Copyright Law

This post is a tribute to the greatest post in the blog

Posted on October 13, 2009
If a tribute band uses choreography that's so original that it can deserve copyright protection on its own, what does that say about how good the tribute band is as a tribute band? ACES - Four Tops & Motown Tribute...

Franken on Net Neutrality

Posted on October 12, 2009
I missed the Future of Music Policy Summit this year, but Senator Al Franken gave a keynote address that summarizes concisely the key concerns about the need for net neutrality, framed in terms of a First Amendment free speech concern...

Tasty, Tasty Sausage

Posted on September 24, 2009
This story about the natural gas industry losing out to dirtier fossil fuels in the energy bill on NPR's Morning Edition demonstrates the fundamental problem with Federal policymaking today, With Little Clout, Natural Gas Lobby Strikes Out: "[Former Senator Tim]...

FCC Set to Adopt Open Internet Rules

Posted on September 23, 2009
In a speech on Monday at the Brookings Institution, new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed that the FCC adopt a stronger position and be more actively involved in regulating an open Internet. To date, the Federal Communications Commission has addressed...

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Teaching Copyright

Posted on September 17, 2009
According to the program's web site, Music Rules is "a free educational program designed to encourage respect for intellectual property and responsible use of the Internet among students in grades 3-8." At Ars Technica, Nate Anderson takes a look at....

This one goes to eleven

Posted on August 11, 2009
As a 14 year old, Coleman Hickey made a stop-motion music video of Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Going to Rock You, Tonight" using Legos. The New York Times reports that Spinal Tap sought to include the video on a new...

Accountability and the Public Option

Posted on July 24, 2009
In the New York Times Magazine this past week, Peter Singer writes about health care rationing and determining the value of health care. Why We Must Ration Health Care. Towards the end, Singer writes, "Will Americans allow their government, either...

If you really want to hear about it

Posted on July 01, 2009
The NYT City Room blog reports that J.D. Salinger won a preliminary injunction in his lawsuit against the writer of , Judge Rules for Salinger in Copyright Suit: "In a 37-page ruling filed on Wednesday, Judge Batts issued a preliminary...

The best fan video in the world?

Posted on May 15, 2009
Via Top Gear's blog, I found this link to a fan-made Top Gear style search for the beat driving road in California: The Californians were disappointed that Top Gear dismissed the entirety of North America while searching for the best...

Shatner, Montalban, iPod and Kindle

Posted on April 30, 2009
Dvice tests out the range of expression in the text-to-speech systems in the Kindle 2 and iPod Shuffle by having the two gadgets re-enact the most memorable scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Good audiobook readings aren't...

A F#*&ing brilliant Supreme Court ruling?

Posted on April 28, 2009
The Supreme Court released its ruling in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, et al. (07-582), in which a 5-4 majority found that the FCC acted on a rational basis in changing its policy on fleeting expletives. In an opinion penned...

Food & Trademark News

Posted on April 23, 2009
The New York Times reports, Lawyers Enter Twitter Tempest: "Mr. Rucinsky, a 30-year-old part-time art dealer who uses his middle name as his last name when he writes, sends silly blurbs on Twitter and writes inane blog postings that purport...

Is Internet TV the Future?

Posted on March 27, 2009
HDnet's Mark Cuban and Boxee's Avner Ronen have had an interesting public dialog about the future of TV: a lively debate with mark cuban. Ronen posits that viewers will flock to internet video because of the breadth of content while...

Subtitles and Meaning

Posted on March 24, 2009
Consumerist, Movies: Dumbed Down Subtitles Ruin US Release Of 'Let The Right One In': "What if you started to watch Let The Right One In, a highly acclaimed foreign film from last year, and you discovered the US release had...

More Kindling

Posted on March 09, 2009
Even though Amazon agreed to allow authors and publishers the right to decide whether Kindle e-books can be read aloud, here are couple more (belated) links about Kindle 2 reading e-books via text-to-speech synthesizer. LA Times, Amazon Kindle 2 makes...

Remix Revisited

Posted on February 27, 2009

Fitter, Happier, More Productive

Posted on February 27, 2009

Preparing for the Post-TV World

Posted on February 22, 2009
Thanks to the signing of the DTV Delay Act, television broadcasters continue to send out their sweet, sweet analog signals a full week after the original cutoff date. And those broadcasters will continue to broadcast both analog and digital signals...

