more than happy to get started, but her first case is a doozy! Flim and Flam versus Mistmane in a copyright dispute around the mare's own likeness. Can our intrepid heroine maintain her sanity and deliver justice?

Edited by the honorable Phaoray as usual.
As well as NightShadowMLP/thatdangfangirl the court appointed Bingo Editor.

Written for Shrink Laureate's Season 10 Bingo Writing Contest!
Find the other competitor's entries right here for more good reads.

Prompt: (Beware spoilers:)
Flim and Flam, Spies on, Mistmane, New Technology, Court of Law.

Published 2020-03-02 04:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-03-02 04:20:01 UTC

Case 1 - Mistmane's Domain

“All rise! The first Ponyville court is now in session. The honorable Judge Lady Justice presiding!”

That was her cue! How exciting!

Lady Justice trotted in and took her seat on the bench.

There were a lot more ponies in the public area than she was used to. No doubt drawn here by curiosity. It was the first day after all.

Gosh, it had that new courtroom smell and everything! She didn’t even know that was a thing.

Back in Canterlot, they all had that same stale odor. Same stale disputes. Same stale faces.

How lucky that she was assigned to Ponyville’s very first courthouse. How far her little hometown had come.

And, most importantly, no more long trips to Canterlot!

“Now then, let’s have a look at what we have here,” she said while rifling through today’s schedule. “The case of Flim & Flam Incorporated versus… Wait, Mistmane? THE Mistmane?!”

She fell silent for a moment as she stared at the defendant’s table. The sweet little old lady sitting there looked a little embarrassed with her unprofessional outcry.

“Yes, Miss Judge.” Mistmane replied from her seat. “I believe these fine young stallions have made some kind of mistake. That’s why we are here.”

A pair of familiar yellow unicorns sat at the prosecutor’s table. They had graced the town with their presence several times already. Weren’t they inventors or something?

There was something on the table, covered with a cloth. It was shaped like a cash register. Another one of their machines no doubt.

The brothers were looking intensely at it when it suddenly made a slight sound.

Ding

“Your honor,” Flam stood up, twirling his mustache. “Is the defendant not in contempt of court?”

Before she had a chance to respond, Flam sat back down but, as if they were on a seesaw, Flim rose up. “It is a tragedy – a travesty! – to refuse to use the propor honorific, your honor.”

“What?” Mistmane asked, clearly confused as she directed her attention back to Lady Justice. “I am not, miss, honestly!”

A back and forth squabble erupted, with some of the members in the audience adding their own two bits for good measure.

What a mess. And the proceedings weren’t even officially underway yet. Thank Celestia for the gavel!

She smacked the gavel onto the bench.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Order in the Court!” Lady Justice held the gavel up at a ready for any further interruption. “Miss Mistmane, it is customary to refer to the judge as ‘your honor’ did your legal counsel not brief you? Actually, where are the lawyers?”

It only just now occurred to her that the three of them were the only ponies at the tables, no lawyers on either side

The strange machine's sound repeated.

Ding

Flam sprung up once again. “Your honor, there aren’t many lawyers in Ponyville. Why, there are only three who are even licensed to practice in the general area. It was a small town until just recently after all.”

Lady Justice raised an eyebrow. It was generally understood that those who represent themselves had a fool for a client. She looked at them all in turn. “Are you certain you wish to waive your right to a court appointed attorney?”

“Yes,” the Flim Flam Brothers agreed in unison.

“That’s right,” Mistmane added. “We agreed not to involve anypony more than necessary. I hope that’ll be fine? I just want to get this over with.”

“I really don’t recommend it, but if that’s what you want…” she sighed. “We will proceed. Prosecutor, what are the specified charges?”

“Permission to approach the bench?” Flam held up what looked to be a stack of photographs. “My client, Flim & Flam Incorporated, is suing the defendant for infringement of trademark and copyright.”

“Granted.” She waved Flam over and examined the photographs. They were all of the same pony in various mundane activities. Half were artist rendered and the other half photographed. What was curious was the subject. “...These images are all of Miss Mistmane?”

“Correct!” Flam pointed a hoof at Mistmane. “As you can see in exhibit A, she has been shamelessly using her likeness in public! It is hurting our genuine glam photography series of legend: Flim & Flam’s Fabulous Pillar Picture Show!”

He obviously wasn’t speaking to her anymore at this stage and had instead turned toward the ponies gathered in the audience as he ran through some of the prices and available subscription models for their upcoming magazine.

“Mister Flam, please maintain relevance to the case.”

“Of course!” Flam spun back round to face her with a smile. “I was merely demonstrating the loss of revenue on our part.”

