Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Extend Copyright Protection Via Trademark Law The Washington Post has this report about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Dastar Corp. v. 20th Century Fox Film Corp.. At issue in the case was whether or not Dastar committed "reverse passing off" by modifying footage from a 20th Century Fox World War II documentary, which was then sold under a new title and with new production credits, with no attribution to the makers of the original series. Interpreting the meaning of "origin" in the Lanham Act's prohibition on false designation of origin, the Supreme Court in an 8-0 decision authored by Justice Scalia determined that "origin" does not refer to the source of the ideas or communications embodied in the work, but instead refers to the source of the physical product (in this case, the videotape). The Court held that a contrary interpretation would result in an irreconcilable conflict between the trademark and copyright laws. A copy of the opinion can be found here.

Lessig Sounds Call to Arms Lawrence Lessig has issued a call for support in the fight to introduce a bill to soften the blow from the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act into the U.S. Congress. Via the Trademark Blog.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later CNet is reporting that the RIAA erroneously mailed out dozens of infringement notices last week, including one to Penn State University's astronomy and astrophysics department. The RIAA has attributed the letters to an over-zealous intern.

California Town: DMCA Compliance Criminal CNN is reporting that the City Council of Arcata, California, in a mostly symbolic move, has passed an ordinance making it a misdemeanor for any city department head to voluntarily comply with investigations or arrests under the Patriot Act. Violation of the ordinance carries with it a $57 fine.

Latest Challenge to DMCA Appears Unlikely to Succeed Law.com is reporting that the federal judge in the newest case to challenge the DMCA, 321 Studios v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios has indicated that she is leaning towards the studios. The case involves a challenge to the DMCA by 321 Studios, which distributes two programs, DVD X-Copy and DVD Copy Plus, that crack the encryption on DVDs to allow users to make copies. 321 Studios is arguing that its programs allow users to make backup copies, and that such uses of their program are fair use under copyright law. The AP has a report here, and Wired has a report here.

DVD In the News, Part II Again on Law.com, the California Supreme Court has refused to dismiss as moot the appeal in DVD Copy Control Association v. Bunner. The DVD Copy Control Association had sued Bunner for linking to the code for DeCSS, a program that circumvents the encryption found on DVDs, allowing the DVD to be copied and played on "unauthorized" devices like Linux boxes, claiming that Bunner's actions amounted to dissemination of stolen trade secrets.

DVD Wars, Part III Reuters is reporting that the Hollywood studios have filed an additional five lawsuits in New York against the makers of DVD copying software. Background information on the DVD battles can be found on the Berkman Center's Open DVD site.

Spawn of DMCA: Law of Unintended Consequences? The AP has a report on the state-versions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or Super DMCAs, and what many fear is overly broad language that could criminalize something as innocuous as security software.

Wonder What the Class Action Would Look Like... The New York Times is reporting that the recording industry is quietly financing the development of a number of technological "self-help" measures, which vary in degree of maliciousness, as well as legality. Yet another reason to oppose Congressional attempts to legalize copyright infringement self help.

What's Good for the Goose Despite blocking scores of Clinton judicial nominees, the Republicans are now so upset over the Democratic filibusters of Bush nominees Owens and Estrada that they're considering filing a lawsuit, seeking a judicial determination that failure to vote up or down on a judicial nominee is unconstitutional. (Never mind the holds that Sen. Helms exercised on judicial nominees for years.)

RIAA Settles with College Students The New York Times is reporting that the four college students sued by the RIAA for making search engines available over their school networks, thus allegedly contributing to peer-to-peer downloading of copyrighted songs, have settled with the RIAA, agreeing to pay between $12,000 to $17,000 each over the next three years. Additional reporting from the AP here, and from Wired here..

Completely Off-Topic But funny nonetheless. Seems that a British man called the police because his wife refused to cook him dinner. Would ordering him pizza suffice?

Invasion of the Persona Snatchers First comes this report that Mr. T is suing Best Buy for diminishing the value of the "unique persona that [Mr. T] developed for [more than] 20 years and is of great economic value to him" by making him look like a fool for boxing "middle aged, balding, out-of-shape" Best Buy customer in a recent commercial. Now the lead singer of Deee-Lite is suing Sega for allegedly misappropriating her persona for a video game character.

