In today’s digital age, the question isn’t whether there is open source software being used in a company’s products, but how it is being used and what license governs its use. Open source is ubiquitous. Despite its widespread use over the past decade, the provisions of open source licenses have been interpreted by only a … Continue Reading
In what could be prove to be an important decision within the context of scraping of “public” data, in a recent case the Eleventh Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of trade secret claims relating to the scraping of insurance quotes. (Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman, No. 18-12004 (11th Cir. May 20, 2020)). The appellate … Continue Reading
In an innovative initiative in the battle against the Coronavirus, the newly-formed Open COVID Coalition (the “Coalition”) launched the Open COVID Pledge (the “Pledge”), a framework for organizations to contribute intellectual property to the fight against COVID-19. Pursuant to the Pledge, rightsholders can openly license intellectual property to facilitate the development of tools and technologies … Continue Reading
In early February 2020, before most of us were truly aware of the implications of COVID-19, a well-respected IT consulting group predicted a $4.3 trillion global spend on information technology in 2020. Drivers of the projected activity included cybersecurity, outdated infrastructure, mobile accessibility needs, cloud and SaaS transitions, and on-premises technology requirements. In late 2019, … Continue Reading
For the film and media distribution industries, this year has been action-packed. Production budgets are skyrocketing and new digital services have been announced or are launching with each passing month. The streaming wars are upon us. Moreover, the FCC recently voted to treat streaming services as “effective competition” to traditional cable providers (or MVPDs), thereby … Continue Reading
UPDATE: In March 2021, the Second Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling on fair use. On March 28, 2022, the Supreme Court granted cert. and agreed to hear the case. Earlier this month, in The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, No. 17-cv-2532 (S.D.N.Y. July 1, 2019), a New York district … Continue Reading
On May 20, 2019, in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), the Supreme Court resolved an area of ongoing concern for parties to trademark licenses. The court addressed a circuit split on whether a trademark licensee may continue to use a trademark for the term of the license, after the … Continue Reading
Licensors of software typically utilize software license agreements providing for their ownership of the licensed software and related IP, as well as restrictions barring licensees from reverse engineering the code at issue. The scope of protection, of course, depends on the final language of the licensing agreement and disputes can arise when licensees decide to … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On September 27, 2018, the Supreme Court granted Rimini Street, Inc.’s petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Court to review part of the multi-million dollar damage award against it for costs and resolve an apparent circuit split over whether so-called “non-taxable costs” may be awarded under the Copyright Act (which allows for … Continue Reading
In a dispute that touches on the intersection of copyright, contract law and cloud technology, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of copyright claims against Barnes & Noble (“B&N”) related to ebook samples stored on a user’s B&N-provided cloud-based locker. Notably, the Second Circuit dismissed the case on contractual grounds, declining the opportunity to opine … Continue Reading
We previously wrote about a Virginia federal magistrate judge’s report recommending dismissal of a declaratory judgment action brought by several radio stations asking the court to rule that webcasts limited in scope via geofencing technology to 150 miles from the site of the transmitter should be exempt from liability for copyright royalties under section 114 of the … Continue Reading
New technology continues to generate business models that test the limits of intellectual property laws enacted before such technologies were ever contemplated. The latest example is the use of “geofencing” in an attempt to avoid certain obligations to pay certain digital performance royalties. In February 2014, VerStandig Broadcasting, the owner of several radio stations in … Continue Reading
It’s a problem that has vexed website owners since the days of the dot-com boom – how to make certain user-generated content available to users or subscribers, but also prevent competitors and other unauthorized parties from scraping, linking to or otherwise accessing that content for their own commercial purposes. The law on scraping and linking … Continue Reading
Playing 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
The 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
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