While Flam returned his attention to the case, Flim turned to sit backward in his seat, exchanging bits for ‘sample folders’ with the thrumming public.

Flam carried on as if nothing was happening. “The prosecution seeks monetary compensation and house arrest against the defendant.”

“Mister Flam, you are suing Mistmane, the pony, for infringement on her own image?”

“Correct!” Flam flashed a flamboyant smile. “I knew you would understand.”

“You may be seated...” Lady Justice rubbed a hoof over her temple and slowly turned toward Mistmane. “How does the defendant plead?”

“Well, mi—your honor, I don’t think I did anything wrong.” Mistmane insisted. “Apparently, they’ve been selling these images to ponies. I would prefer it if they didn’t , but I do not have too much of a problem with that, even if I don’t see why anypony would spend their hard-earned bits on such a thing. However, I would think I’d have the right to my own likeness. It doesn’t seem possible that a pony merely walking outside would be breaking the law.”

“I’ll take that as ‘not guilty, your honor.’ At present, I would be inclined to agree.” The more she heard about the case, the surer she was that it should be Mistmane pursuing legal action against the pair. What was going on? “Mister Flam? Please explain why I should not throw this out immediately, make your case as to why you believe Miss Mistmane does not have the rights to her own image.”

“Why, it is simple, your honor!” Flim, rather than Flam chimed in. “Surely, we all know of Miss Mistmane and the rest of the Pillars, yes? Fantastic ponies who helped our precious Equestria through its beginning stages over a thousand years ago.”

"That’s right!” Flam cut in. “Ancient heroes, I’d say! Wouldn’t we all agree? Come on, folks, take a moment and put your hooves together for Miss Mistmane. A true hero of antiquity!”

It didn’t take much to get the public to give a standing ovation for the popular hero.

Blushing under the sudden onslaught of attention, Mistmane waved awkwardly. “Oh, you ponies are too nice. It was nothing really and so long ago. I am sure there are plenty of modern-day heroes.”

“This is a very nice gesture.” Lady Justice smiled. They weren’t so bad. Just a little confused on the laws. She practically lived for that. Helping ponies work out legal disputes often had an element of explaining the wonderful system of laws they had in place. “However, I have to ask you to keep it relevant to the case.”

“Ah, but it was!” Flam perked up. “The Pillars are valued heroes from over a thousand years in the past, brought into modern day! What a feat!”

“Unique, one could say!” Flim took over.

Flam once again stepped in. “Why, in all that time since their last act of heroism so long ago…”

“...Mistmane…” Flim joined his brother’s side.

The pair shared a brief look and a grin as they hooked elbows and leaned away waving their free hooves through the air for their final reveal.

“...has entered the public domain!”

With the exception of Mistmane and the Flim Flam Brothers themselves, the entire courtroom fell in collective stunned silence for a few long seconds, then burst into a dozen arguments at once all over again with twice the vigor.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Order! Order in the court!” Lady Justice yelled. “It’s great that you’re all so interested, but if you aren’t on this side of the bar, you will remain if not calm at least quiet!”

“I’m on this side of the bar,” Mistmane commented, still seemingly utterly confused. “What is the public domain?”

While she was still thinking on how to answer that, Flim seemed to realize he too was on the right side of the bar. She really should have phrased that better.

“My dear Mistmane, public domain means that nopony holds the rights to a particular person’s work or likeness. At that point, anypony is free to use it as they see fit. In this case, the historical figure of Mistmane... meaning you.”

“Y-you can’t be serious.” Mistmane paled, then looked toward Lady Justice. “Is that how it works? That can’t be true.”

“Well, I… I’m not quite sure. This type of thing doesn’t normally happen, but…”

Seeming to realize she was not getting much help, Mistmane turned toward Flim and Flam. “I… I object!”

“That isn’t quite how this works.” Flim grinned.

“But please, go on, what is it?” Flam smirked.

“That can’t be how it works. Princess Celestia would be in the same predicament as I am.”

“O-hoh! Comparing yourself to the princess, are you?” asked Flim with a mocking relish.

Mistmane looked uncomfortable, but remained resolute. “I saw her grow up, you know. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Now, now, Flim.” Flam pushed his brother away. “We’re honorable gentlemen. The lady asked us a question.”

“No, I didn’t.” Lady Justice replied.

“Ah, I meant…” Flam shook his head. “Never mind. The point is, Princess Celestia and her estate have stretched all the way through time and thus maintained her rights.”

“Princess Luna, on the other hoof,” Flim continued, “Her long absence is similar to your own, thought dead to most of the world. The rights to her likeness were in fact lost for a time. This is how we ended up with Nightmare Night.”

