Intellectual Property Law

Amazon Strikes Another Deal That Is Good for Amazon

Posted on May 22, 2013
While I'm waiting for the dust to settle and clarifications to be clarified I suggest you read John Scalzi's "Instant Thoughts" blog post on Amazon's new "Kindle Worlds". Scalzi points out what immediately occurred to me, which is that this is a very good deal for Amazon and probably not such a good deal for other participants...

Let's Try a More Rational Legal Approach to 3D Printing Law

Posted on May 21, 2013
Last Sunday, Cory Doctorow posted a piece on Boingboing noting that (some) patent lawyers were going more or less off the deep end in overreacting to patent challenges around 3d printing. It's nice to know that not all lawyers share the particular brand of paranoid lunacy exhibited by Finnegan there...

Who Really Owns The Librarian of Congress?

Posted on May 19, 2013
As new legislation makes its way through the halls of Congress to try and fix the mess highlighted by the Librarian of Congress's refusal to extend a DMCA exemption on cell-phone unlocking an important question has arisen: to whom, exactly, does the Librarian answer? It matters a great deal whether the Librarian is part of the Executive or the Legislative branch...

When A Lawyer Isn't Enough, Get an IP Lawyer

Posted on May 18, 2013
Mike Masnick has a long but really excellent column up on a tempest in my local teapot. The short form is that Jonathan Monsarrat and his lawyer/business partner have caused quite a stir in my part of the world by filing a raft of copyright, defamation, and generic John Doe claims over a years'-old incident...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

It's a Cartel, Not a Class (Action)

Posted on May 18, 2013
Reuters reports (here on HuffPo) that U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has denied a request by a group of "copyright owner" - which we understand to mean giant media corporations - to be certified as a class for class-action lawsuit status. That giant media corporations have no class should come as no surprise.

Nintendo Decides It Can Own Fans' YouTube Content

Posted on May 17, 2013
The games comment sites are a bit buzzed this week as Nintendo has made a very heavy-handed move to claim so-called "monetization" rights on fan-created content. The basic idea is that if someone makes a video of themselves playing a Nintendo game and uploads it to YouTube any ads shown with that video will be of Nintendo's choosing and revenue from it will flow to Nintendo...

Compulsive Looking and (Lack of) Copyrights At Museums

Posted on May 15, 2013
Museums are somewhat infamous for trying to stop people taking pictures of famous paintings on display. Some museums forbid flash photography with the argument that thousands of flashes would inevitably damage works that are often carefully hung with special lighting and protective surfaces...

Why Does Fashion Have Lots of Copying and Creativity?

Posted on May 14, 2013
An episode this week of Planet Money's podcast, called "Why Pink?", starts off being about the color of the T shirt they're making and ends up having some interesting things to say about copying in the fashion industry. The story starts with how the T shirt's hue is copied (or inspired by) predictions of trending influences, and elements like colors that are associated with those influences, and goes into a discussion about how the entire fashion industry lives around a copying and imitation model...

Software Patent Pro/Con in the WSJ

Posted on May 13, 2013
Sunday's Wall Street Journal carried a pro/con pair of opinions on software patenting. The 'yes' side was written by Martin Goetz, himself an inventor and entrepreneur. So far as anyone can tell, Goetz holds the first-ever software patent. The 'no' side was written by Brian J...

Two Proposals To Change The Rules - One Good, One Bad

Posted on May 13, 2013
There are two proposals starting the crawl toward daylight, both of which could reshape our interactions with certain digital media and devices. Unfortunately, while one would move us forward, one would be a giant step back. Let's look at both. Bad news first: in a move that translates as "It's a good idea because we say it's a good idea", the W3C has decided to go ahead and put official DRM crap into its official standards because see good idea we say so...

CAFC Muddies Patent Waters - With a Power Blender

Posted on May 12, 2013
There has been a lot written already about last week's Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "decision" in CLS Bank v. Alice Corporation and I'm sure there's more to come as people dig into the details of the full house of opinions. For now the writing that most closely mirrors my own view is Gene Quinn over at IPWatchdog...

The "Aharonian Test"

Posted on May 09, 2013
I name this test in honor of Greg Aharonian of PATNEWS who has been raging about the crap coming out of the USPTO for longer than I've been blogging. The test is simple: if it fails at its most basic function, it's not suitable material for patent discussion...

The Legal Structures Prenda Exploited

Posted on May 09, 2013
Over at Boingboing, Cory has a nice article up linking two good investigations into Prenda's abuse of the system. The two pieces are linked by an understanding that the way that copyright law has been structured - to enable the Cartel to sue as many people as possible as efficiently as possible - can be exploited by someone else to sue other innocents.

Patent Trolls for the Little Guy

Posted on May 09, 2013
I've long held an ambiguous regard toward patent monetization entities (aka non-producing entities, aka patent trolls) here at Copyfight. It's clear that some NPEs are picking on small fry in an effort to generate some quick cash. But there's another side to the story...

While You Weren't Looking, Aereo Has Been Busy

Posted on May 08, 2013
After sending out last month's press release, Aereo expanded its plans to cover another 21 cities by the end of 2013. That earned it the further ire of broadcasters led by CBS who vowed - as I predicted - to sue Aereo wherever it went. Not content simply to play defense, Aereo went back to court in New York and filed suit against CBS and various CBS affiliates...

