Court Orders Rightsowner to Withdraw DMCA Takedown Notices Sent to Amazon–Beyond Blond v. Heldman
This case involves an Amazon seller, the plaintiff, who packages and republishes public domain cartoon videos, like Bugs Bunny, Popeye, and Mighty Mouse. The defendant is a rightsowner who claims that the Amazon seller infringes its rights. On that basis,…
Three Keyword Advertising Decisions in a Week, and the Trademark Owners Lost Them All
If you are a trademark owner suing over competitive keyword ads, you are almost certainly making a bad business decision, and your attorney might be milking your bank account. If you are an attorney representing a trademark owner in a…
Geotagged Social Media Posts Didn’t Support Personal Jurisdiction–Court of Master Sommeliers v. Pilkey
The plaintiff runs certification programs for beverage experts. The highest certification is “master sommelier,” earned normally only by less than 10 people a year. In Sept. 2018, a record 24 candidates earned the certification. It turns out an insider leaked…
Print-on-Demand Vendor Doesn’t Qualify for DMCA Safe Harbor–Feingold v. RageOn
This case involves two copyright-protected photos that users submitted to the RageOn print-on-demand service. Among other defenses, RageOn invoked the DMCA safe harbor. The Greg Young v. Zazzle case held that Zazzle qualified for the 512(c) safe harbor for displaying…
Why Are Pizzerias Arguing Whether Web Browsing Is Copyright Infringement?–Imapizza v. At Pizza
“&Pizza” runs an East Coast pizzeria chain. “@Pizza” runs a UK pizzeria chain. Let’s disregard that both brands are terrible (the & and @ symbols plus the generic term–UGH) and that @Pizza may not own its eponymous Twitter account (the…
Q2 2020 Quick Links (Everything)
Copyright * Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 3121306 (E.D. Va. June 2, 2020). Each downloaded song file generally can support its own statutory damage, but “compilations” only get one statutory damages award, and no double-counting of…
Supreme Court Promotes Weaponization of Generic Domain Names–USPTO v. Booking.com
The USPTO believed that “generic.com” domain names were almost always generic and therefore unregistrable. On that basis, it denied registration for Booking.com. The Supreme Court holds that generic.com domain names aren’t necessarily generic, which means they have the potential to…
Fortnite Defeats Another Lawsuit Over Emote Dance Moves–Brantley v. Epic Games
This case involves the “Running Man” dance, a 2016 fad. (Note: the dance is not the same as the old-skool Running Man dance move, a 1980s classic that I’ve attempted on occasion). A viral video of people doing a “Running…
2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks/Keywords)
* Workshopx Inc v. Build A Sign LLC , 2019 WL 5258056 (W.D. Texas June 26, 2019): “BAS contends that WorkshopX cannot state a claim for trademark infringement or unfair competition because using a competitor’s trademark as a Google AdWords…
Humvee Can’t Stop Depictions of Its Vehicles in the ‘Call of Duty’ Videogame–AM General v. Activision Blizzard
It has unexpectedly turned into Videogame Law week here at the Technology & Marketing Law blog. This is my third videogame IP blog post this week. See my prior posts on tattoo copyrights and signature moves. All three rulings are…