Category Archives: Copyright Litigation
Copyright and Characters: When Fictional People Take on Lives of Their Own
Most people know that there is some type of legal protection for creative works like books, music, or movies, but the contours and limits of that copyright protection are a little murkier. For instance, one often litigated area of copyright law is how it applies to characters from creative works. For instance, when J.K…. Read More »
The Pros and Cons of Collaboration: Understanding Joint Copyrights
The modern world is becoming more and more collaborative across the board. Whether it’s a team of independent artists working together to produce a movie or a team of software developers working on a new app, creative endeavors are bringing groups of people together to work on the same project. Naturally, this has important… Read More »
Copyright in the Social Media World
People often think of copyright as a tool reserved for artists and writers, as something that only protects books or music or movies. However, the reality is that copyright protection applies to much more than that. According to the statute, copyright law protects “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”… Read More »
Federal Court Snuffs out Controversial Copyright Decision and Makes Life Harder for Independent Actors
A recent decision by a federal court in California has important implications for actors looking to protect their interest or reputations based on movies they starred in. The case, Garcia v. Google, was being closely watched by the intellectual property community because the federal court involved had approved a novel theory of copyright protection;… Read More »
Florida Law Places New Requirements on Internet Businesses
Online piracy of music and other media has been a problem that the internet has been trying to cope with for years now. A new Florida law is attempting to make piracy easier for content owners to respond to. The law, known as the True Origin of Digital Goods Act, was signed into law… Read More »
Tattoo Artists and Copyrights
Although tattooing has been around for a long time, it has recently become a more mainstream form of art. In fact, a recent poll shows that over one in five American adults now has a tattoo. As with any burgeoning industry, the law is now struggling to accommodate it. For tattoo artists, one of… Read More »
Don’t Scuff the Copyright: Federal Court Extends Intellectual Property Protection to Flooring
When trying to come up with things that copyright law protects, most people think about works like art, music, or movies. However, it turns out that copyright law protects much more than that. A recent ruling by the 11th Circuit, the federal appeals court covering Florida, highlights the surprisingly broad reach of copyright law…. Read More »
Copyright Law as a Solution to Revenge Porn
Updating the law tends to be a slow, laborious process that often takes years. This can be a problem when the law attempts to govern advances in technology, which can happen at a much faster pace. Such a problem has arisen in the area of revenge porn. Revenge porn is a recent phenomenon that… Read More »
Automakers Employing Copyright Law Against Hobbyists
As software finds its way into more and more pieces of previously analog equipment, it expands the reach of copyright law. This has led to new groups being forced to navigate the complex American intellectual property system. One such group includes car hobbyists, who are now being forced to deal with car manufacturer copyrights… Read More »
Spontaneous Generation: A Key Limit of Copyright Protection
Of the three branches of intellectual property protection, patents, trademarks, and copyrights, copyright law is often the one that touches people’s everyday lives most directly. Few people are inventors or business owners, but many people consume media like TV and music on a daily basis, putting them at risk at violating copyright law. Even… Read More »
The Basics of Music Copyright
Music copyright is one of the most common ways for people to interact with the intellectual property system. It affects many different services that people use all the time, such as Pandora, YouTube, and Netflix. It even appears in the news, such as the recent multimillion dollar judgment against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams… Read More »
A Copyright Law Blog Post about How Copyright Law Affects Blog Posts
With the maturation of the internet, more and more people are putting their own copyrighted work out into the world. People write stories, post pictures, and upload videos online, and that can make the legal landscape of online content both varied and complex. Bloggers in particular should be aware of copyright for two reasons…. Read More »
Why Do We Have Intellectual Property?
Over the past several years, intellectual property (IP) has become a much more fashionable topic to discuss. Copyright and its effects on the internet and the rise in patent trolls have made it into the mainstream media. Even trademark law shows up more and more often, especially around this time of year. The NFL’s… Read More »
Keeping Trademarks Covered: Avoiding Naked Licenses
Trademarks are commonly referred to as “source-identifiers.” They are logos or words that tell consumers where the good or service that they are purchasing comes from. This makes trademark licensing a bit of an unusual problem. After all, if the point of the mark is to tell consumers who makes a product, would it… Read More »
Place Names and Trademarks
Trademark law, like all intellectual property law, has to be balanced to serve two competing goals. On the one hand, giving companies’ trademarks legal protections helps protect customers by making sure they are buying from the company that they think they are. On the other hand, giving too much power to the protection of… Read More »
The Parody Defense to Trademark Infringement
Finding the boundaries of a piece of intellectual property is always much harder than finding the boundaries of a piece of real property. Real property has fences and walls and markers. Intellectual property only has legal doctrines. One of the places this problem appears most is with the parody defense to trademark infringement. The… Read More »
Understanding Statutory Damages
While some people sue for the principle of having their day in court, many do so because they have been harmed in some way and deserve compensation for that harm. That compensation is known as the damages. Ordinarily, judges or juries award damages based on the actual, quantifiable harms that someone has suffered. However,… Read More »
Florida Supreme Court Gives School the Right to Enforce Its Trademark
Who gets to sue someone when an injury occurs? This seemingly simple question has actually given rise to a fairly complex area of the law known as standing. Fundamentally, the standing doctrine is designed to make sure that the people suing for an injury are actually the people who were harmed. For instance, courts… Read More »
What Copyright Protects
Copyrights, patents and trademarks are each valuable parts of an intellectual property portfolio, but people often find it difficult to keep straight which intellectual property is protected by which set of rules. Each branch of intellectual property is designed for a very specific type of protection, and conflating them can often cause problems. Take,… Read More »
Trademark Registration and its Effect on Litigation
A strong trademark can be a powerful tool for a company looking to expand its market share and build strong ties to its consumers. Trademarks allow consumers to instantly recognize a company and remember all the good, or bad, things they know about the company. From time to time, keeping a trademark strong may… Read More »
