A Blog’s RSS Feed May Not Grant an Implied Copyright License–MidlevelU v. Newstex
MidlevelU publishes a blog on nursing topics. Like most blogs, it contains an RSS feed. Newstex subscribed to the RSS feed and republished the blog posts as part of its now-defunct subscription service called “Scholarly Blog Index.” MidlevelU sued Newstex…
Top Internet Law Developments of 2019
It’s increasingly hard to find good news in Internet law, so I organized this year’s Internet Law roundup by categories of doom. Trigger warning: you should grab some tissues before proceeding. Doomed (in a Bad Way) Doomed: User-Generated Content. It…
Java API Classes as Fictional Characters―A Proposal for Google v. Oracle (Guest Blog Post)
by Marketa Trimble In disputes over the copyrightability of computer programs and their elements, it is common to invoke analogies from literature. In Google v. Oracle (in which the U.S. Supreme Court granted a cert petition on November 15, 2019), Oracle began…
Internet Access Provider Gets Another Devastating Result in a Secondary Copyright Infringement Case—Sony v. Cox
In a recent post, I lamented how courts are exposing IAPs to secondary copyright liability for their subscribers’ activities. This is the result of a breakdown in the détente associated with the failed Copyright Alert System, and its demise has…
Copyright, State Sovereignty, and Pirates: Some Thoughts on Oral Argument in Allen v. Cooper (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Glynn Lunney, Texas A&M Law School When our country was founded, one of the central issues was how much of their sovereignty the states would cede to the new federal government and how much they would retain…
CreateSpace Isn’t Liable for Publishing Allegedly Infringing Uploaded Book–King v. Amazon
King wrote a book, From Brooklyn to the Grave. King asked his ex-girlfriend, Thomas, to help edit and publish the book. Thomas published the book via Amazon’s CreateSpace. King claims that Thomas expropriated the manuscript and thus Amazon never had…
More Evidence That Print-on-Demand Vendors May Be Doomed–Greg Young Publishing v. Zazzle
I’ve repeatedly expressed concern for the viability of print-on-demand vendors due to potentially unmanageable IP liability. Unlike other Internet services, print-on-demand vendors do not get the full benefit of 512(c) because of their offline printing and shipping activities. Without 512(c),…
More Evidence That IP Law Protects Individual Emoji Depictions–Nirvana v. Marc Jacobs
This case involves the well-known “Nirvana Happy Face” drawn by Kurt Cobain in 1991 and registered in 1993. Marc Jacobs launched a “Bootleg Redux Grunge” clothing line (really??? who buys this shit?) that included an homage to the Nirvana Happy…
Strike 3’s Copyright Litigation Campaign Completely Strikes Out
Another judge denies an unmasking subpoena to Strike 3, even though the judge has previously issued subpoenas to Strike 3, and even though it may mean that Strike 3’s infringement case will fail and Strike 3 will be left without…
Internet Access Provider May Be Vicariously Liable for Subscribers’ BitTorrent Downloads–Warner Bros. v. Charter
This is another copyright infringement lawsuit against an Internet access provider for subscribers’ allegedly infringing P2P file sharing activity. It extends the copyright owners’ successes in two similar lawsuits, BMG v. Cox and UMG v. Grande. In this ruling, the…