Property, intangible

This is a remarkable story. It’s a counter-intuitive result, not wrong, but so surprising. I present: THE VILLAGE PEOPLE!! (Go ahead, full screen. You know you want to.) There is no dispute that the plaintiff in this case, Can’t Stop Productions, Inc., created the Village People. The front man in the video, the police officer,… Continue reading

I posed the question whether an overrun in a book printing was a breach of the copyright license granted for the use of photos in the book or just a breach of a covenant of the agreement. The court described the issue this way: According to Scholastic, “Corbis did not treat [Scholastic’s] ongoing, high-volume …… Continue reading

When parties enter into an agreement that includes a copyright license, and there is thereafter a failure to comply with one of the terms in the agreement, a court will have to decide whether it is a failure to meet a condition precedent to the license, in which case the accused use is not licensed… Continue reading

I generally write about intangible property, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I write about one piece of tangible property. Many years ago I wrote about a lawsuit over ownership of the intellectual property rights in the car “Eleanor” from the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” and in “Remake Eleanor” from the 2000 movie… Continue reading

I have written once before about the disputing members of the band RATT. I’ll remind you again about who they are, mostly because this video makes me smile every time I watch it: WBS, Inc. claims to be the successor-in-interest to the trademark RATT, by assignment from the predecessor partnership that consisted of the band… Continue reading

“The issue before the Court is whether an entity other than the trademark registrant and owner may properly be sued for trademark cancellation.” And my head explodes. One owns a property, a trademark registration. A claim that the property right doesn’t exist can only be brought against the entity that claims to own the property… Continue reading

The decision in Disney Enterprises, Inc. v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC was, to me, unexpected. Who would have thought that Redbox would win a case about selling codes for digital download of Disney movies? The way Disney elected to distribute the codes was key to the outcome, so I don’t know how much ripple effect… Continue reading

I’ve written in the past (recursive link) about the phenomenon of copyright infringement lawsuits brought by photographers or their agents against textbook publishers. The textbook publishers allegedly exceed the license they had for the use of stock photos, either by exceeding the number of print copies authorized or using the works outside of the territorial… Continue reading

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) oversees multiple federal programs established by Congress to promote certain agricultural commodities. These programs are funded by “checkoffs” — mandatory assessments that producers and importers pay on the sale or import of the commodity. The assessments are used to pay for a range of activities, including research and marketing… Continue reading

I previously wrote about an Oregon decision, Fathers & Daughters Nev., LLC v. Zhang. The case was dismissed because the author of the film, the plaintiff, had exclusively licensed the infringed rights to someone else, so couldn’t sue for infringement itself. This post is a separate one to address an interesting footnote in the decision,… Continue reading