Copyright Litigation Blog

It is too simple to say that Voemel was a Nazi. He...

2012-02-27T17:09:19.640-05:00

It is too simple to say that Voemel was a Nazi. He was a member of the party yes. But he was also the assistant of Flechtheim and he took care of the collection when Felchtheim left Germany.
Things have to be proved first.
Best regards,
JM

This is potentially a huge issue and no one really...

2012-02-19T08:26:17.260-05:00

This is potentially a huge issue and no one really fully understands it. Does everyone realize how bad the piracy is in the world. Take Sony Vegas Pro, it's a Linear Video editing software package that "kids" (not even 13 yet) are pirating it so that they can use the best software out there to make YouTube videos which these kids make MONEY off of. So in a sense due to how contracts are and agreements with using copyrighted material (like video game play) within an illegal software package is NOT GOOD! People are making millions of dollars on their YouTube channels and "some" are most likely using pirated software only because the piracy blocking for keys is just not strong enough to deter people from using it for profit business's.

I know I am off topic but in a sense it's all tied together. The government wants to stop piracy for a reason, because hard working individuals at Sony are more or less getting screwed IF Sony can't make money on their software because people are in essence stealing it, which then makes them put pressure on the legislation and government to go after these piracy type torrent sites etc etc BUT that's a very tough debate to have as I am not aware of all the facts regarding megaupload. I actually have just decided to continue this at my own Google based software BlogSpot website. Link is here: ubuntuaddicted.blogspot.com

-Ubu out

Shutting down websites that somehow contribute (by...

2012-02-06T15:38:00.218-05:00

Shutting down websites that somehow contribute (by allowance) to the unauthorized distribution of intellectual property is somewhat akin to tearing up roads just because a trafficker used them to transport unauthorized substances. The MPAA and RIAA lawsuits are examples of how current legislation can be used to combat piracy, and there is potential that the volume of complaints will grow:
The RIAA? Amateurs. Here's how you sue 14,000+ P2P users

Anthony
Killing SOPA and PIPA: Did "The People" (or You?) Really Make a Difference?

Oh with a red bottom also. But they do look cool t...

2012-02-05T20:56:33.912-05:00

Oh with a red bottom also. But they do look cool though.

Excellent post I must say.. Simple but yet enterta...

2012-02-03T08:19:04.494-05:00

Excellent post I must say.. Simple but yet entertaining and engaging.. Keep up the awesome work!

Let me get this straight; If I publish online a ne...

2012-01-30T21:17:37.242-05:00

Let me get this straight; If I publish online a new technique of some sort, no one can copy any part of it -- except the gov., of course because it's privileged -- without getting my permission first?

If so, why did I publish it online in the first place, to keep my property from becoming public? So silly, but Rightwingers and Rightwing Democrats are behind it, just as they were behind the US Patriot Act, SOPA, and PIPA.

And what is restriction in freedoms is Senator Lieberman pushing for now?

Ray: In Liquid Motors, Inc. v. Lynd, No. 3:09-cv-0611-N (N.D. Tex. April 3, 2009), FBI raided a cloud-type data center and shut it down on charges that the owner of the center was a crook. FBI said it needed to confiscate the whole data center because relevant data was commingled throughout.

Liquid Motors, one of the innocent businesses that used the data center, petitioned a federal court for relief. The shutdown was harming its business. The court compelled FBI to work over the weekend to copy Liquid Motors' data and release it on disks.

The case stands for the proposition that when law enforcement shuts down a cloud service, it must reasonably accommodate the needs of innocent parties. --Ben

SOPA/PIPA proponents claim they can't touch ro...

2012-01-21T13:38:02.146-05:00

SOPA/PIPA proponents claim they can't touch rogue sites that don't have a significant US jurisdictional nexus, not rogue sites in general. Megaupload hosted its servers in the US, providing the necessary jurisdictional nexus - had they hosted overseas, it's far less clear this would have been possible, and that's the target SOPA/PIPA proponents have been aiming for all along.

<smile> In the interests of historical accur...

2012-01-17T13:35:40.599-05:00

<smile> In the interests of historical accuracy, shouldn't she be pictured with a medium-dark ale and not a pilsner/lager/witber?

Hi Ray, thanks for reading the book and for taking...

