With thanks to a colleague in Australia for bringing this video to my attention, this is for everyone who thinks/writes about gender issues and copyright law (well, not so much the ‘law’ part of it – but it is very funny).  I dedicate this post to Ann Bartow – she’ll see why!
(And in case you [...]

[Read more →]

The following is a trademark disclaimer that I found in a textbook recently, although I’m not sure that ‘disclaimer’ is the correct term.  I haven’t noticed provisions drafted like this before and I’m really not sure what it’s getting at.  I’d be interested in others’ thoughts…
“All terms mentioned in this book that are known to [...]

[Read more →]

With thanks to Andrea Matwyshyn for bringing this to my attention, here’s an interesting article from the Seattle Times suggesting that teens are spending less time on Facebook and more on Twitter because of concerns about privacy (too many friends of friends) and the chance of unexpected communications with idols.  Interesting reading.
(URL: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017372375_tweetingteens30.html in case [...]

[Read more →]

Megan and I have blogged recently (me less articulately than her) about the nature of creation in various different milieus.  I was taken today by Charles Baxter’s tongue-in-cheek description of the difference between poets and prose writers, in terms of poetry involving more flashes of insight and prose requiring more perspiration.  Some of my favorite [...]

[Read more →]

Megan’s post about copyright and the muse reminded me to get back to this post that I started to draft a couple of days ago and never got back to because my computer crashed.
As I mentioned in my comment on Megan’s post I’ve been reading a lot lately about the act of creating literary works.  [...]

[Read more →]

On behalf of the editors of JOLTI at Case Western Reserve, some readers may be interested in the following:
Call For Submissions
Case Western Reserve’s Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet is searching for a final article to publish in its spring edition. Any scholarly work related to cyber law, intellectual property law [...]

[Read more →]

Another thing I picked up while auditing a publishing course over the break was the statement by an instructor that “If you don’t copyright your manuscript, it is in the public domain.”
Obviously, this is incorrect on a number of levels, and again illustrates how difficult copyright law is to understand even for people who are [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been auditing a magazine writing/publishing course run through my local rec center over the break, partly for fun and partly to find out how professional and semi-professional writing teachers who are not copyright lawyers understand the nature of authors’ rights.
I wasn’t necessarily surprised at the number of inaccuracies in the lecture on copyright law.  [...]

[Read more →]

With thanks to my colleague, Cassandra Robertson, for making this recommendation to me, I would suggest that those of us teaching TM law might assign our students the Scott Westerfeld novel, So Yesterday. It’s an easy and quick read which gives a fun and somewhat cynical view of consumers’ and business’s relationships with trademarks, branding, [...]

[Read more →]

Does anyone know anything about IP rights (or lack thereof) in the jigsaw puzzle industry?
My son has recently become enamored with 3D puzzles and is currently working on a world globe like this one.  So I was wondering if the jigsaw puzzle companies typically assert any IP rights in these creations.  Obviously images on puzzles [...]

[Read more →]

This morning as I was being ordered by my four year old to put on her Little Mermaid video, she explained to me:  ”Mommy, you don’t copy this DVD or you go in jail.”  I’d say the content industries’ message is getting through loud and clear.

[Read more →]

While Bruce, in his last post, is lampooning Microsoft I started to think about more “annoying Microsoft” trivia.  Where, oh where, did the paperclip icon go??

[Read more →]

Further to Greg’s post on the Brown v EMA decision, I thought it might be worth mentioning, by contrast, the position in Australia where violent and sexually explicit video games have typically been banned from sale within the country.  The federal and state governments are now considering the introduction of an R18+ rating for these [...]

[Read more →]

Someone asked me a question yesterday that I just couldn’t answer so I thought I’d try it out here.  As many of us know, the U.S. is unique in having a copyright registration system.  In other countries, there is no need to register a work in order to obtain statutory remedies etc.  This decreases the [...]

[Read more →]

The E.U. Parliament has just adopted a Directive that is intended to better protect consumer rights in relation to digital content.  The text of the Directive is available here.  There is also a summary by Natali Helberger here.

[Read more →]

On June 20, ICANN announced that it would be opening up the domain space for new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs),  meaning that anyone will be able to register virtually any word or phrase in almost any language or script as a gTLD.  Up until now, there have been 22 available gTLDs (eg .com, .net, [...]

[Read more →]

While sitting through demonstrations of free online video games (presented by my 5 year old), I noticed some clear similarities between the Johnny Finder games and the Indiana Jones movies.  While the games are clearly not passing themselves off as being officially affiliated with Indiana Jones, there are characters and plot elements that are similar [...]

[Read more →]

Eva Gabrielsson, the girlfriend of the late Stieg Larsson (author of the popular Dragon Tattoo books) has just completed a memoir on her life with the author.  I was struck by the cover design of her book, at least the version to be released in the U.S.  It seems highly reminiscent of the cover designs [...]

[Read more →]

I promise to give up after this one, but here’s a link to an SNL skit I recently discovered starring Hugh Laurie (TV’s “Dr House”) as a ghosthunter.
Hugh Laurie as a Ghosthunter

[Read more →]

This isn’t a very serious contribution to the blog, but it’s Friday and I just couldn’t resist this short video showing the perils of pre-taping lectures at home…

[Read more →]