Prenda Law Gets Broadsided

Posted on May 08, 2013
This has been well-covered elsewhere. I just wanted to point out - thanks to Ken White at Popehat - that the Judge clearly understood how Prenda were taking advantage of the horrible state of copyright law in the US. "[Prenda] discovered the nexus of antiquated copyright laws, paralyzing social stigma, and unaffordable defense costs [...

Could the US Government Finally Be Moving on IP Law Problems?

Posted on May 07, 2013
The list of news topics about laws and problems grows week by week: computer intrusion laws being overbroad, DMCA exemptions not being granted for everyday activity with technologies, patent trolling, maximalist copyrighting - all ultimately come down to the laws' failure to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology and online social/commerce activities...

And We're Back

Posted on May 06, 2013
The site got knocked offline by a barrage of spam comments. Thanks to Hylton and the Corante staff for cleaning up the mess and getting us moving again. There are two entries now published that were from May 3rd and I'll work on clearing the backlog tomorrow and the rest of this week.

Oh and by the Way

Posted on May 03, 2013
The Harry Potter e-books are going out without DRM. Just sayin'.

Tor Sees No Increase In Illegal Copies After One Year DRM-Free

Posted on May 03, 2013
Julie Crisp, Tor's UK Editorial Director, took to their blog to post about some results of their one-year anniversary being DRM-free. The key headline is that removing DRM did not appear to increase the illegal copying of Tor e-book titles. When I posted about this back in December, I noted that we didn't have financial data to support this decision on Macmillan's part...

Free Publication on "Seismic Shift" in CA Copyright Law

Posted on May 02, 2013
Michael Geist blogged today about "The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law". This free-to-download (Creative Commons) collaboration is an attempt by a group of scholars to help people understand the shifts in Canadian copyright law that came as a result of their Supreme Court issuing five new copyright-related rulings hard on the heels of copyright reform legislation being passed by the government.

EFF Challenges Bad Patent Filings - But There's a Bigger Issue

Posted on May 01, 2013
Boingboing pointed to the EFF's Julie Samuels posting about their ongoing efforts to stop half a dozen bad 3D printing patent applications from being granted. This is great, but it's like putting a band-aid on an arterial wound. If, as the column notes, the EFF found relevant prior art that wasn't previously found that means two upstream failures have already occurred...

Video Game Development Game Ironic Piracy

Posted on May 01, 2013
According to gamesindustry industrial, Greenheart Games's experiment has gotten quite the response. The experiment was run with a game called "Game Dev Tycoon" which is about running your own development studio. On release day, Greenheart not only put up legitimate copies but a "cracked" version on a popular torrent site...

British Photo Copyright Orphans' Concern

Posted on May 01, 2013
A friend pointed me to an alarmed posting in the British Journal of Photography. The column, by Olivier Laurent, outlines the potential highly negative impacts particularly for photographers of a new copyright framework that is wending its way through the British legal approval process...

Mike Masnick Curb-Stomps Jaron Lanier

Posted on April 30, 2013
Who, sadly, deserves it. This is sad because I used to like Lanier. Back in the ancient days, when rocks were soft, I did a little work in virtual reality. I respect the pioneering work that Lanier did in that field. Sadly, he seems to have turned into a cranky old damned-kids-get-off-my-lawn type these days, trading on his past good work to sell books about the impending collapse of things he cares about, and peddle nonsense in major magazines...

Microsoft Appears Ready to Relent on Xbox DRM

Posted on April 29, 2013
Polygon.com is reporting that at its Xbox announcement next month, Microsoft will have a pleasant surprise for gamers and developers. Up to now there's been a steady drumbeat of insistence that the new Microsoft console will require always-on DRM, but now it looks like there will be the option for always-on, but the console will also support one-time authentication as well as fully DRM-free models...

Second Circuit Restores Traditional Fair Use Tests

Posted on April 28, 2013
In overturning Judge Deborah A. Batts's decision, the Circuit court has ruled that her novel interpretation of fair use evaluation conflicted too much with established law and precedent. Quick reminder: fair use is not an absolute doctrine. Rather, it's a series of tests and criteria applied to a reuse that might be copyright infringing to determine whether infringement applies...

Aereo Expands

Posted on April 23, 2013
I got a press release from Aereo today indicating that they are going to launch in Boston in mid-May. Significantly, this is outside the Second Circuit, where Aereo recently won its appeal. If I was a betting man I would bet that this will be an invitation for the broadcasters to file a new round of lawsuits in hopes of finding a friendlier ruling and creating a variance in opinions that could pressure the Supreme Court to revisit the 2nd's decision.

Who Should Be Using Broadcast-TV Spectrum?

Posted on April 23, 2013
"Aereo?s very existence is testimony to the silliness of the status quo" - or so says Felix Salmon in a blog post this week. Salmon joins the lineup of those predicting the death of broadcast TV, a scenario about which I'm not entirely certain. See the analysis by Skip Sauer that I linked to back in January...

MSF Joins Opposition to TPP

Posted on April 22, 2013
Doctors Without Borders is urging its members and donors to call Congress with four clear talking points opposing TPP, the secretly negotiated treaty that would establish strict protocols and laws favoring patent holders, including those whose life-saving medicines can currently be subject to compulsory licensing.

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.