Tag: copyright
You Don’t Own E-nything
With news breaking last month that Amazon has a patent to resell e-books, consumers smiled and authors worriedly reviewed the contents of their savings accounts. Earlier this month, attorney and bestselling author Scott Turow wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times stating that the practice of reselling such an item will most likely be “ruled illegal.”
I share his optimism. But only because our laws are so far behind Europe’s.
If a realm existed more poorly regulated and filled with bad law than the internet, I’d love to see it. We have reactionary legislation from people who don’t know how to turn on their computer, case law decided by judges perplexed by futuristic terms like “modem,” and an army of users content to make up their own interpretations of the law and let it spread like wildfire. This misinterpretation of the law is then repeated on various online forums until it is recited with more bravado than Gaston, mocking any who dare to disagree, even when the dissenters are correct. Well, get on your chuckle boots, internet, because you’re about to be educated.
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Tags Amazon, copyright, e-books, First Sale Doctrine, patent, publishers, resale, Steam, video games |
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Date 04/22/2013 |
(Brain) Dead Intellectual Property Rights
Strong box office. A critical darling. Nominated in 2012 for the Academy Awards for Best Picture; winner of the Best Original Screenplay. By any measure, Woody Allen’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris would be considered a cinematic success.
That is, until the film found itself in the center of some legal sound and fury.
The movie transports its hero, a struggling author played with panache by Owen Wilson, to the artistic mecca that was Paris in the early 20th century.
Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway all have memorable moments in the film. And in one scene, Mr. Wilson’s character says, in true Woody Allen-neurotic style: “The past is not dead! Actually, it’s not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. And I met him, too. I ran into him at a dinner party.”
The literati in the audience surely recognized the quote, and laughed. It’s a riff on a line from William. Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun”: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Other people who recognized the quote? Mr. Faulkner’s estate.
Faulkner Literary Rights, LLC (Faulkner LLC) has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal district court against production studio Sony Pictures Classics.
Does the law protect use of quotes only ten words long? Or does it dismiss these types of actions as frivolous and use of such material as protected by fair use? Does it matter that the movie clearly attributes the quote to the original author? Or was it more damaging to have associated Faulkner with the film than not? The media didn’t say. LASIS investigates.
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Tags copyright, fair use, Midnight in Paris, Professor David Johnson, Professor Richard Chused, Requiem for a Nun, Sony, William Faulkner, woody allen |
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Date 11/27/2012 |
Fighting Megaupload Piracy With…Piracy?
Last week, the Obama Administration criticized SOPA and PIPA for their associated risk of fostering censorship. At the same time, the Administration stated it would combat online piracy perpetrated by foreign websites.
Looks like the promise to crack down on piracy was more than mere saber-rattling.
Yesterday, less than 24 hours after the conclusion of the Stop-SOPA Blackout, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a sweeping indictment targeting the leaders of Megaupload.com, a popular Hong Kong-based file-sharing site that, according to the feds, allows users to access pirated copies of movies, music and other copyright-protected works.
Megaupload’s top seven honchos – none of them U.S. citizens, and four of them arrested Thursday by local New Zealand law enforcement upon a request from American authorities – are accused of heading up an organized criminal enterprise whose main goal was criminal copyright infringement.
But the feds’ actions may just be outside the scope of existing U.S. statutory law. The whole idea behind the Stop Online Piracy Act (the House of Representatives version of the controversial legislative initiative) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (the Senate version) is that our existing laws don’t give the feds the legal weaponry needed to protect works under U.S. copyright from the scourge of foreign online piracy.
Does U.S. law apply to wrongdoing committed (or primarily committed) overseas? It’s a complicated issue that our judicial system has increasingly grappled with in recent years. Thursday’s news reports about the shutdown of Megaupload – here’s a run-of-the-mill mainstream-media report from ABC News, and here’s a more in-depth piece from Wired – didn’t address this “extraterritoriality” issue.
So we decided to do just that. (more…)
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Tags copyright, extra territorial, Megaupload, PIPA, piracy, SOPA, Swizz Beatz |
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Date 01/20/2012 |
Will Usher Have to Pay Up For Stealing Hit Song?
2004 was a fantastic year for R&B superstar Usher Raymond. His album, Confessions, was certified ten times platinum. His love life was the topic of discussion on every entertainment news and blog site. And his hit song “Yeah” was played at every high school senior’s prom…at least three times.
In many ways Confessions was the peak of Usher’s career. Seven years and a couple of not as successful albums later, a little known group filed suit alleging that “Burn,” the second single on Usher’s hit album, was so similar to a song on their not-so-hit album that it had to have been stolen – a claim that could leave the famous singer’s pockets burning.
Ernest L. Straughter claims that a 1998 song he penned for the group “Reel Tight” entitled “No More Pain” shares considerable similarities with “Burn” including the song’s introduction, repeated melodic sequence and harmonic progressions. Mr. Straughter is suing for copyright infringement and in September, a California judge ruled that the case holds enough weight to go forward to trial.
Billboard.com did a great job of outlining the specific claims in the suit, but didn’t take the extra step of analyzing Mr. Straughter’s likelihood of success. Lucky for you, that’s where LASIS comes in. (more…)
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Date 10/22/2011 |
Free Sampling: Copyright Law’s Rigid Regime Won’t Work
By Rachel DeLetto
Rachel DeLetto, New York Law School class of 2009, won first place in the 2009 ASCAP Nathan Burkan Scholarship Competition for this article. We congratulate Rachel on her win.
The article first appeared in the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Art and Sports Journal.
The first time I heard about Girl Talk all I knew were the facts: A Pittsburgh DJ with a cult following had just released for sale online a new album that contained songs he had composed on his laptop by digitally blending hundreds of unlicensed samples of contemporary Top 40 hits. Since courts have consistently seen sampling of sound recordings as ripping off the creative product of others, an act that is not looked upon favorably in the world of copyright law, my initial legal assessment was that this guy was about to be eaten alive by a mob of angry copyright holders.
To read more of this article, please download the full PDF below.
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Date 10/27/2009 |