{4:12 minutes to read} In a prior post, I discussed Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Bros., Inc.,[1] in which the Supreme Court determined that aesthetic features of a product could not be protected under the trade dress rubric. In that case, the products at issue were children’s clothes, and the Court suggested that rather than […]
{3:06 minutes to read} As discussed previously, in the United States, copyright and patent law are explicitly anticipated in Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which accords to Congress the power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right […]
{7:12 minutes to read} OK, the U.K. isn’t the British Empire of yore, but I couldn’t resist the title. In a prior post, we discussed a perennial problem faced by copyright legislators. Creators often have little bargaining power at the outset of their careers, and neither creators nor production companies (here meaning the industry gatekeepers: publishers, […]
{5:24 minutes to read} In a prior post, I mentioned that in September 2013, the U.S. Copyright Office had proposed a copyright small claims court as an alternative to full-blown civil litigation. Almost three years later, the Copyright Office’s proposal has moved onto the legislative agenda as a bill (H.R. 5757) in the House of […]
{4:18 minutes to read} In a prior post, Termination of Transfer – Part 1, I talked about Congress’s implementation of a two-term copyright structure, of 28 years each, in the US Copyright Act of 1909 (the act which governs copyright in works dated before 1978). The stated purpose was to permit authors a “second bite at […]
{4:48 minutes to read} As discussed in the last post, terminating a transfer of copyright is far more technically complicated than one might expect. This blog continues that discussion by outlining who can terminate and when. Who can terminate? Only a limited set of people can terminate a transfer: If the author is still alive, […]
{3:30 minutes to read} Terminating a transfer of copyright is far more technically complicated than one might expect. As discussed in my last post, the termination of transfer provisions in the current Copyright Act of 1976 are embodied in sections 203 and 304: Section 203 addresses works that were created or transferred on or after […]
{5:24 minutes to read} It takes money to make money. For most of modern history, artists seeking mass-market success have had to partner with “production companies”—record labels, publishers, and film studios—in order to get their work in front of the public. Though technology has in recent years reduced the burden of that requirement a bit, […]
{4:42 minutes to read} In my last post, I discussed the first set of criteria which a court must consider in certifying a potential class action: is a class the most efficient way to serve justice? If the court determines that a class is appropriate, it must then turn to the second set of criteria: […]
{5:06 minutes to read} As discussed in my prior post, litigating a low-value copyright infringement claim is often simply not worth the time and expense required. However, such a claim can sometimes be made cost-effective by aggregating it with similar claims in a class action. A single copyright holder with a small claim can serve […]