Copyrights

The new, more than 5,000-page spending bill, which includes the latest COVID-19 relief, had a few surprises under its cover. Two of those surprises focus directly on intellectual property and amount to sea changes in the trademark and copyright infringement realms.

Online publication impacts the duration of copyright protection among other purposes, including optimizing creative and ownership rights and the availability of statutory damages and attorney fees. Thus, it is important to determine when Internet distribution constitutes publication.

The CASE Act fulfills the longstanding goal of the U.S. Copyright Office to establish a small claims court. The measure tasked the office with establishing the Copyright Claims Board and adopting governing regulations.

Publication of content online impacts the duration of copyright protection among other purposes, including optimizing creative and ownership rights and the availability of statutory damages and attorney fees. Thus, it is important to determine when Internet distribution constitutes publication.

In Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P. v. ComicMix LLC, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held in December that ComicMix's illustrated book combining elements of several Dr. Seuss children's books with characters, themes and other features of the popular sci-fi series Star Trek was not a fair use of the Seuss material from which it had admittedly been "slavishly" copied.

Part Two of a two-part article While the livestreaming of music performances is not an entirely new phenomenon, the COVID crisis has transformed the live performance landscape, compelling artists from around the world to reach their fanbase by producing "quarantine streams," in which they livestream their sets on social media platforms. Given this sudden pivot to livestreaming over social media, unsurprisingly many questions have arisen.

Part One of a Two Part Article While the livestreaming of music performances is not an entirely new phenomenon, the COVID crisis has transformed the live performance landscape, compelling artists from around the world to reach their fanbase by producing "quarantine streams," in which they livestream their sets on social media platforms. Given this sudden pivot to livestreaming over social media, unsurprisingly many questions have arisen.

Would Shakespeare Post Hamlet on Instagram in 2020? While the sound distracting you hear from this article may well be William Shakespeare rapidly turning in his grave like the Mad Hatter Teacup Ride at Disneyworld, recent legal and procedural developments associated with the ubiquitous Instagram social media site have created significant practical and legal risks for both copyright owners and account holders that would have even vexed the Bard himself.