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Features
Grip sites tell a business what some customers think, even though their opinions are not necessarily those that the business wants to hear ' and certainly not those that it would want other customers or potential customers to hear. They could serve as a warning system to companies that their products or services are not being well received and that they are suffering from bad word of mouth. Gripe sites also, theoretically, add to the public good as forums for discussion and create better-informed customers. But there are, or should be, many other and better ways to obtain this information, such as through a company's own Web site and toll-free customer service numbers.
Features
False Endorsement/No Preemption<br>Song Copyright/Implied License<br>Video-Game Statutes/Unconstitutionality
Two courts in the Ninth Circuit have recently addressed how to differentiate between an 'owner' and a mere 'licensee' for purposes of rights under the Copyright Act, and have reached decisions that might surprise many practitioners.
Features
The recording industry estimates that music piracy has cost it billions of dollars during the past 15 years. Facing the potential for an industry-wide collapse, the RIAA undertook its aggressive litigation campaign to protect itself and its constituents from copyright infringement by suing individual file sharers. After fighting a public relations battle over some of its tactics, the RIAA has chosen to temper its aggressiveness. The RIAA is instead forming relationships with ISPs that maintain the online accounts of the consumers.
Features
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT/RULE 12(b)(6) DISMISSAL<br>THEATRICAL OPTIONS/FUTURE ENFORCEABILITY
Features
In January 2008, the California Supreme Court decided that the doctrine of severability of contracts could be applied to the state's Talent Agencies Act (TAA). Under the supreme court's ruling, a personal manager's activities as an unlicensed talent agent may be severed from the manager's legal activities, the latter still being commissionable from the artist by the manager.
Features
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to grant a judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial for the former business manager of musician Yngwie Malmsteen in a suit by the musician over missing income.
The Federal Circuit issued its decision in <i>Sundance v. DeMonte</i>, overruling the district court's holding of non-obviousness. Applying the standard set forth in <i>KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc.</i>, the court found that the patent was an obvious combination of the prior art and noted that the district court committed two errors by: 1) erroneously allowing a patent attorney, who was not skilled in the relevant technology, to testify regarding obviousness; and 2) vacating the jury verdict of obviousness and granting judgment as a matter of law on non-obviousness, based on its erroneous interpretation of the prior art.
Features
Was Marilyn Monroe domiciled in New York and not California when she died in 1962? If it was California, the company succeeding to her rights might have publicity rights after her death, if that state's statute extending publicity rights back from when the statute originally took effect was constitutional. The new California statute is retroactive as well as prospective. Monroe, of course, never heard of publicity rights, which were enacted in California in 1984. If it was New York, there are no publicity rights, only privacy rights, which ended with her death.
Features
In the intersection between trademark rights and the First Amendment, the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's grant of summary judgment finding that the First Amendment protected the look of a video game's virtual strip joint, as well as the use of the Pig Pen name.
