Musical artists have always had to deal with questions of copyright. In recent years, however, many have felt a shiver up their spine from copyright issues that deal with the basic building blocks of music. That encompasses fundamentals like chord progressions,...
As we have discussed, a central theme of U.S. Copyright law is the stimulation of creative ideas, their free exchange, and commercial profitability from them. This is why copyright enforcement is not black-and-white/all-or-nothing – not all infringement is considered...
In 1981, photographer Lynn Goldsmith did a photoshoot with Prince while on assignment for Newsweek. While those images were never published, Vanity Fair licensed one of them in 1984 for an illustration by Andy Warhol. Mr. Warhol ultimately used the photo to create 16...
Written by Guest Author, Marks Gray Associate Logan McEwen On February 25, 2021, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Bitmanagement Software GMBH v. U.S. At issue was software developed for the U.S. Navy which required payment on a per-user...
Are you the owner of a copyright that has been violated? Are you seeking damages that are less than $30,000? Good news is here! You may have heard that in December of last year, Congress passed the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019 (CASE...
There are many important issues that parents know they need to talk to their kids about. Drugs. The importance of a good education. The birds and the bees. One thing that probably flies right past most parents’ radars is Copyright law. Why in the world would you want...
In honor of Halloween, this week I thought I would (if you will forgive the pun) resurrect a case from 2008: that of Dawn of the Dead vs. Dead Rising. Video game or horror movie aficionados may remember that this one was a pretty big deal when it occurred. But for...
Let’s say you start a business. Naturally, you decide you need a website to market your services or products. Maybe you choose to build the website yourself using a template. Or you hire a third party to create a customized website. In either scenario, you are going...