Was Melania Trump’s Plagiarism Also Copyright Infringement? (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa The first night of the Republican National Convention generated quite a bit of controversy, as Melania Trump was accused of plagiarizing a key passage in…
Chain of Title Proves Fatal to “Happy Birthday” Copyright Claim (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa “Happy Birthday” has been described as “The World’s Most Popular Song.” It is sung almost every time that people gather to celebrate a birthday. The…
California’s Resale Royalty Statute Violates the Dormant Commerce Clause—In Part (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Tyler Ochoa On Tuesday, May 5, an eleven-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit held that California’s Resale Royalty Statute, Civil Code § 986, could not…
Manuel Noriega Loses Right of Publicity Suit Against Activision (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Tyler Ochoa What does former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega have in common with former NFL running back Jim Brown and a host of former college athletes? All…
A Seismic Ruling On Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and State Copyright Law–Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio (Guest Blog Post)
By Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s intro: in Tyler’s cover email to me, he told me the ruling was “huge, as in 1906-San-Francisco-earthquake huge. It literally could result in undoing 75 years…
Urban Outfitters’ Kent State T-Shirt Was Offensive But Probably Legal (Guest Blog Post)
By Tyler Ochoa As reported in various news outlets (including MSN and New York magazine), Urban Outfitters generated a storm of controversy on Twitter a few days ago, when it…
More Intellectual Property Trivia Questions (The Outtakes)
…our IP trivia quiz from WIPIP. To prepare those trivia questions, my colleagues (Tyler Ochoa and Brian Love) and I made a list of potential questions and then picked our…
Rationalizing (?) the Hart and Keller v. EA Sports Publicity Rights Rulings (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s note: this is a long blog post from my colleague Tyler. It does a great job demonstrating that the interplay between the First Amendment…
Conference Announcement: A 15 Year Retrospective of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, SCU, March 15
…from the DMCA as we continue to build copyright policy in the digital millennium. We anticipate spending the morning on 1201 and the afternoon on 512. My colleague Tyler Ochoa…
How Long Does a Post-Mortem Right of Publicity Last?–Hebrew University v. GM (Guest Blog Post)
by Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa The right of publicity is a state-law right to use one’s identity for a commercial purpose. Thus, if you want to use a celebrity’s name…