Copyrights

'Disparaging' Trademarks Decision
High Court Declines Takedown Notice/Fair Use Case

Mash-Up of Dr. Seuss/Star Trek Components Is a Fair Use

While copyright registration normally constitutes prima facie evidence of copyright ownership, the court noted that the estate had registered the song copyright 31 years after it was originally published and only in response to the defendants' sampling of the song on Drake's album.

First the copyright infringement case over the use of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine in a Broadway play was dismissed by a New York federal judge. Then it rounded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but was tagged out again. Now, in its third at bat, the lawsuit struck out with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review the case.

A Miami company's decision to defend a small-potatoes copyright case all the way to trial paid off when the case was dismissed after a few hours — by an angry federal judge.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is gearing up to hear argument in BMG Rights Management v. Cox Communications, one of the first attempts by the music industry to hold an ISP liable for unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing by its subscribers.

An enlarged print of an Instagram post containing a copyrighted photo counts as a transformative use, an attorney for "appropriation artist" Richard Prince — whose use of other artists' material in his own works has made him no stranger to the courts — argued before a New York federal judge in April.

Fashion, furniture, and other design-oriented companies will take note of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc., which resolved a division among the federal circuits on the issue of the separability of designs of useful articles under the Copyright Act.