The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently issued its decision in Matthew Green v. DOJ, rejecting a First Amendment challenge to section 1201 of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). Section 1201 prohibits the circumvention of technological protections on copyrighted works and the distribution of the means to circumvent.
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U.S. Copyright Office Says New Federal Right “Urgently Needed” to Protect Individuals from Unauthorized Deepfakes
The U.S. Copyright Office recently issued a policy report concerning AI-generated images and recordings that impersonate others by mimicking their voice or visual likeness, otherwise known as “deepfakes” or “digital replicas.”Read more
Going for Advertising Gold: Guidelines for Advertising During the Olympic and Paralympic Games
With Opening Ceremonies in Paris just days away, athletes all over the world are getting ready for high-stakes performances.Read more
First Circuit Finds that El Gran Combo’s Lead Vocalist Is Entitled to Royalties
In 1996, Congress amended the Copyright Act to create a new entitlement to royalties from certain performances of sound recordings for musicians who performed on those recordings—regardless of whether they have any ownership of the copyright in the recordings. The statute provides that most of these artist royalties go to “featured” recording artists, and a…
Basquiat Made a Name for Himself in Art, but Not in Alcoholic Beverages
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a New York-based visual artist whose contributions to the neo-expressionism artistic movement led to his rise to fame in the 1980s. Although Basquiat passed away in 1988 at the age of 27, his vast body of work continues to be relevant and influential on modern-day art scenes. While the Basquiat name remains…
C.D. Cal. Says to Cher: “I Got You Babe”
There truly is no Sonny without Cher, and the Central District of California has agreed. In Cher v. Bono, the court held that federal copyright termination rights do not preempt an entitlement to royalties arising under state contract laws and that Cher must be paid her half of royalties for iconic songs written by Sonny…
SCOTUS: Trademark Content Restrictions Are Not Getting Smaller as Supreme Court Holds TRUMP TOO SMALL Cannot Be Registered
The Supreme Court has recently made significant efforts to clarify how the Lanham Act and the First Amendment interact in the context of trademark law. For example, in 2017, the Court in Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017), deemed the Lanham Act’s bar on disparaging trademarks unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment.…
Freelance Artist Claiming Warner Brothers Infringed His Batman-Riddler Story Finds Himself Liable for Infringement
Watching the 2022 Warner Brothers movie The Batman, Christopher Wozniak, a former freelance artist for DC Comics, was purportedly stunned by “so many similarities” between the movie and “his story.” Wasting no time, Wozniak filed an application with the United States Copyright Office to register a work he called “Wozniak Batman Riddler Plot.” He listed 1990…
S.D.Tex. Finds Tequila Marks CASA AZUL and CLASE AZUL Not Confusingly Similar
Casa Tradicion, which makes and distributes tequila under the brand name CLASE AZUL, brought a trademark infringement action against Casa Azul’s use and registration of the mark CASA AZUL for its own brand of tequila. Having earlier denied Casa Tradicion’s motion for a preliminary injunction, the district court remained unconvinced after a bench trial that…
SCOTUS: Justices Reject Three-Year Limit on Damages for Copyright Infringement
On May 9, 2024, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy, holding that a copyright owner may obtain monetary relief for any timely infringement claim, no matter when the infringement occurred—in other words, there is no time limit on damages.Read more