SAD Scheme Leads to Another Massively Disproportionate Asset Freeze–Powell v. Schedule A
[Reminder: I don’t blog all of the SAD Scheme cases I see, and the ones I blog are more exemplars of the general principles than standout or unique cases.] Kate Louise Powell is a Scotland-based artist. (I wonder how she…
DMCA 512(c) Helps Redbubble Defeats Copyright Lawsuit–Wallshoppe v. Redbubble
Wallshoppe makes wallpaper with copyrighted designs, such as the “Pacifico Palm Design” depicted to the right. It has a copyright registration in the design. Wallshoppe found Redbubble merchants selling the design. However, for unspecified reasons, Wallshoppe didn’t submit proper DMCA…
Reusing Social Media Photos for Ads? Be Careful!–Khachatryan v. 1 Hotel
This case involves the following photo posted to the “@brave_johnson” Instagram account, which self-describes as the account of a 7-year old and lists 2 URLs for talent agencies: [Note: normally I would think carefully about posting photos of children, but…
Meme Law Alert! Meme Use In Political Ad Isn’t Fair Use–Griner v. King
The plaintiff in this case owns the copyright to the well-known “Success Kid” meme, a photo of a cute 11-month old boy named Sam. The defendants are former Rep. Steve King and his reelection campaign committee. Wikipedia calls King “far-right,”…
X Corp. v. Bright Data is the Decision We’ve Been Waiting For (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Guy Rub, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law A Web Scraper Beats a Platform: The Same Story, but Different It seems like we’ve been here before, and not that long ago. A platform sues a web…
Supreme Court Fixes One Problem with the Copyright Statute of Limitations, But Punts Another — Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 that assuming a copyright infringement claim is timely under the discovery rule of accrual, meaning that it was filed within three years of the date “when a…
Elon Musk’s Gifts to Web Scrapers (Guest Blog Post)
By Kieran McCarthy Elon Musk may have done more to open the Internet to web scraping than any person or public interest advocacy group. Not that he meant to do this, mind you. He was trying to do the opposite….
Plaintiffs Make Some Progress in 512(f) Cases
This post recaps some recent 512(f) cases that have hit my alerts. Surprisingly, all of the decisions involve a positive ruling for the plaintiff, which is different from the typical past outcomes. Maybe the jurisprudential tide is turning? Bungie, Inc….
Videogame Maker Has Implied License to Depict Copyrighted Tattoos–Hayden v. 2K
This is one of several copyright cases brought by tattoo artists against videogame makers for depicting athletes bearing their tattoos. This particular case, involving tattoo artist Hayden, videogame NBA 2K, and basketball players like LeBron James, reached a jury. The…
The Supreme Court Didn’t Change Secondary Copyright Liability Standards in the Taamneh Ruling—In re Frontier
This is another case asserting that Internet access providers are liable for their subscribers’ copyright infringements. The IAP, Frontier, argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Taamneh modified the venerable standards for secondary copyright infringement. The court doesn’t agree. The…