Intellectual Property Law

Google?s YouTube Power

Posted on December 30, 2009
For the second time in two days, Google has shown up on my “hmm, what’s going on there?” radar. Today I want to put search behind me and look at how Google is alleged to have leveraged its video content position by changing the terms of service for YouTube’s APIs (application programming interfaces) to [...

More about how search neutrality doesn?t exist

Posted on December 29, 2009
I appreciate Frank’s addition to the discussion here, started by Greg and based on Frank Raff’s NY Times Op-Ed. That said, I think we’re at least somewhat talking around each other, and the major reason is that the primary legal structures designed to handle the problems that Raff is really upset about — Google’s dominant [...

isoHunt Loses on Summary Judgment

Posted on December 29, 2009
This is being widely reported elsewhere, most notably by Michael Geist (who includes a copy of the 47 page decision) and ArsTechnica, among others, but the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of California has granted summary judgment to the film industry in its suit against Gary Fung and isoHunt, a BitTorrent search site...

Copyright and Wikipedia

Posted on December 29, 2009
I’ve been reading up on Wikipedia’s copyright policies lately and found some interesting items tucked away in the Wikipedia copyright policy guidelines and copyright FAQ.  This is not to criticize the people at Wikipedia as they are working to do something really unique and original with little in the way of financial backing...

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What is Search Neutrality?

Posted on December 28, 2009
Adam Raff, in an Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday, says that Google “faces a difficult choice. Will it embrace search neutrality as the logical extension to net neutrality that truly protects equal access to the Internet? Or will it try to argue that discriminatory market power is somehow dangerous in the hands of a [...

Principles of Search Neutrality

Posted on December 28, 2009
I just want to respond to Rob’s and Greg’s concerns about Adam Raff’s “search neutrality” editorial in the NYT today. On the basis of the many articles I’ve written on search (as well as discussions with individuals who have problems similar to Raff’s), I found the editorial both informative and compelling...

Creative Commons Fund Drive

Posted on December 28, 2009
American University law professor and madisonian.net contributor Mike Carroll asked me to post a link to the annual fundraising drive for Creative Commons, where Mike has been a board member since its founding.  Happy to! Here is Mike’s pitch.  To donate and to read more, click over to the Creative Commons site: Dear Friends ? I?m asking you [...

There is no ?search engine neutrality?

Posted on December 28, 2009
Greg usefully started the conversation on today’s NY Times Op-Ed by Adam Raff, founder of “foundem.co.uk,” a UK price comparison site, by asking, “What is search engine neutrality?” I was drafting a too-long post about this when I noticed Greg’s was already up, so thought I would shorten mine considerably...

Cell Phones, Dogs, and Prisons: A Better Policy Is Needed

Posted on December 27, 2009
I call friends and family during the holidays. For me, unlike email and social networking options, talking to someone is a more intimate and fun experience. Regardless of how one “reaches out and touches someone” as AT&T used to say, it is easy to take the ability to do so for granted...

Self-Piracy

Posted on December 26, 2009
So here’s some controversial advice: ?So that?s your advice is it? As my agent? On the week my book comes out in paperback, I should produce my own pirated version and give it away free? Why don?t I just punch my publisher in the face? That would be less work...

And the Most Pirated Movie Award goes to ?

Posted on December 26, 2009
According to today’s NY Times, the most pirated movie of 2009 was the popular Star Trek prequel. The award for “most notorious film piracy”, however, goes to X-Men Origins:  Wolverine which made it to illegal file-sharing avenues on the Internet one month before being released in the theaters...

Star Trek Jingle Bells

Posted on December 24, 2009
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Sherlock Holmes and The Sparks

Posted on December 24, 2009
Here’s just a little free association for what I hope are ongoing happy holidays for everyone. Sherlock Holmes opens on Christmas Day and is a front runner for holiday films I want to see. I happen to think that Robert Downey Jr. is in a great groove...

Admit it, this is funny.

Posted on December 23, 2009
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Open Information, Open Government, and Better Nutrition: A Possibility To Explore

Posted on December 23, 2009

Marketing and Kids

Posted on December 23, 2009
Although I tend to prefer less regulation in many cases, the pictures below seem to call for a little more discussion about how products are marketed to kids. Candy in that mimics many of the attributes of adult products such as cigarettes probably makes it easier for a kid to think they ought to try [...

