October 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Greg Sandoval discusses copyright trolls with Cindy Cohn. You may recall I had an “interview” with Cindy as a guest lecture in my Internet Law course. And a belated congratulations to Cindy for her recognition…
Political Campaigns and Copyright Infringement
By Eric Goldman I might be wrong, but my unscientific impression is that political campaigns are encountering copyright issues more frequently than in the old days. Initially, I had hoped to catalog all of the recent incidents, but I realized…
Blogger Wins Fair Use Defense…On a Motion to Dismiss!–Righthaven v. Realty One
By Eric Goldman Righthaven LLC v. Realty One Group, Inc., 2010 WL 4115413 (D. Nev. Oct. 19, 2010) I’ve mentioned Righthaven before in my quick links, but this is my first full blog post about them. I trust most of…
First Sale and Exhaustion Doctrines in IP Conference, Nov. 5, SCU
By Eric Goldman I’ve mentioned our First Sale and Exhaustion in IP conference before, but now it’s less than 3 weeks away. If you were thinking about coming, now is a good time to confirm your spot. As regular readers…
Shining the Spotlight on Trademark Bullies (a Long-Delayed Recap of a Trademark Scholars Roundtable)
By Eric Goldman [Occasionally, a blog post gets “stuck” in draft mode for months. These posts typically do not age well, as intervening developments often render the post moot or less interesting. As a result, most stuck blog posts eventually…
Inflatable Giant Gorilla Attacks Google (for Copyright Infringement)–Scherba v. Google
By Eric Goldman Scherba Industries v. Google, Inc., 1:10-cv-02288 (N.D. Ohio complaint filed Oct. 7, 2010). Scherba makes giant inflatable gorillas. See an example. A little improbably, it has a copyright registration for a 3D sculptural work called “Gorilla Inflatable”–the…
September 2010 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman Copyright * US v. ASCAP (2d Cir. Sept. 28, 2010): “the Internet Companies offer their customers the ability to download musical works over the Internet. It is undisputed that these downloads create copies of the musical works,…
Tip for Clean Living: Don’t Use a 14 Year Old’s Self-Portrait in Advertising for Porn–Lara Jade Coton v. TVX
By Eric Goldman Coton v. Televised Visual X-ography, Inc., 2010 WL 3768039 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2010). The initial complaint. Lara Jade’s blog post on the court victory. Comprehensive recap from Plagiarism Today, who has been tracking the case all…
Anti-Scraping Lawsuit Largely Gutted–Cvent v. Eventbrite
By Eric Goldman Cvent, Inc. v. Eventbrite, Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96354 (E.D. Va. Sept. 14, 2010). Given the amount of scraping taking place every day all over the web, scraping lawsuits are surprisingly infrequent. In this ruling, a…
Software Vendor Trumps First Sale Doctrine via License–Vernor v. Autodesk
[Post by Venkat, with some comments from Eric below] Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., Case No. 09-35969 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2010) [pdf]. The Ninth Circuit last week issued an opinion in one of the two cases addressing whether a transaction…