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 [...]

(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 [...]

[Thomas Yarnell contributed to research and drafting on this post.] Google’s popular and dominant advertising service, AdWords, allows companies to place auction-style bids on search keywords.  If a company bids the highest amount on a keyword, that company’s ad comes up first when someone searches the keyword.  The company then pays Google on a pay-per-click [...]

An automobile brokerage operating online under the web domains “buy-a-lexus.com” and “buyorleaselexus.com” got sued by Toyota Motor Sales for trademark infringement, first losing in trial court on a trademark “fair use” argument, then winning on appeal.  The case opinion can be found here. The domain name question in trademark is whether and how one can [...]

I recently wrote about the dust-up following the awarding of a Pulitzer for political commentary to online cartoonist Mark Fiore, when it was revealed that Apple had rejected Fiore’s proposed iPhone App several months before Fiore’s Pulitzer fame.  As had been widely reported, Apple subsequently invited Fiore to re-apply, which Fiore promptly did and now, [...]

Eric Felten brilliantly skewers the supposed credibility of the online “marketplace of ideas” when he recently wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal: Spend any time on the Internet and – like the naif in the ‘Casablanca’ gambling room dumbfounded when the wheel comes up 22-black twice in a row – one’s bound to [...]

Trumpets Ryan Chittum in the Columbia Journalism Review, “Yes, this is that serious. [The news media] needs to wrest back control of its speech from Apple Inc.  It’s easy to do it now while the press has leverage over Apple.  If the iPad becomes a significant driver of media revenue, and Apple decides to crack [...]

I will be moderating 2 separate panels on Monday and Tuesday at the 2010 Politics Online conference spectacular here in Washington. The first will be Monday April 19th at 2pm, and called “Is this Barack Obama’s Real Facebook Page? Domains, Twitter Handles, Online Presence – real or fake? Intellectual Property, Cyber Identity, and More!”.  I will be joined [...]

Oneok, a natural gas distributor based in Oklahoma, sued Twitter last week for trademark infringement.  Then dropped the case one day later. Oneok claimed that an unidentified third party had operated an account under Oneok’s name and logo (both registered trademarks, evidently) and, more particularly, issued tweets which “had the appearance of being official statements” [...]