Mandatory vs. Permissive Copyright Exceptions and Limitations

Posted on December 22, 2009
[H/T here to the IPKat, and particularly the AmeriKat.] In this recent post I pointed to the recent statement of the United States at the WIPO meeting considering an proposed international treaty governing copyright in works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or have other disabilities...

Why Do Competitors Set Up Shop Near Each Other?

Posted on December 21, 2009
I am a big fan of the Planet Money series on NPR. Any student struggling with the economic aspects of business associations can use Planet Money and NPR’s other financial series, Marketplace, to get grasp of what is going on. Marketplace tends to focus on the day’s events...

Merry, Merry Trademark Season from Pittsburgh

Posted on December 19, 2009
From the Department of Joys of the Season to You, Too comes news that the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership not only owns a trademark registration for the phrase “Light Up Night” but is now — and I mean that almost literally, as in “in the middle of the holiday season” — sending out cease-and-desist letters to [...

The Costs of Counterfeiting

Posted on December 16, 2009
I was intrigued by this item in the NYT “Ideas” report last Sunday: Wearing imitation designer clothing or accessories can fool others ? but no matter how convincing the knockoff, you never, of course, fool yourself. It’s a small but undeniable act of duplicity...

The US at WIPO SCCR

Posted on December 15, 2009
Justin Hughes, on the faculty at Cardozo Law School and currently leading the US delegation at WIPO in Geneva – the meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), which is focusing on exceptions and limitations – suggested that I post a note pointing to the US Statement on a new WIPO [...

South Butt Sued

Posted on December 15, 2009
From Charbucks to South Butt … Recent Pitt grad and my former research assistant Dan Corbett is now a Pittsburgh trademark lawyer with his own blog – Pittsburgh Trademark Lawyer, and please send some traffic his way — and via Dan I learn that the North Face has gone ahead and sued the seller of “South [...

The Conceptual Revolution in Popular Music

Posted on December 15, 2009
I picked this up via SSRN: David W. Galenson, From ‘White Christmas’ to Sgt. Pepper: The Conceptual Revolution in Popular Music The paper has nothing directly to do with intellectual property law, but its description of the evolution in popular music during the 20th century suggests some provocative hypotheses...

More on New Moon and Copyright Piracy ?

Posted on December 15, 2009
Further to my recent post on the issue of the women jailed for recording a few minutes of the Twilight sequel, New Moon, it has been announced that the charges against her have been dropped and she has been released from custody.  A news story here contains interesting statements from both the producers of the [...

What is a Book, Redux?

Posted on December 14, 2009
As the Wall Street Journal put it the other day, Random House has sent a letter to literary agents claiming the digital rights to books it published before the emergence of a thriving electronic-book marketplace. The New York Times also covered this story...

Can?t We All Just Meep Along?

Posted on December 13, 2009
Via Language Log I learned about the great “meep” ban of 2009 (a high school principal in Danvers, Mass. warned students there not to say  “meep” in school,  connecting the word with disruptive behavior), but via the Salem (Mass...

The Internet in 1993

Posted on December 13, 2009
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More on Digital Copyright Norms ? and Twilight

Posted on December 11, 2009
Further to posting on how everyday Web 2.0 citizens relate to copyright law (and continuing my case study on Twilight-related IP issues), I have come across another example of where the popular understanding of digital legal rights is imperfect.  However, in this case, it looks like the copyright law – or something like it – [...

Farewell to an amazing friend: C. Edwin Baker

Posted on December 10, 2009
Penn Law Professor Ed Baker died on Tuesday, as has been noted here, here, here and here and here, so far. Every nice thing that has been written about him so far has been true, and there are many more things to add. He was a very unique and special person...

Tiger and the Risks of Personal Branding

Posted on December 09, 2009
If there is an intellectual property angle to the Tiger Woods affair (or perhaps I should say “affairs”), it may be this: When a celebrity turns himself or herself into a brand, as Tiger has done so effectively, then the challenges of maintaining brand integrity, and the risks associated with what trademark lawyers sometimes [...

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