It is a common practice for Web site providers who accept submissions of user-generated content to include a license provision in their “Terms of Use” to obtain rights to use the content. Rather than relying on the uncertain scope of an implied license, the provider can clarify, and hopefully avoid disputes over, the scope of… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Copyright
Subscribe to Copyright RSS FeedVideogame App Developer Breaks the Rules on Copyright Infringement
Posted in Copyright, VideogamesDesiree Golden, a recent college graduate, wanted to aim at the big money that can be made in app development. She decided to replicate the popular “Tetris” videogame that has been around since the late 1980s. After researching intellectual property law, she says, she set out to copy only those elements of the Tetris game… Continue Reading
Oracle v. Google Judge Writes the Book on Software Programming Copyright – For Now, Anyway
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceThe trial in the dispute between Oracle and Google over the use of Java technology in the Android operating system is over, and the greatly anticipated ruling on copyright in the Java Application Programming Interface (API) has issued. The court ruled that the elements of the Java API, including the structure, sequence and organization, are… Continue Reading
European Court of Justice Rules on Copyright Status of Computer Programming Languages and Functionality
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceIn a jury room in San Francisco, jurors in Oracle, Inc. v. Google, Inc. have been toiling over complicated issues related to the copyrightability of the Java computer programming language, and they may well return a verdict before the ink is dry on this post. We’ll write more about that case, which the judge has… Continue Reading
Will the Pinterest “Nopin” Tag Put Online Image Owners on the Defensive on Implied Copyright Licenses? Should We Look to Robots.txt as Precedent?
Posted in CopyrightPinterest is the hot hot hot social media site that lets users create online “pinboards” of interesting or inspiring images. Although users may upload their own images to their pinboards, Pinterest emphasizes the pinning of images from third-party Web sites through the use of inline links. This of course generates yet a new series of… Continue Reading
Novell Prevails in Long-Running Dispute over Ownership of UNIX Copyrights – And Open Source Software Moves On
Posted in Contracts, Copyright, Open SourceThe dispute between The SCO Group and Novell, Inc. over the ownership of copyrights in the code to certain versions of the UNIX operating system, which started eight years ago, appears to have been handed its retirement papers by the Tenth Circuit. Yesterday, on the case’s second visit to the circuit, the court upheld the… Continue Reading
Posting of Entire News Article is Fair Use, Says Judge in Righthaven Copyright Litigation
Posted in CopyrightOn Friday, March 18, Judge James Mahan, who is presiding over Righthaven LLC v. CIO in the District of Nevada, announced that he would dismiss Righthaven’s lawsuit on the grounds of fair use. The lawsuit involves the posting of an entire article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on the organization’s Web site.
The Righthaven Lawsuits: What is Fair Use of Online Publications?
Posted in Copyright** UPDATE March 22, 2011: On March 18, the court dismissed Righthaven’s copyright action against the Center for Intercultural Organizing on the grounds of fair use. See further discussion in this post. ** Righthaven LLC is an intellectual property enforcement firm that was formed by a group of copyright attorneys and Stephens Media, the publisher… Continue Reading
Ninth Circuit Says DMCA Anticircumvention Provision Gives New, Access-Prevention Right to Copyright Owners – MDY v. Blizzard, Part II
Posted in CopyrightAs we related in Part I of this post, Blizzard Entertainment, distributor of the World of Warcraft game software and the operator of the servers that enable online game play, sought to block the use of automated game playing software by deploying anti-bot software, WoW Warden. But MDY Industries, the distributor of the Glider bot… Continue Reading
Ninth Circuit Rules on License Conditions versus Contract Covenants in Dispute over World of Warcraft Bots – MDY v. Blizzard, Part I
Posted in CopyrightPlaying World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), can be, well, a drag. As the parents, teachers and spouses of gamers know all too well, playing through the 70 or more levels of the game in order to amass desired virtual currency, weapons and armor can be extremely time-consuming…. Continue Reading
Ninth Circuit Rules on License versus Sale of Software
Posted in CopyrightThe Register of Copyrights may have concluded that precedents defining the difference between a license and a sale of software are conflicting (see our prior blog post on that point), but a panel of the Ninth Circuit had no difficulty in resolving the issue in its recent opinion Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., 2010 U.S. App…. Continue Reading
Register of Copyrights Says “Who Knows?” on Ownership of Computer Program Copies
Posted in CopyrightWho owns the firmware on a smartphone, the device manufacturer or the purchaser? Ownership of copies of computer programs is a thorny issue with which the federal courts have grappled in numerous cases. The issue arose during the most recent round of triennial rulemaking that resulted in the promulgation of a new set of exceptions… Continue Reading
Logo, Copyright Notice and Link on Web Site Constitute “Copyright Management Information” under DMCA
Posted in CopyrightThe "copyright management" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1202, prohibits the provision or dissemination of copyright management information that is false, as well as the removal or alteration of copyright management information. An issue that has divided federal courts is whether the scope of this section is limited to digital… Continue Reading
In Assessing Employee Status in Copyright Ownership Disputes, Technology Start-Ups Are a Special Case, Says the Ninth Circuit
Posted in CopyrightA technology start-up company can be an informal environment – both Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard famously started out in garages, and Yahoo!, Google and Facebook were developed, initially at least, in college dorm rooms. But informality can, and frequently does, lead to legal disputes down the road. In JustMed, Inc. v. Byce, 2010 U.S. App…. Continue Reading
