Category: Copyright

Last month, we discussed US Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante’s March appearance before the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet  Committee on the Judiciary in which she said copyright law is “showing the strain of its age and requires your attention.” On April 24, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob

Fox canceled the space western television series “Firefly” in 2002 because of low ratings after 11 of the 14 produced episodes aired, but the series enjoyed strong sales when it was released on DVD and gained a strong cult following. In this video, actor Adam Baldwin—who played the mercenary Jayne Cobb on the show—performs “Hero of

The 2010 Hindi film “Knock Out,”was about a businessman being held hostage in a telephone booth be a sniper. If that sounds similar to the 2003 American thriller “Phone Booth,” you are not alone. As India’s New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) reported, “Bollywood is known for brazenly borrowing ‘inspiration’ from Western films,” but the country’s

Country music superstar Garth Brooks has filed a lawsuit that alleges fraud and breach of contract. The Tulsa World reported that Brooks’ former business partner, Lisa Sanderson, claims that “The Red Strokes,” a song from Brooks’ hit 1993 album “In Pieces,” was based on a poem that she wrote. Brooks later founded Red Strokes Entertainment Inc.

The US Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante appeared before the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet  Committee on the Judiciary last month. In her prepared remarks, the director of the US Copyright Office said that a major portion of the current copyright statute was enacted in 1976 but it

We noted in a blog post last week that the recent US Supreme Court decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. held that the first sale doctrine—a section of copyright law that allows an individual who purchases a copy of a copyrighted work the right to sell that particular copy—applies regardless of where the copy

While he was working for the the Republican Study Committee (RSC) in November 2012, Derek Khanna authored a policy brief entitled “Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it” that concluded with a call for reform. The Washington Post reported that reaction to the memo was enthusiastic, and Khanna said the American

A video from the news and politics program The Young Turks discusses, the 2012 song “Harlem Shake” that spawned countless YouTube dance videos after going viral last month. However, the New York Times reported that the popularity was especially surprising to individuals whose records were used in the song without their permission. Philadelphia rapper Jayson