Lady Justice would like to have found some fault in all this, but that was usually the job of the defendant. Regardless of how intuitively unfair this seemed, the law was the law. “Alright, lets… let's entertain this train of logic for the time being. If Miss Mistmane is public domain, as you claim, how is it that you hold a copyright to her likeness? Can you explain that?”

“Gladly!” Flim replied. “Up until recently no pony was certain whether the Pillars of Equestria were real, much less what they looked like. It was Flim & Flam incorporated that first designed and produced the iconic emerald green and lilac with eastern accents look for the character.”

“It is entirely reasonable to copyright an interpretation of an unknown character. It just so happens that ours looks exactly like the original.” Flam rolled down a poster with a hoof drawn illustration of Mistmane. “A design that we copyrighted before the return of the Pillars, as you will see in exhibit B!”

“Before?” Lady Justice pushed the photos on her desk aside to see there was in fact an additional document at the bottom. “The dates listed here are a day after the appearance of the pillars in Equestria.”

“It… it what?” Flam asked, his confident smile wavering a moment, then he looked toward Flim. “Excuse me a moment.”

Flim lifted up the cloth just enough to stick his head under it, somewhat akin to a photographer. It was clear now that there was in fact a metal casing underneath.

A few metallic sounds were followed by yet another…

Ding

Flim re-emerged while Flam swiftly approached a hurried whispered exchange was had after which they traded places. Flim now taking the stand.

“Ah, I see you possess a sharp eye for detail, your honor.” Flim’s smile was as though it had never faltered. In fact he sounded even more sure of himself than Flam had.

“You cannot trademark the likeness of any living pony without their consent.” Lady Justice said while reaching for her gavel. “Case dismissed.”

There were always a couple of weirdo cases, but to have one right from the start...

Hopefully the next case would serve as a better example of court proceedings for the gathered crowd... if they were not too busy buying illustrations.

“Whoa there, your honor, let us not be hasty!” Flim called out just before she brought down the gavel. “Miss Mistmane is dead.”

A collective ‘what?’ rose from everypony in the courtroom, even Flam, but not Flim.

“I am not. I’m sitting right here!” Mistmane rightfully protested. “This is preposterous!”

“Well, perhaps not is, but she definitely was!”

“Hehe, I apologize everypony,” Flam said as he stood up and felt Flim’s forehead. “Clearly, my precious brother is delirious. Isn’t that right, Flim?”

“On the contrary, dear brother of mine!” Flim pushed away and held up a newspaper. “For you see… exhibit C!”

Canterlot Express:

The Return Of The Pillars!

“Have you gone mad? This disproves your case!” Flam asked, now visibly sweating.

“Does it now? Allow me to read you an excerpt.” Flim opened the newspaper and ran his hoof down the page 'til he landed on a small paragraph deep in the article. “Princess Celestia officially declares the once late pillars to be alive again.”

Mistmane came trotting up and squinted to read the line for herself. “So… what does that mean then?”

Flim began, exhilarated. “It means that, legally speaking…”

“...You were dead until the moment the princess made that declaration, reinstating your living rights.” Flam finished, dragging a hoof across his face at the sheer stupidity of it all.

Bam!

“Now, see here, Mister Flim!” Lady Justice shook her gavel. “This is an edge case, and while it might be according to the letter of the law, it is certainly against the spirit of Equestria! We’re trying to protect pony rights here, not take them away!”

Looking just insufferably smug, Flim stroked his chin. “With all due respect, your honor, I am certain that those of the proper authority will hear of this and make the necessary revisions to the law to prevent something like this from happening again in the future… but we are in the now.”

Her hooves were tied. He was technically correct, the worst kind of correct. It was her job to follow the laws and judge accordingly, not to change them when they were leading to what she felt was an unfair outcome.

Honestly, just the fact that she had been racking her brain to try and come up with a defense for Mistmane was probably a black mark against her supposed impartiality.

Regretfully, she turned toward the defendant. “Miss Mistmane… do you have anything to say to defend your case?”

Flim flashed a victorious grin. “I’ll remind you that impassioned speeches won’t help you here.”

“I… I...” Mistmane looked lost. Obviously, she’d been unfamiliar with the local laws and had come in expecting to settle a simple and seemingly transparent dispute, not to twist technicalities into pretzels. “...I won’t be able to leave my house.”

Ding

Suddenly, Flam slammed both his hooves on the table. His head was lowered as he withdrew from the cloth on the machine and his mane covered his eyes as though he was unwilling to face the world at that moment. “Your Honor?”

“Yes, Mister Flam?”

“I can no longer represent my client in this matter.” Flam stood up and stepped away from the prosecutor’s table.

