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Entries Tagged as 'Intellectual Property Law'

RIAA on the SOPA/PIPA protest and Masnick’s reactions

February 8th, 2012 · No Comments

RIAA:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/what-wikipedia-wont-tell-you.html
Mike Masnick’s line-by-line reply:  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120208/01453517694/riaa-totally-out-touch-lashes-out-google-wikipedia-everyone-who-protested-sopapipa.shtml
 
Hat tip to Lauren Gelman.

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Online Norms and Culture

Thoughts on Ammori’s Free Speech Architecture and the Golan decision

February 5th, 2012 · No Comments

There is an interesting blog symposium at Concurring Opinions about Marvin Ammori’s Free Speech Architecture article.  I am participating in the symposium this week, and here is my first post:
Thank you to Marvin for an excellent article to read and discuss, and thank you Concurring Opinions for providing a public forum for our discussion.
In the article, [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

Where “C” and “D” Are Chords Instead

January 27th, 2012 · 2 Comments

As reported originally here in Texas Monthly, and most recently here by the TM Daily Post, Robert Earl Keen has taken a creative approach to settling a score (not a lawsuit) with Toby Keith.  (Additional interviews with Keen here and here.)
In an interview with Texas Monthly, Robert Earl Keen discussed the release of his new album, [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law

Call for Submissions: IP/Cyberlaw Articles

January 19th, 2012 · No Comments

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 [...]

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Tags: Academia · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology · Patent Law · Trademark Law

Remix Culture Reconsidered

January 14th, 2012 · 3 Comments

A few years ago I tried to express some anxieties about the rise of a remix culture that valued technology and novelty over timeless content. Those worries resurfaced while I was reading Rob Horning’s recent reflections on his own defensively reactionary tastes:
[T]he key issue is to think about why we choose novelty over immersion. [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law

Fair Use for the Masses

December 31st, 2011 · No Comments

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.  [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law

Some Truly Fascinating Numbers on Video Game Economics

December 26th, 2011 · 3 Comments

Back in October, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell explained the economics of video games as his company sees it. The Geekwire article is worth the read. For now, I’ll point out that he admits “We don’t understand what’s going on” and uses the language of co-creation of value, which I happen to believe is the current [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

Movies, Now More Than Ever, Or Is It Video Games?

December 26th, 2011 · No Comments

OK, that title is a riff on a line from The Player. I loved it when the film came out and still do. It says so much of nothing, but captures a vibe that persists. Yet again it seems the film industry is in trouble, or rather doldrums. The Times reports that this year’s box [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

From the Dumb Props Department Files…

December 24th, 2011 · No Comments

So, I read that Louis Vuitton is suing Warner Brothers for the line “Careful, that is a Louis Vuitton” in the movie “The Hangover II.” This got my hackles up – after all this IS a nominative use, unlike Bella’s Twighlight Jacket, and it is a non-trademark use – a description of the bag that’s presumably [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law · Trademark Law

Centers on Law and IP (Or: Perhaps We’ll Just Call It Flurm)

December 21st, 2011 · 9 Comments

We have received a cease and desist letter demanding that we change the name of our IP center from “Center for Law and Intellectual Property” because it infringes the rights of Fordham University’s “Center on Law and Information Policy.”  The letter also demands that we not use the acronym CLIP whatsoever in reference to our [...]

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Tags: Academia · Intellectual Property Law · The Trouble With Trademarks · Trademark Law

Patenting Medical Diagnostics

December 20th, 2011 · No Comments

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Mayo v. Prometheus Labs.  The case will hopefully provide some guidance on the patenting of medical diagnostics, but because the patent suffers from some real drawbacks, I’m not so sure.  I’ll explain why below. If you are interested in more detail, my 2008 article “Everything is Patentable” discusses [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law · Patent Law

Cheesy and Wrongful (?), but not Theft

December 15th, 2011 · No Comments

SOPA — the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, and its cousins and substitutes — has been all over the news recently.  Proponents rely heavily on rhetorical appeals to the idea that the US must act aggressively to stop “theft” of intellectual property by “rogue” website operators.  That “theft” business has been endlessly and repeatedly critiqued by analysts of [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law

When Easy Cases Make Bad Law

December 2nd, 2011 · 4 Comments

I want to pick up on a topic nicely covered by Greg Lastowka — the recent case involving Bella’s jacket from the movie Twilight. Perhaps you’ve heard of it — the movie, I mean, not the case.
There is a maxim that “Hard Cases Make Bad Law.” Today I want to talk about a lesser used [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law · Trademark Law

Regarding Bella’s Jacket

December 1st, 2011 · 1 Comment

I feel like I’m scooping Jacqui here, since she’s the Madisonian Twilight expert, but I was so bothered by the recent district court decision in the Bella’s Jacket Brouhaha that I’m chiming in on the intersection of intellectual property and teen vampires.
Twilight is probably part of basic 21st century cultural literacy, so I’ll presume [...]

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Tags: Art and Politics · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Online Norms and Culture · The Trouble With Trademarks · Trademark Law

More on Security but with an IP Twist

November 22nd, 2011 · 2 Comments

Many IP profs watch legislation, and we write about the way proposed laws are good or bad or wise or imprudent. I think the way the IP and online space are going will require more on the technology side. For example, the recent debates on the PROTECT IP Bill and SOPA had some interesting comments [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

Analog Return: Vinyl, Zines and Motivation for Creation

October 27th, 2011 · No Comments

Analog: The Resurrection is coming to a store near you. At least it looks that way. The Times reports that vinyl is making a comeback. I happen to have a fair amount of vinyl from when I saved up to buy LPs as a kid. But now companies like Goota Groove are among about 20 [...]

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Tags: Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

Because euphemisms for the female body and restaurants just go so well together.

October 19th, 2011 · No Comments

[This is largely a comment to Alfred’s post below, but it’s long and I wanted to include some links so put it here as a separate post.  MC]
Perhaps the lawsuit Alfred discusses below could also be filed under “karma”… Last November, Twin Peaks filed a complaint here in the Northern District of Texas alleging that [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law · Trademark Law

Hooters files suit against Twin Peaks restaurants

October 1st, 2011 · No Comments

OK, at some level I understand that this is a serious lawsuit. As reported by the AP, Hooters has accused a former executive of taking confidential information to his new employer, rival Twin Peaks restaurants.
Now, I’d never heard of Twin Peaks restaurants before (do I smell some kind of trademark or dilution claim out [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law · Just for Fun

Changing IP

August 24th, 2011 · 4 Comments

I saw a paper recently that made an argument of a familiar sort: 
Business and technology are changing the nature of X artifact that has been the object of regulation via IP.  How we think about and apply relevant IP needs to change as well.  In this case, the argument was about books becoming e-books, and [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Property Law

Puzzling Thoughts About IP

August 24th, 2011 · 3 Comments

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 [...]

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Tags: Art and Politics · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law