copyright
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The Winnie the Pooh Case is Really, Really Over
I’ve written in the past about a dispute over ownership of the Winnie the Pooh intellectual property rights. The original state court case was a claim by Stephen Slesinger Inc. (SSI), the successor to the rights from A.A. Milne, that Disney had underpaid royalties. A subsequent infringement case was brought in federal court, and Disney… Continue reading
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Of Course There is Copyright in Tattoos
From Tattoo Art Inc. website There is an unpublished decision out of the 4th Circuit that doesn’t cover any new ground legally but is timely, given the recent brouhaha over copyright in tattoos. Unremarkably, because I’m not sure how anyone could think differently, there is no discussion on the copyrightability of tattoos; that is assumed.… Continue reading
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The Cold War and the Copyright Act
There’s a fascinating bit of cold war history in the Copyright Act – who knew? The story is told in Hendricks & Lewis, PLLC v. George Clinton. George Clinton, of Parliament and Funkadelic fame, owes the law firm Hendricks & Lewis a lot of money. The firm obtained two judgments against Clinton and sought appointment… Continue reading
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Co-ownership Is Not Privity
A co-owner of a copyrighted work sues for infringement of the work. The court holds that the defendant had been granted a license by another co-owner, not a party, and therefore there was no infringement. The non-party co-owner then sues for copyright infringement in a new suit. Collateral estoppel or not? “Not,” according to the… Continue reading
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What is an “E-Signature”?
I just blogged about a case where an email was inadequate to transfer ownership of copyright. It wasn’t because it was email, though; an email exchange can do the trick, as was the case in Vergara Hermosilla v. The Coca-Cola Company (blogged here). There is a federal statute that allows for electronic signature of documents,… Continue reading
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Copyright Transfer by “Operation of Law”
A copyright can be transferred by written document or by operation of law. The First Circuit recently discussed the latter form of transfer, albeit with a neat sidestep of the question. The plaintiff Society of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery (the Monastery) is a religious order in Massachusetts founded in the 1960’s. The Monastery created translations… Continue reading
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A Derivative Work Made for Hire
Photo by davesandford, CC BY-NC 2.0 In U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc. v. Parts Geek, LLC out of the Ninth Circuit, the court says that its decision is about a “previously unexplored intersection of the Copyright Act’s work for hire and derivative work provisions.” Perhaps so, although the analysis is fairly routine. Defendant Lucas Thomason… Continue reading
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The Scope of One’s Employment
Work made for hire cases come up pretty often, but when they do the question usually is whether the person was an employee. This is the question that the factors in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid are used to answer. But for a work to be a work made for hire, the work must… Continue reading
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