Contributory Copyright Infringement Claim May Need Direct Infringer as a Defendant to Succeed–Miller v. Facebook
By Eric Goldman Miller v. Facebook, Inc., 2010 WL 2198204 (N.D. Cal. May 28, 2010) This is my third time blogging about this case (Jan. 2010 post; April 2010 post). The facts as alleged by the plaintiff have always been…
April-May 2010 Quick Links Part 1 (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman [Note: I just got back from the Netherlands, where I had extremely limited Internet connectivity, so sorry for my absence in the last week (although you were in good hands with Venkat). I will be posting more…
Life May Be “Rad,” But This Trademark Lawsuit Isn’t–Williams v. CafePress.com
By Eric Goldman Williams v. Life’s Rad, 2010 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 46763 (N.D. Cal. May 12, 2010) This lawsuit bummed me out. The trademark at issue–the surfing-inspired “Life’s Rad”–is supposed to lift people up, but it’s hard to maintain a sunny…
LimeWire Smacked Down for Inducing Copyright Infringement–Arista Records v. Lime Group
By Eric Goldman Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC, 2010 WL 1914816 (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 2010) This is one of the rare cases where the news reports mostly got it right. Plain and simple, the record labels won a…
Agence France-Presse Claims Twitter’s Terms of Use Authorize Its Use of Photographs Posted to TwitPic — Agence France-Presse v. Morel
[Post by Venkat] Agence France-Presse v. Morel, Case No. 10-civ-2730 (S.D.N.Y.) (March 26, 2010) The Agence France-Presse (AFP) is involved in litigation over photographs it acquired through Twitter. This could turn into a debacle for AFP, if it hasn’t already…
Record Album Only Supports One Statutory Damages Award–Bryant v. Media Right
By Eric Goldman Bryant v. Media Right Productions, Inc., 09-2600-cv (2d Cir. April 27, 2010). My previous blog post on this case under the name Bryant v. Europadisk. Wow, talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The plaintiffs…
Interesting Database Scraping Case Survives Summary Judgment–Snap-On Business Solutions v. O’Neil
[Post by Venkat, with additional comments from Eric below] Snap-on Business Solutions Inc. v. O’Neil & Assocs., Inc. (N.D. Ohio April 16, 2010) [scribd] Snap-on is one of those cases that’s great because the court canvasses the various claims that…
Veoh Denied Attorneys’ Fees in UMG v. Veoh. Does FRCP 68 Apply to Copyright Cases?
By Eric Goldman UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Veoh Networks Inc., 2010 WL 1407316 (C.D. Cal. April 6, 2010) Copyright law contains a statutory fee-shifting/”loser pays” provision (17 USC 505) that, in specified circumstances, gives the judge discretion to award attorneys’…
Ochoa on the Legacy of the Statute of Anne
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa Today marks the 300th Anniversary of the effective date of the Statute of Anne, the first modern copyright law. Although copyright law has changed a great deal in the past 300 years, the legacy of…
In Aggregation Case, Israeli Court Says Online Ads Aren’t Copyrightable (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Yoram Lichtenstein, Adv. [Eric’s note: Yoram previously shared some perspectives on a case involving live streaming of sports events. He now writes about another one of his cases, this time involving online aggregation websites. He represented the…