On July 16, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens passed away at 99. He served on the high court almost 35 years. He regarded himself as a judicial conservative, but he gained a reputation over time for opinions viewed as liberal.According to Above...
Copyright Law
Copyright: Court finds Andy Warhol’s use of Prince photo was fair
The New York federal judge in a high-profile copyright infringement lawsuit found on July 1 that painter Andy Warhol did not infringe on Lynn Goldsmith’s copyrighted photograph of Prince when he based a series of portraits on it. The court concluded that Warhol...
Another step in the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ copyright trial
In October, we told readers about the high-profile copyright litigation in which the trustee of a trust containing a deceased musician’s copyright interests had sued the iconic band Led Zeppelin. Trustee Michael Skidmore alleged in U.S. District Court in California...
Texas school district owes $9.2 million for copyright violations
Last month, DynaStudy, a small, relatively new Austin, Texas, educational publisher of study guides was victorious in a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Houston school district. According to the Houston Chronicle, the jury found "dozens" of district...
Did “No Handlebars” use recycled parts of “Handlebars”?
Copyright protects a creative work from copying by someone other than the owner or licensee when the copied work is "substantially similar." Creating a substantially similar copy without permission constitutes copyright infringement.Billboard Magazine reported on May...
Striking or substantial similarity in lace patterns
On April 24, in a copyright infringement case involving floral lace fabric patterns, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained what federal copyright law requires when comparing protected and allegedly copied works. In Malibu Textiles, Inc., v. Label...
Artificial intelligence generates real copyright issues
When lawmakers passed the first federal copyright law in 1790 to protect rights in maps, charts and books, they could hardly have conceived of an issue under consideration today: Whether the creations generated by computers using artificial intelligence...
Fourth Estate: SCOTUS says registration approach is correct one
The verdict is finally in. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com, LLC. The court held that to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit under the federal Copyright Act, the Register...
Court greenlights mashup of Seuss and Star Trek as fair use
On March 12, a U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California released an opinion that discusses at length the concept of fair use of a copyrighted work. We have previously written about fair use -- a legal doctrine that allows limited uses of copyrighted...
US Copyright Office rulings on requests for dance copyrights
We recently posted a blog about three lawsuits alleging that the owner of Fortnite, the popular video game, violated copyrights in three dances reproduced in the game without permission or credit. As we described, dance choreography can be registered with the U.S....