RIAA Will Be Coming After You (and Your Little Dog, Too) Wired is reporting that the recent decisions in the Verizon and Grokster cases may precipitate a shift in the RIAA's legal strategy towards going after individual file sharers.

Net Users Are Cheap? Wired has an article in which Berkman Center's own Terry Fisher opines about Apple's new iTunes Music Store and it's ability to wean users off of P2P networks. According to Fisher, $.99 may be too high to win over large numbers of file traders.

Never Say Die The music industry has switched tactics in its war against Internet file sharing. Apparently, the RIAA has been sending Kaaza and Grokster users pop up messages that warn of potential legal penalties facing copyright infringers. Which just goes to prove that the RIAA still doesn't get it. The answer to the recording industry's woes is better customer service, not draconian tactics. I should be the recording industry's wet dream: I own well over 500 CDs, and am quite willing to drop $10 on a CD from an artist I've never heard, based merely on good word of mouth. Instead, the recording industry would probably consider me part of the problem. Why? Because 80% of the CDs I buy are either used or come from BMG, and in the past I have been known to download my fair share of songs off of Gnutella and the like. And it's not because I think music should be free, or because I don't value artists' copyrights. It's because the recording industry has consistently failed to live up to the promise made to the American public back in the early 1990s -- that the price of CDs would come down in line with tapes as the medium matured. Instead, new albums are still costing close to $20 (when not on sale). I can handle $10 for an artist that is completely unknown to me. I can even handle $15 for the newest album from one of my established favorites. But I'm not willing to spend $20 on an album that, if past experience is any predictor, will contain only 1-3 songs that I like. Six dollars per listenable song is just too high. So what should the recording industry do to bring me back into the fold? 1) Bring down the price of CDs. Fifteen dollars for a new album, $10 for an older album would certainly increase my consumption of non-used CDs. And I don't think I'm alone. 2) Encourage more services like Apple's iTunes, which allow you to download and "own" music for $.99 per pop. I'm willing to pay money to obtain music online. I've subscribed to LaunchCast Plus ($4.95/month), and listen to it often at work. But I won't pay $9.95 for Rhapsody's streaming audio, only to have to turn around and pay an additional $.99 for every song I want to burn onto a CD (although, I must say that Rhapsody is much more likely to get my business than services that make me pay a monthly subscription fee, only to have my downloaded songs expire as soon as I cancel the service). Give me the ability to buy music online; give me the flexibility to listen to it as streaming audio, burn it to a CD, or transfer it to my Lyra; and give it to me for a reasonable price, and I'm there. Tie me to my computer and an Internet connection to be able to listen to the music (yes, I still have a dial up connection since Earthlink can't seem to get my DSL up and running), or restrict what I can do with it after I've purchased it, and no deal. Maybe the recording industry will figure this out before it's too late. Maybe not.

I'm Back After a bit of a hiatus, I finally have some free time to start posting again.

When First Amendment Rights Collide Law.com has a write-up about the case Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, which is currently up for cert consideration by the Supreme Court. At issue is whether the sale of formerly public land to the Mormon Church via a deed that contained a covenant providing for a public easement for "pedestrian access and passage only" created a public forum. Should be the perfect opportunity for the Supreme Court to further limit Marsh.

Grokster Suit Tossed I'm a bit late on this, but Law.com has an article about the Los Angeles federal district court's decision to grant the summary judgement in favor of the defendants in the copyright infringement case brought by the movie studios, record labels and music companies against Grokster, StreamCast Networks and Kaaza. No quote from Zittrain or Lessig in this write up, but it's only a matter of time until I find one. Reuters is reporting that the music industry has vowed to continue its battle against on-line file sharing despite the legal set back.

Supreme Court Declines to Clear Up Web Jurisdiction Confusion Boston.com is reporting that the Supreme Court has declined to grant cert in the Internet defamation case Healthgrades.com, Inc. v. Northwest Health Care Alliance Inc.. The case involves an appeal by Healthgrades.com from a 9th Circuit ruling holding that the company is subject to jurisdiction in Washington state based on the fact that it rated a Washington state healthcare provider, using information obtained from Washington state records.

Boucher is the Man Wired has an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va, about his proposed Media Consumer Rights Act (HR 107). Unfortunately, the interview is relatively short, but still worth a read.