John Adams, not Samuel Adams

Posted on February 13, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper, Tapped out! Hook brewery is ordered to stop making ‘Obama’ ale: "Federal agents have ordered a Red Hook brewery to stop making its popular 'Hop Obama' ale — a beer that was first brewed during the presidential...

Take a look, it's in a book

Posted on February 11, 2009
This week, Amazon announced the details of its second generation Kindle e-book reader. One of the new features is text-to-speech software that can read aloud the text of a document stored on the Kindle. The Wall Street Journal reports that...

Benchler's Thoughts on Broadband Stimulus

Posted on February 03, 2009
Yochai Benchler compares the differing approaches towards creating economic opportunity through supporting broadband development in the economic stimulus bills introduced in the House and Senate, Broadband Stimulus: "Weaker or stronger, the fact that both the House and Senate bills clearly...

YouTube, Fingerprinting and Fair Use

Posted on February 03, 2009
Critic and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz wirtes an essay about how YouTube and the DMCA Takedown procedure are harming online film criticism, The House Next Door: Copy Rites: YouTube vs. Kevin B. Lee: "When the history of intellectual property law...

Justices Reject COPA Case

Posted on January 21, 2009
The New York Times reports, Justices Reject Pornography Law: "Without comment, the court handed down an order declining to take the case of Mukasey v. A.C.L.U., No. 08-565. The administration of former President George W. Bush, through Attorney General Michael...

Isle of Man Proposes ISP Blanket LIcenses

Posted on January 19, 2009
Is the Isle of Man, which eschews many of the taxes found in other European states, set to become a leader in levying a compulsory tax on internet use to compensate copyright holders for P2P file sharing? The New York...

Miscellany

Posted on January 16, 2009
WB and Fox Settle Watchmen Dispute. Variety reports, WB, Fox make deal for 'Watchmen': "Warner Bros. gets the right to open its superhero pic on March 6 as planned, and Fox's logo will not be on the film, sources said....

[Headline Redacted]

Posted on January 15, 2009
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Appeals released a redacted version of its ruling from August 2008 upholding the constitutionality of a statute authorizing an intelligence program to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court...

Who's Who in Internet and Communications Regulation, 2009

Posted on January 13, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports that President-Elect Obama plans to nominate his technology adviser, Julius Genachowski, to chair the FCC. Genachowski Picked to Head FCC - WSJ.com: "During the campaign, Mr. Genachowski served as the top technology adviser to Mr...

Hasbro drops Scrabulous suit

Posted on December 19, 2008
Earlier this week, the AP reported, Hasbro drops suit over Scrabble-clone Scrabulous: "According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Hasbro dropped the lawsuit Friday.... The court documents did not specify a reason for the withdrawal of...

This Week in Net Neutrality News

Posted on December 18, 2008
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google, Lawrence Lessig and the incoming Obama administration all revised their position to no longer support a free and open internet, Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web: "Google Inc....

IP Colloquium: Privacy in a Networked World

Posted on December 01, 2008
UCLA Law professor Doug Lichtman hosts The Intellectual Property Colloquium- a series of hour-long podcasts of conversations with leading legal thinkers about current issues in IP law. Professor Lichtman writes, "The conversation is about the legal rules that apply when...

Mayor of Batman sues Batman filmmakers

Posted on November 13, 2008
Variety reports, Mayor of Batman sues WB, Nolan: "The mayor of an oil-producing city in southeastern Turkey, which has the same name as the Caped Crusader, is suing helmer Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. for royalties from mega-grosser 'The Dark...

Fake New York Times

Posted on November 12, 2008
In a large scale operation, a 14 page "July 4, 2009" edition of "The New York Times" was distributed around New York this morning. Is this parodic? There's also an Online version (which is not loading for me). The Times...

FCC v. Fox Oral Arguments Today

Posted on November 04, 2008
It's hard to think about things non-electoral today, but today also happens to be the oral arguments in the Supreme Court for FCC v. Fox. The Court will be reviewing the FCC "fleeting expletive" standard for broadcast indecency. The Second...

Voting Machines

Posted on November 04, 2008
Here are a couple of video links vaguely related to the mechanics of voting, without getting into the question of how well our elections are enabling democracy. Mr. Rogers uses a mechanical lever voting machine: In New York, we still...

This is very Weird

Posted on November 03, 2008
MTV requested that Weird Al censor the name of P2P file sharing sites Morpheus, Grokster, Limewire and Kazaa from his 2006 video. The New York Times reports, Censorship, or What Really Weirds Out Weird Al - NYTimes.com: "In an e-mail...

