Tag Archives: West Palm Beach Copyright Litigation Lawyers
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 »
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 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 »
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 »
Understanding Fair Use in Copyright Law
One of the most commonly discussed pieces of copyright law is the doctrine of fair use. It is also one of the most complex pieces. This doctrine acts as a powerful limitation on the rights of copyright holders because it undercuts their monopoly on their works. Ordinarily, only a person who holds a copyright… Read More »
