copyright
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Today’s Quiz
Does this check transfer copyright ownership? If you can’t see the image, the check (which was cashed) is for $75.00 and on the memo line says “For rights to song ‘Dos Horas De Vida.” What do you think? Leave your comments below. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative… Continue reading
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Challenging the Sublicense to Your License
Hang in with me, we have a bit of a licensing chain to follow here. The lawsuit is about whether a Russian performer, Sergey Lazarev, had a license to record and perform the song “Almost Sorry”: The song was written by Taryn Murphy and Chris Landon. They pitched Lazarev’s manager in 2006 and we have… Continue reading
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You Need to Decide Your Legal Theories Before Trial
According to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: The popular song Whoomp! (There It Is) was released in 1993. For more than half of the song’s existence—since 2002—the parties to this action have been litigating the question of who owns the composition copyright to the song. And at least part of the reason… Continue reading
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The Effect of Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick
Section 411 of the Copyright Act says that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.” In Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, the Supreme Court held that § 411 is a “claim… Continue reading
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Behind Every Movie is a Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Successful movies always seem to be accompanied by copyright infringement lawsuits, generally an optimistic author who believes his or her story was stolen and made into a movie. But in Gomba Music, Inc. v. Avant we have a very different twist, two different claimants to ownership of the copyright in music written by the subject… Continue reading
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Having Documents Helps
I usually write about ownership issues in the context of infringement claims. But I ran across a tax case where management (or actually, lack of management) of the ownership of the intellectual property ended up creating a tax deficiency on 29.6 million dollars. In 1976 William and Patricia Cavallaro started a contract manufacturing company, Knight… Continue reading
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Remember the Details
This case demonstrates why you follow up to make sure tasks get completed. Sometimes it’s the little details that get you … Vincent Heck is the sole member of plaintiff Clarity Software LLC, a company that distributes software. Heck wrote the original software, owned a couple of companies and licensed the software to those companies… Continue reading
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Refusing to Execute the Documents
Songwriters Daniel Cohen and Julie Didier owned their own publishing company, Bayou Blanc Music Company, which owned the copyrights in their songs. When they divorced in 1985, the divorce decree incorporated an agreement that Didier would continue to own Bayou Blanc but she would transfer Cohen’s pro rata share of the copyright ownership in all… Continue reading
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Who Owns an Academic Journal?
For decades Duke University published an academic journal called Social Science History that was edited by The Social Science History Association. At the time of the dispute, the two were parties to an “Editing and Publishing Agreement,” which provided that: If you can’t read it, the agreement was for five years and auto-renewed every year… Continue reading
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Learn more about me at my website, Chestek Legal
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