Flam crossed the aisle towards the defendant, much to the dismay of his brother. “Flam? Where are you going?”

“Mister Flam, I was under the impression you were representing yourselves, without a lawyer. What do you mean ‘client’? ” she asked, now starting to smell a rat.

“Yes and no, your honor. My brother and I are both bar certified after following a correspondence law school. We were representing each other in the case.” He turned back toward Flim. “I didn’t think this would actually work. Brother, I… I respect and love you, but… you’ve gone too far this time.”

“When you said there are only three laywers certified for the Ponyville area, you were referring to yourselves in an attempt to trick Miss Mistmane into attending at a disadvantage?”

“Yes, your honor.” He came to a stop at the defendant's table. “Miss Mistmane, could I perhaps interest you in hiring the best lawyer in the area?”

“I suppose you are referring to yourself?” Mistmane asked, brow furrowed now that she realized the con.

“No, Madam. I would not even come close. May I present to you…” He suddenly spun around and grabbed the corner of the cloth and pulled it off in one swift motion before Flim had time to stop him. “The Flim Flam Brothers’ Regulation Deployer Rules Lawyer!”

On the table stood a copper device somewhere halfway between a typewriter and a cash register. The display at the top that normally would show the amount to be paid was showing small letters instead and was bigger than usual.

Lady Justice could not quite make out the entire display, but she recognized the words ‘newspaper’ and ‘legally dead.’

“The Regulation Deployer Rules Lawyer was created by my brother and I to comb through any amount of data and produce the answer toward a specific query that is asked of it.” Flam declared with a good deal of pride in his voice that spoke to his love of the craft, not the con. “It took us months to input the entirety of Equestrian law into it, but I can assure you with certainty that all our simulations produced complete accuracy. It even passed the bar examination, the only perfect score in recorded history!”

“So, this is...” Mistmane started.

“Yes!” Flam pulled the machine off of the prosecutor's table and clanked it down in front of Mistmane. “The third and final lawyer certified to practice within the Ponyille area! The number one lawyer!”

Meanwhile, Flim was as white as the sheet now laying across his lap. “You, you can’t do this. We made it together!”

“Correct!” Flam spun around and marched back to the table, jabbing a hoof in his brother’s face. “Exhibit B! Who's the one who’s always registering our patents, eh, brother? Me! That thing is in my name, and I will do as I see fit!”

“Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal, brother!” Flim took off his hat and bit down in a rage, keeping himself from screaming. Lady Justice wasn’t quite sure if it was by luck or intent, but that probably saved him from being kicked out by the bailiff. “It matters not! The Rules Lawyer is perfect; I’ve already won!”

“We’ll see about that!” Flam spun around and pointed toward the machine and Mistmane. “The Rules Lawyer does not tell you what should happen in a case and who would win, instead, it tells you what path leads to your desired outcome! Madam, enter in ‘Not Guilty’ and do as it says!”

“No!” Flim tried to scramble across the table, but was pinned down by Flam.

While the two of them struggled, Mistmane observed the keyboard with a single hoof hovering above the keys as she looked over what seemed to be a random jumble of letters and numbers with no rhyme or reason.

“N… O… Y… Oh, fiddlesticks.” Mistmane looked up from the keyboard. “I hit Y instead of T, how do I fix it?”

Still rolling over the floor with his brother, Flam called out. “Hit backspace!”

“Okay, uhm, let’s see…” Mistmane gingerly pressed another button. “Oh, now there’s a blank space after the L. Is that good?”

“That’s space! Backspace is the one with the—Oof!” Momentarily distracted, Flam caught an elbow to the ribs and Flim escaped, bolting for the machine only to be tackled once more. “The arrow pointing left!!”

“Mhm… Arrow… I got one pointing right?”

“No those are the wrong arrows. You need the big one pointing left! Actually, never mind. Just hit the little left and then press Delete!”

By this point the bailiff arrived to assist Flam in restraining Flim.

“There is no left.”

“Of course there is a left, it’s to the left of the right one!”

“Which is the right one?”

Lady Justice calmed down the proceedings while Mistmane worked on her defense strategy with her new lawyer.

“The one you were just on!”

“No, I wasn’t. There is no left one.”

"Gah!" Flam cried out, exasperated.

“Flam, my precious brother. My eternal confidant,” Flim groaned into the ground while the two ponies were sitting atop him. “Please, for the love of Celestia. I’ll surrender. I’ll confess. Anything please! Just go over there and do it for her. I cannot stand to listen to any more of this!”

So ended what felt like the most excruciating twenty minutes Lady Justice had ever presided over.

