Posts Tagged: "copyrights"

In the official complaint filed by McCartney, the British rock legend is seeking to reclaim ownership of the Beatles copyrights under provisions of the Copyright Act, as amended in 1976. Section 304(c) of that legislation gives authors the right to terminate transfers to reclaim copyright interests for copyrights that were assigned to transferred to third parties before January 1st, 1978. Living authors, or surviving family members of authors who have died, have a five-year period starting 56 years from the date the copyright was secured during which they can send advance notice to copyright holders notifying them of an intent to terminate the copyright transfer.

On the menu this week for Other Barks & Bites, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case challenging the Lanham Act’s disparagement provision, a six-figure damages verdict goes in favor of former USPTO Deputy Director Russell Slifer, a TTAB petition is filed to challenge the trademark application for an NFL franchise currently in the relocation process, an announcement by a Japanese academic-industry research project that claims to have doubled the effectiveness of solar cell panel conversion rates, the FTC takes action against a pharmaceutical company and much more.

A copyright infringement battle of intergalactic proportions between Plaintiffs CBS and Paramount Pictures, and the company (along with its principal Alec Peters) looking to produce the crowdfunded Star Trek fan film Axanar (“Defendants”) is heating up. The parties have filed numerous motions in the past month, and the Court’s recent ruling on the parties’ motions for summary judgment means the case is inching closer and closer to its January 31 trial date… The Court then concluded that the “Axanar Works have objective substantial similarity to the Star Trek Copyrighted Works,” and therefore it “leaves the question of subjective substantial similarity to the jury.”

This week’s news headlines include nomination hearings for the potential incoming U.S. Commerce Secretary, the Supreme Court’s granting certiorari for an important case in biologics, a patent infringement suit targeting the NFL, the expiration of copyright protecting the works of a very influential science fiction author from the early 20th century, and another sports figure — this time UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor — filing trademark applications.

A patent and copyright squabble involving two players in the networking space for information technology (IT) development, which has ramped up in recent years, saw an interesting round of events play out in federal court and regulatory agencies this past December. At the center of the brouhaha is American networking and telecommunications giant Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) of San Jose, CA, which has filed multiple legal actions against Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) of Santa Clara, CA, alleging that Arista has moved into the networking equipment market using technologies developed and patented by Cisco, specifically through former Cisco employees who founded Arista.

Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions filed a copyright infringement complaint against New York City-based Christie’s, Inc. and Christie’s database subsidiary Collectrium. The suit alleges that Christie’s and Collectrium engaged in stealing copyright-protected images and lifted other private data from Heritage’s servers in order to drive its own sales… Heritage first identified this July that a crawling “spider” software program was operating on its servers accessible through HA.com, Heritage’s official website for offering online-only auctions and providing image catalogues of items available through live auctions. In its complaint, Heritage noted that the activities conducted by the spider software program, including database scraping or copying content for commercial purposes, is prohibited under terms of a Website User Agreement to which each registered user of HA.com agrees upon creating an account.

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…

We know that not only are copyrights grounded in the constitution, but core copyright industries contribute approximately $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy annually, and employ over 5.5 million American workers. At the same time, however, we are acutely aware that, unfortunately, copyright theft online is rampant, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has increasingly become ill equipped to address even flagrant, willful copyright infringement in the digital world. What we don’t know, however, is how President-Elect Trump and the Trump Administration will view copyright issues, and whether pro-creator copyright reforms will be on the President’s agenda come January 20, 2017. We can, however, make some educated guesses based on Trump’s entertainment industry ties, his potential Supreme Court nominees, and those he is surrounding himself with on his Transition Team and in a Trump Administration that is increasingly taking shape.

Entities owning the copyrights to music created by the late pop star Prince had filed suit against Roc Nation, the entertainment company owned by rapper Jay Z, which is affiliated with the streaming music service Tidal. Plaintiffs NPG Records and NPG Music Publishing allege that Tidal and Roc Nation have engaged in copyright infringement by adding a series of 15 unauthorized Prince albums to the Tidal catalog this June. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

On Monday, November 21st, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.) issued a decision allowing a copyright case involving the well-known spiritual song and 20th century civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to go forward. At the center of this case is the question of whether or not “We Shall Overcome” is part of the public domain in the United States, and the recent decision by S.D.N.Y. Judge Denise Cote indicates that the song could in fact be public domain material. “Resolution of the issues of originality and ownership will require discovery and a more developed record,” Cote’s decision reads.

A recent report from French consulting firm PMP Conseil made waves in the media for indicating that public performance exemptions in U.S. copyright law, such as Section 110 exemptions, cost copyright owners $150 million each year in lost royalties, $44 million of which is attributable to U.S. copyright owners in Europe. On November 11th, this study was presented by the International Council of Creators of Music (CIAM) at it’s annual conference in London. CIAM maintains that the U.S. is one of two “more economically developed countries” that have an exemption in place for playing music in bars, restaurants and retail establishments by radio or television.

On November 1st, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (8th Cir.) issued a decision in a case brought by motion picture entertainment company Warner Bros. and appealed by a group of defendants who licensed images culled from publicity material for some of Warner’s most famous entertainment properties. A panel from the 8th Cir. found in favor of Warner Bros. and affirmed an earlier verdict, which has helped to define whether publicity material for films and animated shows are available in the public domain. This decision is the second time that 8th Cir. has issued a judgment in this case.

Unfortunately for Hasbro, not all of its activities in the mobile gaming business have been completely original, leaving the game developer open to legal challenges. In late October, it was reported that Hasbro was named as a defendant in a copyright infringement action filed by Turkey-based gaming developer Peak Games in the San Francisco courthouse of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.). At the center of Peak Games’ complaint is Hasbro’s My Little Pony: Puzzle Party mobile game app, which Peak Games alleges is essentially a clone of that firm’s Toy Blast game.

LinkedIn recently filed suit in the Northern District of California against Doe Defendants for allegedly “scraping” data about its users from its website through fake profiles and software bots. LinkedIn alleges that the data scraping that was performed using fake profiles and bots was in violation of its user agreement, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, among other things.

McDonald’s choice to go with a pre-treated graffiti look in some of its restaurants has posed legal challenges along with consumer concerns. On October 3rd, McDonald’s was listed as a defendant in a copyright infringement action filed by Jade Berreau, the administrator of the estate of graffiti artist Dashiell Snow, a former girlfriend of Snow and the mother of his only child. Berreau alleges that graffiti decor used by McDonald’s in the interior of hundreds of its restaurants around the world directly infringes on a “tag,” or graffiti lettering, which was developed and used by Snow and became strongly associated with his work. The case has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (C.D. Cal.).