The Las Vegas copyright fair use loss for Righthaven last week was probably less meaningful – and less amusing – than the “money quote” (as Wall Street Journal blogger Ashby Jones put it) from the federal Judge James Mahan, who reportedly mused, “I realize this is going to be appealed.  I tell litigators ‘that’s why [...]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Today we’ll be looking at some of the prominent music streaming sites, including Grooveshark, Pandora, Spotify and others, looking at legal and business issues in a quickly shifting landscape. The New York Times recently reported on the very recent revival of venture capital and public market interest in [...]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] In today’s podcast, we discuss copyright issues, specifically the distinctions – practical and legal – between “inline” or “hot” or “embedded” links and downloaded images.  This comes up usually in the context of using video, but the principles should apply to any uses of images on websites, blogs, [...]

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] In today’s podcast, we discuss intellectual property issues, specifically the question of how to protect ideas.  My guest is Neal Seth, a partner in Baker Hostetler’s Washington, DC office. Neal’s practice focuses on patent litigation and appeals.  Neal has handled numerous litigation and appellate matters in a variety [...]

The Associated Press reported yesterday about a University of Missouri student who invented an iPhone app in a class, then was successful in generating more than 250,000 downloads of the app, and finally was contacted by lawyers for the University demanding a 25% royalty on all earnings from the app. According to the AP, the [...]

(Thomas Yarnell contributed research and writing to this post.) In a past post, we wrote about copyright as it relates to how preemption of state law civil causes of action in the same or related cases.  In writing about the Perez Hilton and NFL Films cases, we noted that federal copyright law did not preempt [...]

I was recently asked about “fair use” standards for use of copyrighted video or audio in mashups. What’s a Mashup? First: What are mashups?  From WiseGeek: A mash-up is a combination of tools or data from multiple sources. Mash-ups typically collect data from multiple web pages and bring their information into one simplified web application. [...]

Question: Under what circumstances can “fair use” support the editorial republishing of copyrighted photographs or other artworks in a magazine, book or electronic publication? Short answer: When the previously copyrighted works are the subject of the republishing. Fuller answer: An “editorial” republishing, almost by definition but with important caveats, satisfies the “fair use” test under [...]

An interesting case comes out of the West earlier this month under Copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine, involving computer software under a license agreement. Copyright’s “first sale” doctrine The “first sale” doctrine involves this concept: If you buy a copyrighted work (say, a painting, or a book, or – as in this case – software [...]

(Thomas Yarnell contributed research and writing to this blog post.) Copyright law preempts certain state law personal rights, including misappropriation of someone’s likeness or identity.  For example, the right of an individual to prevent a third party from exploiting that person’s image or voice is trumped when that third party purchased the rights to the [...]