Copyright Law

VARA Lawsuit Filed over Destruction of Burning Man Art Car

Posted on March 22, 2009
The creators of Burning Man art car “La Contessa” have filed a lawsuit under the Visual Artists’ Rights Act (one of my favorite corners of Title 17) against the Nevada farmer who torched the car. It had been left on the rancher’s land for several years due to a broken axle, with the permission of one [...

Big News: I?m Joining Durie Tangri Lemley Roberts & Kent LLP

Posted on February 03, 2009
My friends and colleagues Daralyn Durie, Ragesh Tangri, Mark Lemley, Clem Roberts, and Ryan Kent have formed a new law firm — and I’m joining them as their first (and, for the moment, only) associate.  The press release follows. KEKER & VAN NEST ALUMS DURIE, TANGRI, LEMLEY, ROBERTS AND KENT OPEN FIVE-PARTNER LITIGATION BOUTIQUE Google, Genentech and [...

USF Fair Use Symposium: Panel 1 ? Real Lawyers, Real Cases

Posted on November 01, 2008
I’m liveblogging today from the University of San Francisco School of Law Fair Use Symposium. The first panel is called “Real Lawyers, Real Cases.”  The panelists: J. Thomas McCarthy (USF, Moderator) Annette Hurst (Orrick) Jason Schultz (Berkeley) Corynne McSherry (EFF) Bill Coats (White & Case) Ray Nimmer (University of Houston Law Center) First, Bill Coats: User Generated Content and Copyright Issues from the [...

Settlement Reached in Authors Guild v. Google

Posted on October 28, 2008
Today, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers announced the signing of a settlement agreement in the ongoing copyright litigation over the Google Library Project. I’m proud to be a member of the legal team representing Google in this matter...

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Opinion Issued in Harry Potter Lexicon Case

Posted on September 08, 2008
Judge Patterson of the Southern District of New York today issued this opinion in Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. RDR Books, the “Harry Potter Lexicon” case. The court issued a permanent injunction against the publication of the Lexicon and awarded statutory damages in the amount of $6,750...

N.D. Cal.: Senders of DMCA Takedowns Must Consider Fair Use

Posted on August 20, 2008
Judge Fogel of the Northern District of California today denied UMG’s motion to dismiss in the Lenz v. Universal litigation (otherwise known as the “dancing baby” case). The order is here. It holds that copyright holders must conduct a fair use analysis before sending a takedown notice under the DMCA.

D. Mass.: MIT Students No Longer Gagged

Posted on August 20, 2008
The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has dissolved the temporary restraining order which prevented three MIT students from giving their (really outstanding) presentation about transportation fare system security at this year’s DEFCON...

Circuit City Loses Sense of Humor, Finds It

Posted on August 05, 2008
This post from Boy Genius Report describes a case of the adults intervening when someone in Legal loses their sense of humor over a parody. Good work, Circuit City PR.

2d Cir.: Cablevision?s Remote DVR Does Not Infringe

Posted on August 04, 2008
Reversing the district court, the Second Circuit today held that Cablevision’s proposed “Remote Storage Digital Video Recorder” does not give rise to direct copyright infringement liability for Cablevision. The opinion: Construes MAI v...

N.D. Cal. Savages Savage

Posted on July 27, 2008
Judge Ilston of the Northern District of California held on Friday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ use of a four-minute clip of Michael Savage’s radio show in order to criticize the views espoused in that clip was fair use...

10th Cir.: Slavish Digital Modeling Not Copyrightable

Posted on June 19, 2008
In probably the best-written copyright opinion so far this year, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, in Meshwerks v. Toyota, that slavish digital modeling is not copyrightable. It’s a really smart opinion, drawing a parallel between the way courts in the 1800s dealt with the new technology of photography to the problem [...

Recipe for Infringement?

Posted on June 16, 2008
Happily for Cindy McCain (for the second time), recipes qua recipes aren’t copyrightable.

First Sale Prevails in UMG v. Augusto

Posted on June 11, 2008
Yesterday, Judge S. James Otero of the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued an opinion granting summary judgment for the defendant in UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Augusto. Judge Otero ruled that, because ownership of “promo CDs” given out by UMG had transferred to the recipients of those CDs, Augusto’s [...

D. Az.: ?Making Available? Isn?t Infringement

Posted on April 29, 2008
Judge Neil V. Wake of the District of Arizona today issued this opinion in one of the RIAA file-sharing cases, Atlantic v. Howell.  The RIAA had argued that even though there was no evidence that the defendant’s file sharing software had ever actually sent out any infringing files, the fact that the defendant made those [...

