ART Act Indictment for Distribution of Pre-Release Music

By Eric Goldman Robert Thomas of Milwaukee and Jared Bowser of Jacksonville have been indicted under the ART Act for pre-releasing four songs by Ryan Adams in August 2005, a month before the commercial release of Adams’ album. Allegedly, the…

Pasquale on Copyright Externalities

By Eric Goldman Frank Pasquale has posted an article called The Law and Economics of Information Overload Externalities to SSRN. I’m not sure the title really captures the article, so don’t make the decision to read/not read it based on…

More on Perfect 10 v. Google

By John Ottaviani Eric will undoubtedly have more to say, but here are my immediate thoughts on this case. Leave it to the porn industry to make copyright law on the Internet. Perfect 10 alleges that Google (and, in a…

Perfect 10 Wins Injunction Against Google

By Eric Goldman Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc., CV 04-9484 AMH (C.D. Cal. Feb. 17, 2006) A major new ruling in the running battle over search engines and copyrights–this time concluding that Google’s creation and display of thumbnail images may…

Top Cyberspace IP Cases of 2005

By John Ottaviani (with help from Eric) Cyberspace continues to present fascinating and novel intellectual property issues. What follows is our attempt at identifying some of the more significant “Cyberspace Intellectual Property” decisions of 2005. Once again, it was quite…

Operation Site Down Fallout–19 RISCISO Participants Indicted for Warez Trading

By Eric Goldman I previously blogged on Operation Site Down, one of the largest warez busts ever. In “Operation Jolly Roger,” a component of the larger Operation Site Down, a cooperating witness gave the FBI access to the RISCISO warez…

Orphan Works Report Released

By Eric Goldman The Copyright Office released its report on orphan works. It concludes: “* The orphan works problem is real. * The orphan works problem is elusive to quantify and describe comprehensively. * Some orphan works situations may be…

Allegedly Wrong VeRO Notice of Claimed Infringement Not Actionable–Dudnikov v. MGA Entertainment

By Eric Goldman Dudnikov v. MGA Entertainment, 2005 WL 3693829 (D. Colo. Aug. 17, 2005) [see the earlier Magistrate report] This one just showed up on my radar screen–not sure why it took so long to appear on Westlaw. However,…

Copyrighting Sports Celebration Moves

By Eric Goldman Hank Abromson is a former student/research assistant of mine and an all-around mensch. He recently started a website called “AbromsonOnSportsLaw.com” where he is posting content on various sports law issues. Of particular interest is his belief that…

Web Term Paper Lawsuit Settles

By Eric Goldman In September, I blogged about Macellari v. Carroll. In that case, a student sued a website that allegedly offered her term paper for sale. The case has settled under a confidentiality cloak (registration required). However, a defendant…

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