What is a “trademark use”?  This question comes up in this way: You want to use a trademarked name or brand or logo (not yours).  You want to make commentary about the trademark, or simply reference the trademark in some way. Trademark protections give their owners the right of exclusive use to the trademark, but [...]

Kate Tummarello is a Research and Social Media Intern with Mirsky & Company and a reporter at Roll Call/Congressional Quarterly.  Follow Kate on Twitter @ktummarello.  Andrew Mirsky of Mirsky & Company contributed to this post. Gone are the days of bashing your boss in the breakroom. Now, colleagues gather online to anonymously air their grievances.  A [...]

Earlier this month, Dropbox spawned a new kerfuffle in internet-land with changes to its Terms of Service (TOS). The outrage was fast and furious.  A nice deal of blog and Tumblr and other commentary zeroed in on changes Dropbox announced to its TOS before the 4th of July holiday, and in particular how this or [...]

A blogger publishing under the name “WTForever21.com” recently got threatened with litigation for trademark infringement by the LA-based clothing retailer Forever 21. WTForever21.com, a parody site published by Rachel Kane, had prominently disclaimed any affiliation or endorsement by Forever 21.  And as indicated, Kane’s purpose was (some would claim clearly) parody.   Kane was the proud [...]

Our Twitter chat last week with technology and entertainment lawyer Joy Butler highlighted legal issues with app development, including contract issues between app developers and clients, on one end, and intellectual property (IP) and API issues between the app and the intended development platform, on the other end. Privacy issues become pressing later when the [...]

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, [...]

Podcast #2: January 6, 2011 [Audio clip: view full post to listen] In today’s podcast, we cover trademark cases from both U.S. and European Union courts involving major search engines such as Google and Yahoo.  In particular, we look at whether and how search engines can be held responsible for trademark infringement when advertisers buy [...]

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. [...]