We all have photos where we don’t look our best (for some of us, that would be most photos), but we can’t go around claiming we own the copyright to photos just because we don’t like the way we look. Guns n Roses singer Axl Rose is learning this lesson, along with a little something about the Streisand Effect, with his failed attempt to scrub the internet of the so-called “fat Axl” pics. [More]
copyright
Internet Archive: Proposed Changes To DMCA Would Make Us “Censor The Web”
By 6.7.16
Copyright law — specifically, the 1998 addition known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — is everywhere. It’s applied to everything, because everything is software-driven, and it’s frankly starting to get more than a little awkward. That’s okay; laws age. So it’s time for an update, right? Except naturally, some of the changes being mulled over right now could be terrible for everyone who isn’t a giant corporation, because of course. [More]
Disney Not Happy About Snow White, Captain America Seen At Chinese Theme Park
By 5.31.16
Competition is great: when there are more options for something, consumers usually come out ahead. That applies to entertainment theme parks as much as to anything else: if there are more places to go, crowds will be mitigated, prices will be competitive, and amenities will probably improve. But “competing” doesn’t actually mean “duplicating the other guy’s stuff and displaying it at my place instead.” At least, it’s not supposed to. [More]
YouTube Threatens Legal Action Against Service That Lets You Download Videos
By 5.31.16
Most of us are perfectly happy with going to YouTube and streaming that clip of Pookie being exhorted — in language that is not safe for work — to lay waste to his place of work, but some folks may want to watch this video offline, or do some tinkering with the clip. Some YouTube videos are available for download, but most are not, which is why people turn to services that allow you to get your own copy of a streaming video. YouTube, not surprisingly, is not a fan of such services and is dangling the threat of legal action against at least one. [More]
Fox Swipes YouTube Clip Of Video Game For “Family Guy” Then Demands Copyright Takedown Of Original
By 5.20.16
Seven years ago, a YouTube user uploaded footage of a well-known glitch in the classic basketball video game Double Dribble. More recently, an episode of Fox’s Family Guy used what appears to be this exact same clip. Then the network had the original video temporarily removed from YouTube, claiming it was a copyright violation. [More]
Court Allows Copyright Lawsuit Against Star Trek Fan Film To Move Forward
By 5.10.16
While there has been much discussion about Paramount’s copyright claim on the Klingon language, the judge in the studio’s lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek fan fiction movie has chosen to not opine on that particular dispute while giving the go-ahead for Paramount’s larger copyright complaint to move forward. [More]
HBO Starting To Get Serious About Game Of Thrones Piracy
By 5.9.16
As you may have heard, a little cable show called Game of Thrones is back on TV, meaning it’s once again time for hordes of people to go online in search of free, pirated episodes. While HBO has previously turned a blind-ish eye to this unauthorized sharing, the network is beginning to ramp up its anti-piracy efforts. [More]
Language Creation Society: Paramount Does Not Own Klingon Language
By 4.28.16
As we reported earlier this month, Paramount Pictures is trying to block a crowdfunded Star Trek fan film based, in part, on the studio’s claim that it actually owns the copyright on the Klingon language. Now the Language Creation Society has chimed in on the case, making the argument that Paramount can’t claim ownership on a fictional language. [More]
Google Books Allowed To Continue After Supreme Court Rejects Authors Guild Appeal
By 4.18.16
After more than a decade of legal back-and-forth, the issue of whether or not Google Books — which allows users to search the texts of millions of scanned books — violates copyright law has been settled (for now), as the U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal from the nation’s largest trade group for professional writers. [More]
Is The Klingon Language Protected By Copyright? Paramount Thinks So
By 4.14.16
While you can copyright scripts, novels, song lyrics, and many other ways of using the English language, you can’t actually copyright the English language. But what about a language that you construct out of whole cloth? Once you share it with the world, are people free to use that new language however they wish, or do you maintain control over its use? [More]
Judges Tell Porn Copyright Troll That Geolocation Tools Aren’t Enough To Pinpoint Pirates
By 3.22.16
Malibu Media — online porn producer and copyright troll — has filed more copyright lawsuits than most of the other trolls combined, most of them against anonymous “Doe” defendants whose identities are currently nothing but IP addresses for their Internet service. Malibu and others have tried to use geolocation tools to more precisely identify these alleged porn pirates, but two judges recently told Malibu that this simply isn’t good enough. [More]
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal In Batmobile Copyright Case
By 3.7.16
The Supreme Court has decided not to get involved with a fight over whether or not the Batmobile is entitled to copyright protection, rejecting an appeal by a California man who makes and sells replicas of the caped crusader’s vehicle. [More]
Today Is The Anniversary Of 2 Live Crew’s Historic Supreme Court Win
By 3.7.16
2 Live Crew may be best known for its raunchy 1989 hit “Me So Horny” and the group’s public spats with family values groups and censors, but 22 years ago today, Luther “Luke Skywalker” Campbell and the Crew scored an important victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling that affirmed that parody constitutes a protected “fair use” of copyrighted material. [More]
Fairly Used: Why Schools Need To Teach Kids The Whole Truth About Copyright
By 2.26.16
Today’s teenagers live in a time where technology gives them the tools to create, share, and publish just about anything they can conceive, and enables and encourages them to use and remix existing content from TV, movies, music, and games. At the same time, they are repeatedly reminded that their creations can be shut down, removed, or monetized by others who simply claim to have a copyright. So they know how to snag a clip from The Walking Dead, set it to “Yakety Sax” and post it on YouTube, but what they may not know — because most schools are failing to teach them — is under what circumstances the law actually protects the fair use of copyrighted material, and when it doesn’t. [More]
“Happy Birthday” Song Settlement To Pay Out $14 Million To People Who Paid To Use Song
By 2.9.16
Last year, a decades-old battle over the rights to one of the most famous songs in the world finally came to an end when a federal judge ruled that the “Happy Birthday” song is in the public domain, meaning that its publisher, Warner/Chappell, has been improperly charging hefty sums for its use. The terms of a settlement in the case show that Warner will now fork over up to $14 million to people who should not have had to pay to use the song. [More]
Bad News For Naruto: Monkey Can’t Hold Copyright On Infamous Selfie
By 1.7.16
The years-long saga of the “monkey selfie” may have rolled to a quiet end in a federal court in San Francisco yesterday after a judge tentatively ruled that Naruto the macaque photographer does not hold the copyright to images he snapped on a stolen camera more than four years ago. [More]
Warner Bros. Trying To Block Devices That Get Around 4K Video Copyright Protection
By 1.4.16
A week ago, Warner Bros. home video folks announced they would be catering to the growing number of 4K TV owners by releasing 35 recent titles — including Mad Max: Fury Road and The LEGO Movie — on ultra-HD BluRay discs. Two days later, the entertainment giant was in court, suing to stop a company from selling devices that would let users get around the digital copyright protections on these, and other, 4K titles. [More]
Family Of Late Nursery School Teacher Claims ‘Big Bang Theory’ Ripped Off “Soft Kitty” Lullaby
By 12.30.15
If you’re a fan of The Big Bang Theory, you’re no doubt familiar with the method employed by other characters to soothe uptight scientist Sheldon when he gets upset: a lullaby about a soft, nice kitty that helps him settle down to sleep when he’s having trouble. That “Soft Kitty” song has also turned into big merchandising bucks, money the show doesn’t deserve according to a new lawsuit that claims the lyrics are a ripoff. [More]