Google Settles with Publishers

Posted on October 29, 2008
Google announces that it settled with the Association of American Publishers, who sued the search engine company in 2005 over its plan to scan and index books that are still protected by copyright. Official Google Blog: New chapter for Google...

Old Advertising Characters Revived...

Posted on October 29, 2008
... for political satire. NewTeeVee reports: Super Bowl Ads of Yore Revamped for '08 Election: "Now, with the election just a week away, we've come full circle with two more ads from Super Bowls past revamped for online political purposes....

FMC Creative License

Posted on October 03, 2008
On Monday, October 6, the Future of Music Coalition is holding a session on sampling and licensing at the Public Theater here in NYC: Creative License. Preceding that event is a seminar on What's the Future for Musicians....

Accio Injunction

Posted on September 09, 2008
In what is likely to be the most magical copyright case to come to the Southern District of New York this year, US District Judge Robert Patterson ruled in favor of Warner Brothers and J.K Rowling against RDR Books, finding...

Art auctions and false advertising at sea

Posted on August 01, 2008
The New York Times, Art Purchases Lead to Lawsuits Following Cruise Ship Auctions: "When most people think of art auctions, they think of Christie’s or Sotheby’s in New York or London, not a cruise ship. But over the last two...

Scrabulous-less

Posted on August 01, 2008
Michael Madison, Madisonian, has a thoughtful look on the Scrabulous and the online reaction, The Stakes of Scrabulous, "Still, on balance, I think that Hasbro deserves a win if the case were litigated to judgment; the name 'Scrabulous' would likely....

Scrabbled

Posted on July 29, 2008
I was too busy playing Scrabulous last week to blog about the complaint filed by Hasbro against the creators of Scrabulous, the online word game that happens to share the board layout and rules of play of Scrabble. Complaint in...

Community Standards, Sex, Violence and Blogs

Posted on June 24, 2008
The New York Times reports on the use of search engine data to establish community standards for web sites, What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer: "In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show...

Value-Added Piracy

Posted on June 24, 2008
NPR reports on the Chinese groups using P2P to distribute subtitled versions of American TV shows: Chinese Fans Follow American TV Online - for Free: "Han says they can download untranslated versions of the American shows from the peer-to-peer file-sharing...

George Carlin

Posted on June 23, 2008
The New York Times reports on the passing of George Carlin, George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian: "Mr. Carlin was hailed for his poignant observations on the absurdities of everyday life in routines like 'Seven Words You Can Never Say...

Preventing Photography

Posted on June 20, 2008
Bruce Schneier, The War on Photography: "What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are? Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is...

More Little Orphan Works

Posted on June 20, 2008
Here are some more links to pieces discussing the orphan works problem in general along with specific criticisms of the Orphan Works Act of 2008. Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge, The Orphan Works Act of 2008: Copyright Reform Takes Its First...

Miscellany

Posted on June 20, 2008
Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress: "I've now just read a copy of the final 'compromise' bill. It's even worse than expected. When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress....

Challenges in Monitoring Infringement on P2P Networks

Posted on June 20, 2008
Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Challenges and Directions for Monitoring P2P File Sharing Networks or Why My Printer Received a DMCA Takedown Notice: "The focus of this paper is to examine the tension between P2P users and enforcement agencies...

Joseph Abboud: person v. trademark

Posted on June 20, 2008
JA Apparel Corp. v. Abboud (SDNY, June 5, 2008) Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion, Mad Abboud you: "It’s worth taking a look at because just reading the bare-bones fact pattern of it above, this doesn’t look like a hard case....

On the nature of the internet

Posted on June 19, 2008
Here are a couple of articles (and a response) about the history, impact and future of the internet and WWW. Vanity Fair, How the Web Was Won, "Vanity Fair set out to do something that has never been done: to...

Cultivating Online Personas

Posted on June 19, 2008
In New York Magazine, Rex Sorgatz lays out a few simple steps for finding internet fame, The Microfame Game and The New Rules of Internet Celebrity -- New York Magazine: "It's easy to be cynical about this new class of...

Open Access to Statutes

Posted on June 18, 2008
James Grimmelmann wrote a nice primer on copyright, statutes and open access, and how publishing statutes openly online benefits democracy: Copyright, Technology, and Access to the Law: "Recently, the state of Oregon has used copyright law to threaten people who...