Jacobsen v. Katzer: Open Source Software Project Gains Key Rulings in Copyright Infringement Litigation
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceJacobsen v. Katzer involves a dispute over rights in software code distributed pursuant to the open source Artistic License. Last year the case yielded one of the very few judicial rulings dealing with open source software. As we wrote at the time, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the argument that… Continue Reading
Vernor v. Autodesk and the First Sale Doctrine: The District Court Has Nothing Further to Add, Judgment for Reseller
Posted in CopyrightVernor v. Autodesk, Inc. is a closely followed case in which an eBay reseller of software argues that his resales are protected by the copyright first sale doctrine, and software company Autodesk is arguing that because the AutoCad software Mr. Vernor is auctioning on eBay is licensed, not sold, Mr. Vernor is not an owner… Continue Reading
The Beat Goes On: In SCO v. Novell, Tenth Circuit Remands UNIX Copyright Ownership Issue for Trial
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceThe Tenth Circuit has ruled in the closely watched SCO v. Novell appeal, and while it upheld a judgment in favor of Novell for royalties due from The SCO Group, the appeals court remanded for a trial on the issue of ownership of the copyrights in the UNIX code that is at the heart of… Continue Reading
Heads Up for a Ruling on the ‘”Remote DVR” Petition for Certiorari
Posted in CopyrightUPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari on June 29, 2009. *** The petition we are talking about here is the petition for certiorari filed in the US. Supreme Court in the case more formally known as The Cartoon Network LP, LLP v. CSC Holdings, Inc. (2d Cir. 2008), petition for cert…. Continue Reading
Facebook Takes a Page from Ticketmaster’s Playbook: Block Unauthorized Web Site Access with Carefully Drafted Terms of Use
Posted in Contracts, CopyrightIn 2007, Ticketmaster brought a multi-count complaint against RMG Technologies, a software company that supplied ticket brokers with software that enabled them to automatically and rapidly access Ticketmaster’s Web site, to the detriment of ordinary users seeking tickets to popular events. The Ticketmaster v. RMG complaint was notable for stating a series of claims that… Continue Reading
Free Software Foundation Files First Copyright Infringement Complaint to Enforce its GNU Licenses
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceThe Free Software Foundation has filed a copyright infringement complaint against Cisco Systems. The complaint alleges that Cisco’s Linksys products contain certain works in which the FSF holds the copyright, but Cisco has not complied with the requirements of the licenses pursuant to which the FSF makes the works available. This is the first… Continue Reading
Let’s Go Crazy: What Does It Mean to “Consider” Fair Use?
Posted in CopyrightStephanie Lenz posted a homemade video on YouTube.com, depicting her toddler son dancing in his walker, with the song “Let’s Go Crazy” by “the artist professionally known as Prince” playing in the background. Several months later, attorneys for Universal Music, owner of the copyright in the recording, sent a takedown notice pursuant to § 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires that the notice include among other things “a statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.” The video was promptly removed. Lenz responded with a DMCA counter-notification, and the video was re-posted several weeks later.
Lenz then instituted suit against Universal for damages and attorney fees under § 512(f) of the DMCA, alleging that in issuing the takedown notice, Universal lacked the statutorily required “good faith belief” that her use of the song was infringing. In the latest ruling in the action, Judge Jeremy Fogel in the Northern District of California ruled that the takedown provisions of DMCA § 512(c) require a copyright owner to “consider the fair use doctrine in formulating a good faith belief that ‘use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.’” Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., No. 07-3783 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2008) (emphasis added).
RAM Copying – An Issue of More Than Transitory Duration
Posted in CopyrightIn The Cartoon Network LP, LLP v. CSC Holdings, Inc., No. 07-1480 & 07-1511 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 4, 2008), the Second Circuit considered several important issues on the way to concluding that Cablevision’s proposed operation of a remote digital video recorder (RS-DVR) system does not infringe the rights of reproduction and public performance of its program providers.
Perhaps the most important issue in the case for new media lawyers is the court’s treatment of the issue of RAM, or buffer, copying. The Second Circuit concluded that while a copy in RAM may a “copy” under the Copyright Act, it is not a copy as a matter of law. In so ruling, the Second Circuit took on not only the oft-cited (and oft-criticized) Ninth Circuit opinion in MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993), it also took on the opinion of the Copyright Office, and arguably created a split in the circuits on the issue.
Federal Circuit Says Open Source License Conditions are Enforceable as Copyright Condition
Posted in Copyright, Open SourceThere are so few judicial opinions dealing with open source licenses that any single one is of great interest, but the pro-open source ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Jacobsen v. Katzer, No. 2008-1001 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 13, 2008) easily goes to the top of the charts of this small category. This is a highly significant opinion that will greatly bolster the efforts of the open source community to control the use of open source software according to the terms set out in open source licenses.
Eleventh Circuit En Banc Rules in “Old Wine, New Bottles” Dispute Over CD-ROM Version of National Geographic Magazine
Posted in CopyrightGreenberg v. National Geographic, in which photographers seek royalties for the inclusion of their works in the CD-ROM version of the National Geographic Magazine, is a case with legs, that’s for sure. First filed ten years ago, it has been argued at the circuit court level three times, with several trips back to the trial… Continue Reading