Summary Judgment Filed in UMG v. Augusto

Posted on April 29, 2008
As I mentioned once before, I’m a member of the team defending eBay seller Troy Augusto in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by UMG Recordings, Inc. This is a rather unusual copyright infringement suit, in that even UMG agrees that there was no copying involved...

Summary Judgment Filed in UMG v. Augusto

Posted on April 09, 2008
As I mentioned once before, I’m a member of the team defending eBay seller Troy Augusto in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by UMG Recordings, Inc. This is a rather unusual copyright infringement suit, in that even UMG agrees that there was no copying involved...

Boomtown Java

Posted on April 05, 2008
The New York Times published an article yesterday marveling at the entrepreneurial fervor of patrons at Ritual Coffee Roasters in the Mission District here in San Francisco.  It’s basically identical to this article published in Slate in 1999 about Circadia, a now-abandoned Starbucks black-ops “cafe of the future” project in the outer Mission...

The First Phonograph

Posted on March 27, 2008
Hackers have an extremely old joke about “write-only memory” — just like read-only memory, but the other way around. It turns out that the first phonograph — a number of years before Edison’s well-known invention — was just such a system...

Federal Court Doesn?t Quite Recognize Copyright in C&D Letter

Posted on January 26, 2008
Techdirt has a post on a rather triumphal press release put out by a law firm claiming that “[t]he US District Court for the District of Idaho has found that copyright law protects a lawyer demand letter posted online by the recipient.” That’s one way of interpreting the judge’s ruling, but I don’t think [...

9th Cir.: Karaoke versions are audiovisual works, not fair use

Posted on January 02, 2008
In an opinion published today in Leadsinger, Inc. v. BMG Music Publishing, the Ninth Circuit held that Leadsinger’s karaoke devices, which contain copies of lyrics for display on a TV screen, are not eligible for a license under 17 U.S.C. 115 because they are “audiovisual works,” not “phonorecords...

Fandom?s nonprofit: the Organization for Transformative Works

Posted on December 13, 2007
The world has a new good cause. A group of writers and academics with ties to the fanfic community has founded the Organization for Transformative Works.  As befits an organization with its roots in a deeply postmodern art form, the organization is a bit of a pastiche: part EFF, providing legal support to the fanfic [...

Romantics Detail What They Don?t Like About Activision

Posted on November 23, 2007
As commented upon by Michael Madison, the Romantics have filed suit against Activision, alleging that the version of “What I Like About You” included in the Guitar Hero Rocks the ’80s video game (for which Activision got a license from the songwriters) sounds too much like the original recording...

Followup on § 2257

Posted on November 09, 2007
I’ve received a number of emails asking for basic information about the ramifications of the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Connection Distributing case, discussed here.  I can’t say what the decision means for any particular person, but here are some helpful facts: Who is this “Sixth Circuit”? The decision was issued by a three-judge panel of the [...

Join the ABA IPL Special Committee on the DMCA

Posted on November 05, 2007
This year, I’m co-chair of the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law Special Committee on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. My co-chair is Kate Spelman of Cobalt LLP, and we have a great deal planned for the coming year...

A Full Day of Legal Blogging Events on November 5th

Posted on November 05, 2007
A programming note. Tomorrow, November 5th, I’ll be honored to participate in a lunchtime panel at Stanford Law School with four highly-regarded law professor bloggers (Ann Althouse, David Friedman, Eric Goldman, and Larry Solum), moderated by none other than Jonathan Zittrain...

6th Cir.: § 2257 Facially Unconstitutional

Posted on October 24, 2007
In a beautifully written, powerfully reasoned opinion, the Sixth Circuit today declared 18 U.S.C. § 2257 facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment for overbreadth. The opinion, in Connection Distributing Co. v. Keisler, is here. The statute imposes harsh recordkeeping requirements on all producers and disseminators of sexually explicit content, ostensibly in order to more easily [...

Roommates.com: reh?g en banc granted!

Posted on October 13, 2007
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc in the Roommates.com case, which I expressed my concerns about here. This means that the existing panel opinion was withdrawn by the court, and is no longer usable as precedent. A 15-judge panel will now hear and decide the case as if the panel opinion had never [...

Turns Out You Can?t Do That

Posted on October 05, 2007
Yet another “reconstructed copyright deposit leads to great sorrow” case, this time from Puerto Rico, via the First Circuit Court of Appeals: Fernando Torres-Negrón v. J&N Records. (Via Bill Patry.)

D. Mass.: Unfinished Works Aren?t Covered by VARA

Posted on September 25, 2007
Judge Ponsor of the District of Massachussetts has decided Mass MoCA v. Büchel, a case featuring the thrilling combination of an improperly-bisected house, a suspended spider-hole, and a huffy Swiss artiste. The story, in brief: Christoph Büchel is an installation artist...