“And what do you do?” “Oh, I’m a YouTuber!” The number of Americans who derive at least a part of their yearly income from posting original content on the Internet exploded over the past decade. The rise of new platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, combined with the video sharing site YouTube, has unlocked a […]
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50-Year Anniversary of Federal Copyright Protection for Sound Recordings
Sound recordings — i.e., the recorded versions of musical works — were not protected by federal copyright law until Congress passed legislation on February 15, 1972, giving them limited protection. Until the passage of Title II of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) in 2018, sound recordings created before February 15, 1972 were only protected to […]
Read moreAn Expensive Copyright Mistake?
We have previously written about some of the legal issues surrounding the current NFT craze. Issuing an NFT presumes that the creator of the NFT owns the necessary rights to the underlying work. Did the group Spice DAO misunderstand this, costing them $3 million and a lot of embarrassment? Spice DAO stands for Spice Decentralized Autonomous […]
Read moreFree the Australian Indigenous Flag: Addendum
This post is an update. Read the original post here. The “Free the Flag” campaign in Australia has come to what is generally seen as a happy resolution. We previously reported on the long-simmering controversy over rights to the Aboriginal flag, which was designed in 1971 as a protest symbol by Indigenous artist and copyright […]
Read moreFall 2021 Survey of Copyright, Trademark and Privacy Cases of Note Across the Federal Courts
Copyright Law
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Privacy, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity
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Trademarks and Brand Protection
On November 8, 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Unicolors Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz LP, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160223 (Aug. 20, 2021). The Justices were critical of Unicolors due to the company’s inconsistent arguments in its brief and petition for certiorari. Unicolors’ brief addressed what knowledge of application […]
Read moreNew Proposed Rule for CASE Act
This post is an update. Read the original post here. In August we wrote about the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (the “CASE Act”) and the initial steps taken by the Copyright Office to develop procedures for the new Copyright Claims Board (“CCB”), as well as open questions surrounding its constitutionality and feasibility. The Copyright […]
Read moreThe Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (CASE Act)
As we reported earlier, as part of the coronavirus relief and government spending bill passed by Congress in the final days of 2020, a quasi-judicial small claims court was established within the Copyright Office to hear disputes over infringement cases valued up to $30,000. Although the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (the “CASE […]
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