2011-12-29T15:43:50.184-05:00

Hi Ray, thanks for reading the book and for taking the time to review it. I hope you don't think it churlish to disagree with one point in the review, your comment that the book is sure to offend just about everyone and that I was unfair to newspapers. I didn't mean to offend a single soul, and hope I haven't. My goal was to try to honestly look at the strengths -- and there are indeed strengths -- and weaknesses of our current system. These are, as you put it, the tough questions the book tries to confront. But it tries to confront them in a transparent, evidence-based manner. I am not interesting in tearing anyone down, but rather in building people and our laws up.

That includes newspapers, which I love. I subscribe to three daily hard copy newspapers: my local Hearst paper, The Stamford Advocate, which is a great, great paper, and which I wouldn't change a single thing about; the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. I read all three cover to cover everyday, enjoying the tactile pleasure of hard copy. So, I support newspapers where it counts: by paying for them and by reading all of them.

The section on How to Fix Copyright on newspapers is the most extensively researched and documented in the whole book. It occurs in Chapter 5, "Law is Not a Solution to Business Problems," and is on pages 145 to 157. This is not a drive-by discussion, but an in-depth look; it includes charts on newspaper circulation by household from 1950 the present (page 149), media usage and consumer spending for the last 6 years (page 151), as well as detailed discussions about how newspapers historically made money and what the challenges are now. I also offer solutions to their current problems. I point out that they have been losing eyeballs long before the Internet came along and how advertisers follow eyeballs. I point out that their principal source of income, classified advertising, was taken away by Craigslist and other online services, not by search engines or copying. That's not being unfair, it's the facts.

I do criticize some (emphasize some) newspaper organizations for trying to get new laws, because as the theme of the chapter details, law is not a solution to business problems, and newspapers' problems, while real, are business not legal problems. That's being honest; it's not being brutal and it's not unfair. I hope those who read the section will find it well documented, researched, and constructive. I love newspapers. I want them to succeed, but they have to succeed in today's environment, they can't succeed by thinking they can hold on to yesterday's environment through new laws; laws can't change economic realities. That's the point of the section.

Thanks for letting us know about this. I usually ...

2011-08-18T13:02:30.609-04:00

Thanks for letting us know about this. I usually like to hear both sides of an argument before forming an opinion, but this one really seems to be clear cut. The dissenting opinion is correct. Perhaps there are import restrictions or something like that which could apply, but copyright was never intended to cover books you buy from the legal publisher.

There is a lively conversation on this topic over at http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110817/18162715566/legally-bought-some-books-abroad-sell-them-us-you-could-owe-150k-per-book-infringement.shtml#comments, by the way.

Every time I'm working on a copyright issue I ...

2011-08-13T08:02:06.613-04:00

Every time I'm working on a copyright issue I end up running into a different opinion from that case. I think there's about twelve of them by now.

Difficult cases make bad law, and difficult plaint...

2011-08-09T11:08:12.525-04:00

Difficult cases make bad law, and difficult plaintiffs just the same, so it seems.

Marcw - The plaintiff did not plead fair use, the ...

2011-08-09T10:24:35.068-04:00

Marcw - The plaintiff did not plead fair use, the plaintiff pleaded copyright infringement. Ordinarily in motion papers on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a plaintiff is not supposed to submit evidence. If the court wishes to consider evidence, it it required by Rule 12(d) to convert to summary judgment to permit the plaintiff to do exactly what you say. The district court denied plaintiff this opportunity.

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (&q...

2011-08-09T09:45:38.330-04:00

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. ("The burden of the proof lies upon him who affirms, not he who denies.")

How is it possible to shift burdens onto the plaintiff too early in the proceeding? If the plaintiff raises an issue, then the burden should lie upon him. If for whatever reason the plaintiff pleads the elements which would prove an affirmative defense, stealing a march on the defendant and defining the terms of the engagement, then he should be held responsible for showing why that defense is inadequate, and if he fails, then the defense should stand. The defendant should enjoy the privilege of an incompetent plaintiff: we should not protect the plaintiff from himself. Otherwise we both promote excessive litigation and encourage plaintiffs to shoddily argue the defendant's case and see if the defendant notices it and fixes it in time.

There are both philosophical and factual errors in...