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Posted on June 11, 2008
Yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement with 3 national ISPs-- Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint-- to block access to newsgroups and web sites distributing child pornography. Press Release: Attorney General Cuomo Announces Unprecedented Deal With...

Working on Orphan Works

Posted on May 22, 2008
Congress is once again considering legislation to deal with the problem of orphaned copyright works-- those works that are still under copyright but where the copyright owner may be impossible to identify and locate. Both the House and Senate have...

Trademark in 3D

Posted on May 12, 2008
The Wall Street Journal, Shape of Things to Come: "On Jan. 8, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple Inc. a trademark for the three-dimensional shape of its iPod media player. This was more than a recognition of an...

Blockbuster Sued over Facebook Beacon Program

Posted on April 23, 2008
Remember Facebook's Beacon program? That's the program that uses Facebook user's purchase information on partner websites to advertise those websites to the user's social network. Here are a couple of posts on the controversy from David at Inside the Marketer's...

The Boss and Vista

Posted on April 17, 2008
Would Bruce's right of publicity claim against Microsoft be affected if this video was intended for internal use only, but posted to the public internet by a third party?...

Muggles and Fair Use

Posted on April 15, 2008
J.K. Rowling testified this week in her lawsuit against the publisher of a book version of The Harry Potter Lexicon, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. RDR Books. Mark Hamblett, New York law Journal: Harry Potter Author Fights Creator of Lexicon,...

Deferring Indecency Rulings

Posted on April 15, 2008
The Los Angeles Times reports that the FCC is waiting to rule on its indecency complaints against broadcast licensees until after the Supreme Court rules on FCC v. Fox, Indecency cases stuck in legal limbo at FCC: "Thousands of viewer...

Valuing Music

Posted on March 25, 2008
In the NY Times, Billy Bragg suggests that the social networking sites that have developed their audiences by hosting music should have to consider paying royalties for that music: The Royalty Scam In our discussions, we largely ignored the elephant....

FCC Redefines Broadband

Posted on March 20, 2008
At News.com, Anne Broache reports that the FCC will be tracking broadband with more precision and re-defining the lower limits of 'broadband,' FCC approves new method for tracking broadband's reach: 200Kbps speeds are no longer considered 'broadband.' Broadband service speeds...

Court Grants Cert in FCC v. Fox

Posted on March 19, 2008
On Monday, the Supreme Court granted cert and agreed to review the Second Circuit's ruling in Fox v. FCC, 06-1760-ag, that the Commission's policy sanctioning "fleeting expletives" is arbitrary and capricious. FCC v. Fox Docket. The Government's Cert Petition asks...

Motley Crew Testifies at House Net Neutrality Hearing

Posted on March 11, 2008
Today at 2:00 EDT, The Judiciary Committee Antitrust Task Force will hold a Hearing on Net Neutrality and Free Speech on the Internet. Damian Kulash Lead Vocalist and Guitarist OK Go Michele Combs Vice President of Communications Christian Coalition of...

Revisiting Indecency

Posted on February 26, 2008
After a quiet year on the indecency front, the FCC recently revisited two indecency complaints from programs that aired in 2003 and issued forfeiture orders. In re: Complaints Against Various Television Licensees Concerning Their February 25, 2003 Broadcast of the Program "NYPD Blue" (FCC 08-55, Feb...

The Mass and The Personal

Posted on February 25, 2008
While the pre-Oscar crowds at Union Square sold out early evening showings of Best Picture nominees No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, the crowd in the theater for U23D was fairly sparse. Perhaps because it was in a regular theater rather than on the big IMAX screen, but unlike Bob Lefsetz, I found the 3D-ness underwhelming except for a few moments...

Internet Freedom Preservation Act and Network Management Practices

Posted on February 14, 2008
Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Chip Pickering (R-MS) introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (H.R. 5353). This bill would "establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summits to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services...

OMG! Yoko Ono sues plucky young singer named Lennon to stop using her first name!

Posted on February 14, 2008
On her Myspace blog, singer Lennon Murphy writes, Getting Sued by Yoko, "Yesterday I received notice that Yoko Ono had filed a law suit against me, asking for a cancellation of the trademark that I own for the name "Lennon." This could very well mean the career that I have worked so hard at, the one you all have believed in, may come to an end...

Hot, Naked Court Data

Posted on February 13, 2008
Creative Commons and Public.Resource.Org have released 1.8 Million Pages of U.S. Case Law Available Now for Developers: "Today’s release covers all U.S. Supreme Court decisions and all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 on. The release is equivalent to 1,858 volumes of case law in book form, a stack of books 348 feet tall...

