Adware, Spam and Some of My Other Favorite Topics
By Eric Goldman There has been a flurry of interesting legal developments in the last few days: * The plaintiffs voluntarily and unilaterally dismissed (with prejudice) Simios v. 180solutions, one of several putative class actions against adware vendors. See the…
Can 512(f) Support an Injunction? Novotny v. Chapman
By Eric Goldman Novotny v. Chapman, 2006 WL 2335598 (W.D. N.C. Aug. 9, 2006) Chapman prepares a video showing how to cut women’s hair. Novotny obtains a license to stream the video via the web. Later, Chapman has a change…
Send in the Clowns’ (Lawyers)
By Eric Goldman In response to parental demands, some clowns wear (without permission) costumes that imitate Barney the dinosaur, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Clifford the Big Red Dog and other cartoon characters as part of their birthday…
Court Nix Clean Flicks
By John Ottaviani Clean Flicks of Colorado, LLC vs. Soderbergh, No. 02-CV-01662-RPM (D. Colo., July 6, 2006). The entertainment world has given us yet another example as to why one should be very wary of creating or investing in a…
Happy (?) Anniversary, Grokster v. MGM
By Eric Goldman Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of the Grokster Supreme Court ruling. This opinion was one of the most hotly anticipated Supreme Court opinions relating to copyrights (and perhaps any subject matter) of the last decade or…
Fair Use Network Launches
By Eric Goldman An intriguing new resource, the Fair Use Network, has launched. This website is a project of the Free Expression Policy Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. This is the same group…
Music File in P2P Share Directory May Be a Distribution–Interscope v. Duty
By Eric Goldman Interscope Records v. Duty, No. 05-CV-3744-PHX-FJM (D. Ariz. Apr. 14, 2006) Introduction The number of P2P direct infringement opinions is growing, and the news isn’t good for file sharers. The flagship case is BMG v. Gonzalez, where…
Denver IP Summit Presentation
By Eric Goldman I attended the Denver Summit on Intellectual Property and Digital Media. The audience was principally cable industry participants, but there were plenty of content creators (and legal academics) in attendance. I spoke about the various ways that…
Search Engines Awarded Legal Fees in Unmeritorious Copyright Case–Newborn v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Newborn v. Yahoo, 2006 WL 1409769 (D.D.C. May 23, 2006) I blogged about this case in November 2005. At that time, the plaintiff sued Yahoo and Google under copyright and trademark law because the search engines had…
NYT on Fair Use and Documentaries
By Eric Goldman The NY Times runs an article on documentaries and fair use. It describes the thicket of copyright clearances necessary to reuse film clips in documentaries, which can be fatal to a documentary project. It gives one example…