A recent New York Times article discussed the case of an artist was sued for copyright infringement after he created paintings and collages based on photographs without crediting or obtaining permission from the photographer. The artist, Richard Prince, based his works on photographs from a book about Rastafarians “to create the collages and a series [...]

It is a task often relegated to the office interns: posting promotional content to outside social media sites. Despite the fact that this practice is officially frowned upon in the Federal Trade Commission’s 2009 endorsement guidelines, companies will often engage paid individuals – either employees on the payroll or outside bloggers who receive compensation in [...]

Unlike traditional newsroom journalists, “citizen journalists” have no formal way to ensure that everyone maintains similar quality standards.  Which does not mean that quality standards are necessarily (or consistently) maintained at traditional newsrooms, but rather that a traditional hierarchical editorial structure imposes at least theoretical guidelines. By definition, citizen journalism’s inherent difference from the traditional [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

(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 [...]

Trademark registration generally trumps an unregistered (i.e. common law) use of the same trademark, so says @cyclaw in speaking about trademark registration in Canada. I had tweeted this #trademark question: What happens if you apply for – and get – US federal trademark registration, but later find that someone else has been using the same [...]