On Copies

Posted on February 08, 2008
Kevin Kelly ponders ways to think about moving to a new media world where the marginal cost of all copies drops to zero: Better Than Free: "When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable...

Verizon's not into policing copyright infringement

Posted on February 08, 2008
While AT&T is considering helping large copyright owners police infringements on its network, Verizon. The NYT Bits Blog reports, Verizon Rejects Hollywood’s Call to Aid Piracy Fight. Tom Tauke, Verizon’s executive vice president for public affairs offers three reasons why ISPs have no incentive to monitoring for copyright infringements: "1) The slippery slope...

Taking Down the Shred

Posted on February 08, 2008
Wired: Humorless Metalheads Shut Down Popular YouTuber: "The three unnamed artists filed copyright infringement claims against the parody videos of Finnish media artist Santeri Ojala, causing YouTube to shut down his account over the weekend.… Ojala's popular videos poked harmless fun at famous guitar soloists by dubbing his own abhorrently bad strummings over rock concert footage...

Super Bowl is a registered trademark of the NFL

Posted on January 18, 2008
It's the first annual Likelihood of Confusion SUPER BOWL® Trademark Watch and Contest: "Every year it’s the same thing: Several weeks before the Super Bowl®, people and businesses wishing to promote events related to the timing of the biggest sporting event of the season — the Super Bowl®, that is, the National Football League’s championship game — go through all sorts of contortions to avoid saying the trademark-protected words, Super Bowl...

Gawker, Scientology and Fair Use

Posted on January 18, 2008
The Church of Scientology requests that Gawker remove a clip of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology for copyright infringement, but Gawker is willing to step up and argue that its use is a fair use for the purposes of news reporting. Church of Scientology Claims Copyright Infringement The clip in question, Exclusive: The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress: "if Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch was an 8 on the scale of scary, this is a 10...

Hasbro goes after Scrabulous

Posted on January 11, 2008
The only surprise is that it took so long. FORTUNE: Techland Will someone please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous?

ISP Filtering

Posted on January 09, 2008
One of the big issues in tech and IP policy this year will be the role of ISPs. To what extent should they be common carries of information, enforcers of digital copyright, or delivery networks giving special priority to preferred media providers? The NY Times published an AP report that the FCC will investigate complaints that Comcast blocks BitTorrent traffic on its networks, F...

Quoting Copyright Material in User-Generated Video

Posted on January 09, 2008
The Center for Social Media at American University has released a study on the quoting of copyrighted material in user-generated video and fair use, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: "The study, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video, by Center director Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, co-director of the law school's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, shows that many uses of copyrighted material in today's online videos are eligible for fair use consideration...

Sound Recording Performing Rights Bill

Posted on December 20, 2007
The Performance Rights Act of 2007 was introduced in both the House and Senate before going on recess. This bill would put commercial broadcasters on parity with webcasters and satellite radio in needing to pay royalties for the use of sound recordings...

The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality

Posted on December 20, 2007
David Pogue speaks at a college and finds out that kids today don't believe that creative works fixed in a tangible electronic medium have any value: The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality: "The exercise is intended, of course, to illustrate how many shades of wrongness there are, and how many different opinions...

Circuit Court Caselaw

Posted on November 15, 2007
Public.Resource.org, Announcement: "Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754...

Statutes Shape Streaming Services

Posted on November 14, 2007
In the Listening Post blog at Wired, Eliot Van Buskirk tries out Boomshuffle, a new service from Snocap, New Direction For SnoCap: Free, 15-Song Embeddable Mixes: "The service only plays 30-second clips of the songs unless you include 15 tracks by 15 different artists, because that helps Boomshuffle qualify for a lower internet radio royalty rate -- fine by me, I'd rather include more music anyway...

Verizon diverts traffic to its own search engine

Posted on November 14, 2007
Type "nytimes" into your browser's location bar. Unless you have a local server on your network called nytimes, some web browsers (including Safari) will automatically add "http://www." and ".com" to bring you to The New York Times at "http://www.nytimes...

Test

Posted on November 12, 2007
I hope that this is indeed fixed soon.

MTTLR

Posted on November 12, 2007
The Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review launched a new blog, The MTTLR Blog. It's a nice site, so far, although there is a contrast between the majority of posts written with formal, law review-style footnotes and others with web-style hyperlink citations...