2011-07-15T13:29:34.912-04:00

There are both philosophical and factual errors in the video. For example "transformative" is not one of the four fair use factors. There is also a lot of offensive innuendo and ad hominem attacks. In addition, the video over simplifies to an idiotic degree, the legal issues. It also ignores the practical issues: Does a pirate REALLY want to be clashing legal swords with a rights-owner? Acceding to a DMCA takedown notice is normally the smartest thing legally, ethically, and practically.

I like how each time you post this, I go up higher...

2011-06-14T14:57:17.200-04:00

I like how each time you post this, I go up higher in the rankings! Keep it up!

Ray, what do you think about patent applications t...

2011-06-06T12:00:45.140-04:00

Ray, what do you think about patent applications that require disclosure of prior art, which could include published journal articles that are copyrighted? Would a person be guilty of copyright infringement for submitting to the PTO the statutorily required disclosures? Seems the court litigation submissions are analogous to the patent application requirements.

I got a copy this handbook last week and I gotta t...

2011-05-07T02:04:03.098-04:00

I got a copy this handbook last week and I gotta tell you it really worth the money!

In your post above, you write that this video is o...

2011-05-05T12:48:00.192-04:00

In your post above, you write that this video is of a "reahearing en banc (before every judge on the court)." As I'm sure you already know, the Ninth Circuit has twenty-six active judges and another twenty who have taken senior status. My understanding is that "en banc" in the Ninth Circuit usually is a limited en banc review panel of a subset of all of the court's judges, while full en banc hearings in that court are pretty rare. The other circuits all have a smaller number of judges, so they are able to conduct truly full en banc hearings as you describe. I believe the Ninth Circuit has adopted a modified procedure, however.

Ray, just to make sure you do not end up on the wr...

2011-05-05T10:44:40.461-04:00

Ray, just to make sure you do not end up on the wrong side of the issue, these plaintiff attorney (trolls) are suing hundreds or thousands of defendants in each case using the expedited discovery tool to subpoena the ISPs.

However, once they find out who the defendants are, instead of proceeding against them in court as they should, they are extorting users by sending threatening letters and phone calls demanding that they "pay up or else" to the tune of thousands of dollars "because settling is cheaper than defending your case in court."

I would appreciate seeing more information on the defense side of this issue to defeat these expedited motions and/or addressing discovery issues relating to digital forensics, spoliation, etc.

The Mark Billy piece is less than awe-inspiring: h...

2011-04-23T10:34:44.769-04:00

The Mark Billy piece is less than awe-inspiring: http://twitpic.com/4foszx. It also indicates that his role reversal (he wanted to be Cariou but realizes that he's Prince) is a little less than sincere.

This is supported by the fact that he seems to be friends with Joy Garnett. Who wrote an article that's about as bad as those youtube educational videos (I agree, those are not helping anybody): http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/garnett/cariou-v-prince-the-copyright-bungle-3-31-11.asp

The Cat Weaver image is much more interesting, but also obviously generated for producing criticism...I doubt she's going to be contacting you any time for a license. Should an artist (say, who is actually represented by a major gallery) choose to follow her lead I think they'd hear from Prince's and Gagosian's attorney fairly quickly.

This is wrong.. Turns out that Al had been lied to...

2011-04-22T14:47:49.773-04:00

This is wrong.. Turns out that Al had been lied to by Gaga's manager and she never even heard he wanted to do a parody. As soon as he revealed what happened and she heard the song she OKd it right away.

If a film was copyrighted with the date 1958-06-25...

2011-04-21T22:42:58.192-04:00

If a film was copyrighted with the date 1958-06-25 and renewed 1986-12-16, didn't they miss their 28 year window by 6 months and the film fell into the Public Domain?

Love the blog, but haven't been here in a whil...

2011-04-17T16:30:56.339-04:00

Love the blog, but haven't been here in a while and I don't like the moving avatar. You look creepy (even with a fast connection), and then your head keeps moving even though the spoke portion is done (it reminds me of Disney's Hall of the President). It also keeps starting from the beginning, with a loud voice (the volume button doesn't seem to change the sound level and there's no default to turn it off entirely) every time I go to a new posting. There is only 1 post about avatars, which is unrelated to yours, but I'm not a fan.