For those of you who are confused about what Google actually hopes to accomplish by digitizing more than 12 million books, and what the implications are for copyright holders, the Open Book Alliance has published a very interesting analysis of the proposed Google Books Settlement, which attempts to parse rhetoric from reality. The article can [...]
Entries Tagged as 'infringement'
The RIAA Will Sue Your Grandma
May 28th, 2010 · Comments Off · Copyright, Technology
The RIAA has now sued or threatened to sue more than 28,000 people in the United States, in most cases extracting settlements of several thousand dollars from college students, housewives, and families with precocious preteens who downloaded music from Grokster, Kazaa, LimeWire, or BearShare. In many cases the infractions alleged are minimal (e.g., 5 songs) [...]
Tags:Copyright·infringement·music·RIAA
I Can Say Your Name!
February 15th, 2010 · Comments Off · Trademark
If we pause a moment and reflect on the pervasiveness of trademarks and advertising in the world economy, we can begin to understand how – despite the lessons of history — trademark owners occasionally forget that simply trademarking a word or phrase does not remove it from the common lexicon. People can still use the [...]
“Men” Down in Case Down Under
February 4th, 2010 · Comments Off · Copyright
The 80′s Australian pop-rock band Men at Work, whose vegemite-themed hit “Down Under” vaulted them into superstardom — winning them a Grammy for Best New Artist, and earning them a place in rock history as the only Aussie band to have ever concurrently had a No. 1 album and single in the U.S. – has [...]
Baidu Beats Piracy Charges
January 27th, 2010 · Comments Off · Copyright, Popular
A Chinese court found no wrongdoing by Baidu in a copyright infringement case launched against the largest search engine in China some two years ago by Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Hong Kong and Warner Music Hong Kong. The Beijing court ruled that the search engine had not broken the law by linking downloads [...]
I am a commercial litigator and intellectual property lawyer in San Francisco. Although my practice encompasses a wide variety of business disputes, I have a particular fondness for, and am prone to wax philosophical on, the subjects of copyright and trademark infringement in music, literature, art, and film.