Flam hit a couple of keys and then turned the machine back toward Mistmane, tapping the display.

Squinting, Mistmane read aloud: “Exhibit B. Page 2… What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lady Justice flipped back to the copyright registration forms and flipped to the next page. There were more entries, and her eyes widened as she read through some of them. “These are six more registered designs, all of them exactly matching the Pillars, right down to the number of stars on Starswirl’s hat!”

“Oh, you two certainly lucked out.” Mistmane commented. “Or… maybe you knew what we looked like? We’d been in Equestria for a day when these designs were registered, weren’t we?”

“Yes, Miss Mistmane. That’s hardly a coincidence.” She turned her attention back to the Flim Flam Brothers. “If you knowingly based these designs on the historical ponies, you absolutely cannot trademark those designs. What do you have to say in defense?”

The pair looked at one another.

“Well, you technically can’t prove we didn’t just get lucky?” Flim tried.

“Oh, give it up already.” Flam smacked him across the back of the head. “We spied on them and we saw opportunity. Originally, the intent was to register and sell back the rights to the Pillars, but then bits started rolling in and… well, we figured Miss Mistmane was the easiest target. The rest is history.”

“I’ve heard everything I need to.” Lady Justice brought down the gavel one last time. “Case Dismissed!”

Bam!

There was just one last little matter to attend to next.

“Miss Mistmane, do you wish to pursue any legal action against the Flim Flam brothers?”

Mistmane took a long hard look at the pair, who did their utmost to look remorseful, one more successfully than the other. “No. No, I do not think that will be necessary.”

“Very well. In that case, I call for a twenty-minute recess before the next case. I think we’d all like the opportunity to cleanse our palate after all of this.” She paused and looked back at the mostly clueless public behind the bar. “...That means we’re taking a break. We’ll be resuming proceedings afterwards.”

“All Rise! Wait! No, don’t leave yet! Oh, forget it.” The bailiff had about as much chance of stopping the outpouring crowd as a school teacher had at stopping the students when the recess bell sounded.

Some things never changed.

“All rise! The first Ponyville court is now resuming. The honorable judge Lady Justice presiding!”

That was her cue. How exciting…

She could only hope this time it would be a little saner.

Lady Justice trotted in and took her seat on the bench once more.

Somehow, the public area was even more packed than it had been the first time, probably because ponies were informed of the last spectacle and were now here hoping to see another proceeding go down in flames.

Well that wasn’t going to happen.

“Now then, let’s have a look at what we have here,” she said while rifling through the rest of today’s schedule. “The case of Berry Punch versus Carrot Top. What seems to be the issue tod—”

Ding
Ding

“—What the buck?”

Sitting on the Defendant’s tables was what was unmistakably The Flim Flam Brothers' Regulation Deployer Rules Lawyer!

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor's table now held its identical twin brother.

As did three more ponies in the crowd, while dozens more were holding scraps of paper with the letters ‘I.O.U.’ written across the front.

“So… this is your legal counsel, then?” she asked the question, but only in the vain hope that the obvious answer was the incorrect one.

“Yes, your honor! We bought them before they left.” Berry Punch responded and then squinted at the display. “It says Exhibit B, page 2!”

“Hah, I’ve got you right where I want you!” Carrot Top added as she typed her question into the machine. “Aha! Exhibit B, page 2!”

Oh no. Was she going to have to put up with two of these machines battling it out now?

Rubbing her temple already, she closed her eyes and held up a hoof. “Hold on a moment, ladies. You have not submitted any evidence yet.”

“Evidence?” They both asked.

“Well, yes?” Of course, unlike actual legal counsel, the machine couldn’t brief them on procedure. It just kept getting worse. “I can’t look at any of it till you hand it over. You may approach the bench.”

“Alright, well… mhm. ‘How do I get evidence?’ I guess that should work.”

“Oh, good idea!”

The tapping of hooves on the metal keyboards could be heard.

Ding
Ding

Lady Justice took a deep breath, then opened her eyes. Both mares were still in their seats consulting their respective answers. They seemed confused. “Is something wrong?”

The pair shared a look with one another then sheepishly turned the machines around, showing their results.

Exhibit B. Page 2.

The Flim Flam Brothers were nowhere to be found.

Author's Note

Disclaimer:
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, nor do I have any idea whatsoever how any of it works!
I tried my best. Please, do not sue me! :fluttershbad:

With that out of the way, this was a lot of fun. I don't usually write much outside of my ongoing stories and this was a good excuse to try something new. The prompt I was given for the
Season 10 Bingo Writing Contest was as follows:

Flim, Flam, and the Law? Couldn't be better. :rainbowlaugh: