This past month, the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held yet another hearing to discuss copyright reform. Aptly titled “The Scope of Copyright Protection,” it offered testimony from some of the most renowned scholars in the field. Yet, although the House and Senate conduct hearings and discuss intellectual property policy [...]
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Have you ever been in the market for a textbook? If so, you, like most students enrolled in college these days, were probably shocked by some of the exorbitant prices that university bookstores charge for a book. For example, if you were in the market for a brand new Constitutional Law textbook you would be [...]
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Starting a process that might completely shake-up copyright law in the next few years, Mr. Victor Willis, the former lead singer of the Village People, is filing to regain control and ownership of several of the group’s earliest songs, including the renowned song ‘Y.M.C.A.’
Thirty-five years ago, when Congress re-wrote the copyright [...]
Continue Reading →Forget Voldemort — Harry Potter has a new nemesis to contend with. Unfortunately for Harry, neither magic nor help from Hermione Granger will help him win this legal fight. As a sequel to the pending suits against the British publisher of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the Estate of Adrian Jacobs [...]
Continue Reading →The works of most every major recording artist are now legally available for download. That is, however, except for those of The Beatles. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when, on October 30, the music sharing website BlueBeat.com began offering 25-cent downloads of Beatles music.
The record label EMI, which owns the rights to [...]
Continue Reading →For many people, the Sesame Street theme song evokes images of a diverse group of joyous children playing with Big Bird and the other muppets. But for some Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan detainees, the song might be a reminder of long nights interrupted by screaming kids looking for the location of Sesame [...]
Continue Reading →On Friday, October 23, the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law held its annual symposium. This year’s symposium was entitled Drawing Lines in the Digital Age: Copyright, Fair Use, and Derivative Works. The symposium covered a variety of topics related to digital copyright, but the focus was on exploring the intersection of [...]
Continue Reading →The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers recently sued Verizon Wireless, alleging that Verizon was both “engag[ing] in public performances of musical works when it downloads ringtones to customers” and “secondarily liable for public performances of musical works when customers play ringtones on their telephones.” Opinion, p. 7. ASCAP [...]
Continue Reading →Fans of The Ellen DeGeneres Show know that Ellen is famous for dancing through the audience to everything from recent Rihanna hits to classics by The Beach Boys. She might have to rethink her song choices after major recording companies sued the show in U.S. District Court for the Middle District [...]
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The Copyright Office Tunes In
Upon Congress’s prompting, the U.S. Copyright Office has begun a study on the desirability of bringing sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, under federal jurisdiction. In a notice of inquiry, the Copyright Office has requested written comments from all interested parties.
Sound recordings were protected solely under state law [...]
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