Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Something for the Family Guy Fans Out There. PrawfsBlawg has this assessment of a recent court decision in a copyright infringement case brought by Arthur Metrano over a scene in the movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.
All Google, All the Time. Alexander Macgillivray, Deputy General Counsel for Products and Intellectual Property at Google, returned to @berkmancenter today for an engaging discussion of the Google Book Settlement. And John Palfrey has an announcement about two upcoming events to discuss the settlement. Meanwhile, Google has gone where few have gone before by winning a libel case in the UK (although a website in Amsterdam wasn't that lucky). And finally, Ars Technica reports that Barnes & Noble has teamed up with Google to build a library of over 700,000 books for its new e-book marketplace. Interestingly, B&N will be offering electronic copies of public domain books, scanned as part of the Google Book Search service, for free.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I Couldn't Pass Up the Headline. The AmLaw Daily has this post today about the on-going legal battle between Tolkien's heirs and New Line Cinema regarding royalties from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The headline? "Nerd Law Heaven."

Thursday, June 18, 2009

IP Law 101 for the Sports Fan. AmLaw Daily has this article about a recently filed trademark/copyright infringement case involving baseball trading cards.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Around the Center. The latest from the Berkman Center: John Palfrey has a post titled "ONI Releases Green Dam Software Analysis." JZ has this take on the use of Twitter to disseminate news about the goings-on in Iran.
More on the Salinger Case. THR, Esq. has the latest.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Seems Like Bad Precedent. Where's the deterrence factor for prosecutorial misconduct if the judge can just shoehorn the evidence in later at the sentencing phase? The Blog of the Legal Times reports.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Big Day for Music Cases. The Insider reports that the Lemonhead's lead singer, Evan Dando, has sued GM over use of "It's a Shame About Ray" in a 2008 TV campaign. And just last week a federal judge had a bit of fun with Bon Jovi song titles. (I'm having to exercise all sorts of self restraint to avoid a YouTube linkfest...)
Does Austrailian Copyright Law Not Have a Statute of Limitations Provision? Certainly they should have figured out the supposed similarity earlier.
Check it out for yourself:



Thursday, June 04, 2009

I Always Knew Cap'n Crunch Was Shady. ABA Journal is reporting that a judge has tossed out a deceptive advertising complaint against Cap'n Crunch cereal.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

I'm Feeling Special. First we get a First Lady, now we get a Supreme Court Justice.
The Wind Done Gone 2.0? The Media Law Prof Blog reports on a recent case filed by J.D. Salinger to halt publication of a "sequel" to Catcher in the Rye. Remix culture? Mark Randazza offers his own thoughts. And the Wall Street Journal has more here.

Monday, June 01, 2009

More Grist for the Anti-tethered Appliance Mill? Apple once again provides ammunition for JZ's fears.

Friday, May 29, 2009

That's One Way to Find a Job... Read all about how one guy from Italy got hired by Amazon through Second Life.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Time to Add "Rap Artist" to the List... of alternate career paths for lawyers. The ABA Journal has the details.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Yawn. Did anyone expect the MPAA's position to be different?
Courts About to Reign In Privacy Services? The Legal Satyricon has this report on a recent decision out of California finding that a privacy service may be held contributorily liable under the ACPA for its customer's actions. Things could get interesting...
Somebody's Been Watching Pump Up the Volume Again. Wired has this report about the (claimed) scope of the FCC's inspection authority. The claims at the beginning seem over hyped, especially since Wired doesn't cite any case where the FCC based their right to enter on the presence of a cell phone or other household device that transmits a radio frequency.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

It's Been a While... Since I've seen Lessig this loquacious.
Maybe I'm Just Facebook Illiterate... but how would one even accomplish this from a technological standpoint? Create a page called "You've Been Sued" and send a request for him to join? And what happens if he's set his privacy settings to only appear in searches by his friends?