Posts Tagged: "Copyright Office"

An analysis of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated led the appellate court to find that the annotations, while not having the force of law, are part and parcel of the law. First, the Eleventh Circuit found that the Georgia General Assembly was the driving force behind the annotations in the OCGA. Although the annotations were prepared by LexisNexis, those annotations were drafted based upon highly detailed instructions contained within its publishing agreement with the Code Revision Commission, making Georgia’s legislators the creators of the annotations.

Copyrights protect original works of authorship.  This gives a copyright holder exclusive rights to modify, distribute, perform, display, and copy the work. However, as with other forms of intellectual property, there are important things copyright holders need to know in order to best protect and utilize their copyrights. You do not need to register a work to be protected by copyright.  However, registration is encouraged as it provides enhanced protection for copyright holders.  For example, a registered copyright is considered prima facie evidence in litigation, meaning the court will accept, on face value, that the copyright is valid unless it can be proven otherwise. 

U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla of the Western District of Tennessee recently issued an order denying motions made by interactive streaming music provider Spotify to dismiss a case including copyright infringement claims brought by independent music publisher and copyright administration company Bluewater Music Corporation. Judge McCalla’s order determined Bluewater has standing for all 2,142 music compositions it has asserted based on ownership or an exclusive license of the works. Given Bluewater is seeking the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work, Judge McCalla’s order allows Bluewater to continue pursuing a maximum damages award of $321.3 million.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently issued an opinion in Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, which vacated-in-part a judgment out of the Central District of California that Led Zeppelin’s hit classic rock song “Stairway to Heaven” was not substantially similar to “Taurus,” a song written by the late songwriter Randy Wolfe, a member of the band Spirit. The case was remanded back to the district court after the appellate court found that certain instructions given by the district court to the jury were erroneous and prejudicial.

As of 2012, one in five adults in the United States have at least one tattoo.  While some designs are simple, many are incredibly complex, original works of art.  However, since tattoos are designed to be permanent, and often placed to be seen, the question arises – who owns the copyright to that artwork? And how can, and can’t, the owner display it? Unfortunately, there are no cases to date that definitively answer the questions around copyright infringement and tattoos.  With a new case filed by a tattoo artist in April 2018, concerning a tattoo he placed on WWE wrestler Randy Orton, which appeared in the WWE 2K16, 2K17 and 2K18 video games, it is important to determine what we do know about whether tattoos can be copyrighted, and who owns what rights with regard to their use and reproduction.

Some circuit courts have held that a work is “registered” and the copyright owner can sue an infringer as soon as the applicant files the application, deposits a copy of the work and pays a fee.  This is known as the “application” approach.  Other circuit courts follow the “registration” approach which requires the Copyright Office to act on the application—by examining it and either approving or refusing it—before the copyright owner may file suit. So, which approach is correct? We should soon have an answer as the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v Wall-Street.com, LLC to resolve this issue and finally decide what it means to be “registered.”

On Thursday, June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that should resolve the long-standing question of whether a copyright plaintiff must have a registration in hand when filing suit or, instead, can merely have an application pending. The case is Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com LLC, 17-571… The Solicitor General filed a brief in favor of the court taking the case. That brief urges the high court to adopt the “registration” approach based on the plain language of the statute.

Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office analyzes whether to revise and/or renew the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention provision. The latest triennial rulemaking review under the DMCA relating to anti-circumvention provisions began on June 30, 2017, when the Copyright Office published a Notice of Inquiry requesting petitions to renew existing exemptions, and as well as petitions for new exemptions.

Understanding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has become increasingly important for companies that want to protect their digital content. The DMCA was created primarily as a solution for service providers such as YouTube that host content uploaded by third parties rather than create their own original content. Service providers benefit from the DMCA because it protects them from liability in the event content uploaded to their site infringes another’s copyrights. While the DMCA addresses a number of copyright issues, the “safe harbor” provision remains one of its most important aspects.

Like other opinions in the IP arena, the Supreme Court’s decision in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands has created a new legal rule with limited practical guidance that will inevitably lead to less predictability in an already-murky area of copyright law.  Its new “imaginative separability” test for copyright eligibility for useful articles, such as footwear, clothing, and furniture, may be so easy that few designs will fail to qualify.  Yet, ultimately, Star Athletica may have the unimagined consequence of making copyright protection less desirable for qualifying designs. For those who seek the benefits of the Court’s undeniable expansion of potential copyright protection for useful designs, a bit of caution may be the appropriate response.

It’s not just businesses and corporate environments that need intellectual property protection – artists of all kinds must protect their work too. Specifically, musicians have a lot to copyright and trademark – band names, original music, and album art, to name a few… When it comes to YouTube, today, musicians should pay close attention to monetization of their IP rights, according to Umanoff. This means making sure that YouTube has reference files, which are samples of the copyrighted materials, so that YouTube can attempt to recognize an artist’s work when incorporated in user-generated content.She said, “The artist must also ensure that their reference files contain accurate metadata so that YouTube knows who to pay when copyrighted works are streamed. Independent companies specializing in confirming that YouTube content is monetized by uploading reference files and manually checking metadata are emerging and growing a new frontier of music technologists.”

Jacqueline Charlesworth has joined Covington’s Intellectual Property Rights and Media and Communications practices in the New York office. She most recently served as General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights of the U.S. Copyright Office.

It is one again time to take a moment to look back on the year that was, reflecting on the biggest, most impactful moments of 2016. For us that means looking backward at the most impactful events in the world of intellectual property. This year we received such a good response from our panel of experts that we decided to break this column into two…

The DMCA mandated that the Copyright Office establish a registry of designated agents for service of take-down notices. The initial system now appears to have been primitive. … Beginning December 1, 2016, service providers will be able to submit and update the names and contact information for their designated agents for receipt of take-down notices using a new electronic system. What is more, the fee charged for a paper filing, $105, will be reduced to just $6 for an electronic filing, reflecting the reduced claim on Copyright Office resources to input data and maintain a reliable resource.

An engaging image, be it a photograph or other graphic, can capture the reader’s attention and drive interest in an online post. Bloggers, especially, are well aware of the attention grabbing benefits of a great photograph or graphic. In striving to find just the right image, one may well not think twice about the apparent harmless use of a graphic poached from some obscure corner of the internet. Doing so, however, implicates a wide range of intellectual property rights governing the use of images.