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

The copyright lawsuits brought by record company plaintiffs to redress file-sharing have yielded many decisions of first impression. However, the recent ruling by the First Circuit in In re Sony BMG, Inc. (1st Cir. Apr. 16, 2009)  is one of the few that is of interest not just to copyright litigators, but scholars of appellate procedure as well. The ruling includes a discussion of the contours of federal court of appeals mandamus jurisdiction and the circumstances under which prerogative writs should be issued to the lower federal courts. A rarefied discussion indeed.