Court Mistakenly Thinks Copyright Owners Have a Duty to Police Infringement–Sunny Factory v. Chen
Fuxi, the putative copyright owner, has a registration for an image of printed sage leaves (the left image): The alleged infringer, the Sunny Factory, sells the candles on the right on Amazon. Fuxi’s lawyer, Haoyi Chen of Arch & Lake,…
First Circuit Says Mirroring Qualifies for Section 230–Monsarrat v. Newman
I previously blogged this case last year. I summarized the facts: This case involves a LiveJournal community (the Davis Square community for Somerville, MA). In 2017, LiveJournal changed its policies. In response, Newman, the community moderator, copied all of the…
U.S. Supreme Court Fixes Ninth Circuit’s Test for Mistakes in Copyright Registrations—Unicolors v. H&M (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa On February 24, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 that the Ninth Circuit erred in invalidating a copyright registration for failure to comply with the Copyright Office’s “single unit of publication” regulation, where the copyright…
Another 512(f) Claim Fails–Moonbug v. Babybus
Moonbug runs the CoComelon channel, the top-ranked Kids YouTube channel. Babybus runs a competitive channel that Moonbug believes infringes its copyrights. An example: Moonbug submitted takedown notices to YouTube covering at least 70 videos and sued Babybus for copyright infringement….
Fair Use Protects High School’s Use of Inspirational Meme–Bell v. Eagle Mountain School District
Bell published a short book in 1982. It contained a passage that has become a meme in the sports community. Bell has separately registered a copyright in the passage. Bell has filed at least 25 copyright lawsuits. This one has…
Copyright Office Rejects Registration for AI-Created Works
Thaler filed an application to register the copyright in this work, entitled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”: Thaler explained the work “was autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine” and he was “seeking to register this computer-generated…
How Fair Use Helps Bloggers Publish Their Research (Cross-Post)
[I published this post initially on the Association of Research Libraries blog in celebration of Fair Use Week 2022. Prayers for Ukraine.] Bloggers play an increasingly important role in the research ecosystem, especially as investigative journalism has declined. Bloggers often…
A Glimmer of Hope That the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) Won’t Turn Into a Troll Factory
This is much-delayed blog coverage of the Copyright Office’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing “procedures related to conducting an active proceeding, post-determination review, smaller claims, and the conduct of parties.” The NPRM would allow (1) anyone in a corporate family…
Apple Defeats Copyright Lawsuit Over Emoji Depictions–Cub Club v. Apple
The court summarizes the case: Cub Club Investment created an app that allowed people to send racially diverse emoji. According to the complaint, when Apple learned of the app, it liked the idea—so much so, in fact, that it copied…
Court Quashes 512(h) Subpoena Submitted to YouTube–Watch Tower v. Kevin McFree
A “lapsed” Jehovah’s Witnesses member, using the alias “Kevin McFree,” posted YouTube videos using stop-animation of Lego figurines to criticize the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The IP arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (the “Watch Tower”) claimed that one such video, the “Dubtown…