copyright
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The Bankruptcy Court Still Has to Approve It
Here’s a bankruptcy practice tip—you can’t just go signing documents when your company is in bankruptcy. Defendant Deep claimed to own the copyright in the “Aimster” software of yore. He accused plaintiff XAC, LLC, a subsidiary of Xerox, of copyright infringement. Deep had three different theories for why he owned the copyright in the software,… Continue reading
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But What’s the Scope of the License?
One of the reasons for creating a written contract is to force the parties to consider the scope of the relationship into which they are entering. In an oral or implied license, though, the parties probably haven’t really fully thought out what their relationship is going to be. Which makes implied contracts litigation fodder. In… Continue reading
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It’s Hard to Get Copyright Standing Right
I gotta think that book publisher Pearson Education has lousy recordkeeping. I found 10 reported cases filed against it, not including this one, alleging that Pearson Education exceeded the scope of the license for photographs it uses in books. The plaintiff in Minden Pictures, Inc. v. Pearson Education, Inc. claims “that Pearson has been sued… Continue reading
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Don’t Wait for Termination to Claim Copyright Ownership
When we last visited Scorpio Music v. Willis, Victor Willis, one of the Village People, was successful in dismissing a suit filed by Scorpio Music, his former music publisher. Scorpio Music claimed Willis couldn’t terminate his copyright grant without his co-authors. In the decision we learned he could and the suit was dismissed, effectively terminating Willis copyright… Continue reading
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When a Logo Has Two Owners
The last two posts were about a case, DeliverMed Holdings, LLC v. Schaltenbrand, involving ownership of a logo. In the first post, it turned out that the copyright in the logo was still owned by the designer, not the company using the logo. @WatermarkIAM tweeted a caution: “You must make sure #copyright ownership is clear… Continue reading
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A Tale of Two Views of a Business Venture
Sometimes you just can’t do better than the court in setting up a story: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of… Continue reading
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Billy-Bob Teeth Bites Again
I recently wrote about the difference between standing in patent cases and copyright cases, and the always erudite Ron Coleman over at Likelihood of Confusion contributed on the topic. There is, in my mind, a flaw in copyright jurisprudence that essentially bars a defendant from challenging the chain of title for ownership of a copyright.… Continue reading
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Standing is a Lot Easier for Copyrights
I’m curious about the different legal standards that the courts apply in patent versus copyright cases when deciding whether a plaintiff who acquired the rights through transfer has standing. Patent law seems draconian, as exemplified by Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. v. Navinta, LLC. In Abraxis (blogged here and here), standing for a patent infringement suit was… Continue reading
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It’s Not Really a “Work Made for Hire”
One of the most misunderstood aspects of copyright law is work-made-for-hire. The lay understanding is that a work created at the request of another in exchange for payment is a “work for hire.” That’s not true, as explained by the Supreme Court in 1989 in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, but nevertheless it must… Continue reading
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