she pretty much (inadvertently?) stole the verse except for lyrics...
I find it weird that Radiohead had already been successfully sued for infringement over the song for resembling this Hollies song - I don’t see that one as a clear case at all?....
...The Internet Association represents companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and other heavy hitters. It will join an existing lawsuit as an intervening party, which lets the group file arguments against the FCC...
Getty Images illegally selling Carol Highsmith’s images that she had donated to the public via the Library of Congress, AND they send threatening letters to people that they believe have infringed the copyright...seriously fucked up.
NEW YORK, Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 29th, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear Kirby v. Marvel, an extraordinary copyright case with enormous implications for authors, artists and creators.
Jack Kirby had a modest upbringing and no formal training, but his insatiable mind and passion for storytelling made him the most prolific comic-book creator/illustrator of all time. From a beat-up desk in his basement studio, Kirby created characters like X-Men, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Hulk—even the tree-hero Groot featured in Marvel's hit movie Guardians of the Galaxy.
Marvel, or "the House that Jack built" to comic-book buffs, was bought by Disney in 2009 for $4.24 billion and its value has since doubled. Kirby played an immeasurable role, yet received negligible sums for his work and not even a simple royalty.
In the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress sought to remedy these imbalances by permitting artists and their families to recapture their copyrights by statutorily terminating prior grants. This allows artists to negotiate new grants which reflect their works' true value. The sole exception is for "work-for-hire."
In 2009, Kirby's children thus served Marvel/Disney with termination notices. Marvel sued claiming everything was "work-for-hire," despite wide acknowledgment that Kirby worked purely as a freelancer, and that Marvel had avoided any contractual commitment to Kirby. Nonetheless, the district court and Second Circuit summarily ruled for Marvel under a vague and presumptive "instance and expense" test roundly criticized by leading copyright experts as effectively overruled by Supreme Court precedent.
The Kirbys, represented by attorney Marc Toberoff, thus petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari. And they have real momentum. SCOTUSblog named it "Petition of the Day." On May 14, the Supreme Court expressed interest in the case and ordered Marvel to respond. On June 13, amicus briefs supporting the Kirbys were filed by all the Hollywood Guilds, the former Register of Copyrights, the former USPTO Commissioner, scores of artists associations, and hundreds of artists, including several Pulitzer-prize winners.
There hasn't been a copyright case with such far-reaching implications in three decades. Should the Kirbys prevail, their victory would be shared by creators everywhere insofar as all pre-1978 works could no longer be deemed "work-for-hire" outside of conventional employment. Jack Kirby revolutionized the world of comics and entertainment, but the Supreme Court will write the ending of his story.
For further inquiries, contact Theodore Feder, The Artists Rights Society; (212) 420-9160; [email protected].
SOURCE Artists Rights Society
A little less than a year ago, an operation called the Bitcoin Savings & Trust (an updated name from what had been the "First Pirate Savings & Trust") shut down suddenly, right after there was growing evidence that it was a pyramid scheme -- or, as some called it, the Bernie Madoff of Bitcoin. The "deal" promised an insane 7% interest weekly. If you know even the slightest thing about compound interest (or can use a calculator for a few rounds), you'd recognize that's insaneand obviously unsustainable in any real world situation. The guy behind it, who went by the name pirateat40, insisted it was no such scheme, and that people would get their money back. In fact, he claimed "once my process is released you'll understand more of how coins move around." Well, a month later the SEC officially began investigating, and along with a big lawsuit against Trendon Shavers (aka pirateat40), the SEChas now "released" his process, and it sure does look quite a lot like a Ponzi scheme...
Legal drama is nothing new for Apple—Samsung, e-books, App Store trademarks, etc. But the company has probably never seen anything like the 50-page complaint AboveTheLaw.com points out this week.
Plaintiff (and attorney) Chris Sevier filed the document (Scribd) against Apple in a US District Court in Nashville, TN last month. Sevier's beef with Cupertino boils down to a simple fact: they sell machines that allow men to view porn. From his introduction (all formatting, grammar, spelling left as is):
The Plaintiff loves Apple. The Plaintiff believes in Apple, as a company and knows that it has good intent. Since its inception, Apple has always been a pro-family company, Apple has always been an entity that is concerned with the welfare of our Nation's children, while furthering pro-American values. There is no reason for Apple, a private company to overly support pornography online, explicit sexual content which has led to the proliferation of arousal addiction, sex trafficking, prostitution, and countless numbers of destroyed lives. The Plaintiff respectfully demand that Apple sell all of its devices on "safe mode," with software preset to filter out pornographic content. If the purchaser of Apple's products is over 18, Apple should allow the buyer to take additional step to acquire a password from Apple in order to remove the filter to access Constitutionally protected indecent content. If the buyer is under 18, Apple should not provide the password.
Sevier is seeking damages and injunctive relief against Apple because they make products that can display porn ("or as the rest of us call it, the Internet," AboveTheLaw notes). So Sevier legally requests that Apple enables a porn-filtering "safe mode" by default on its devices. His complaint notes that "If Apple agrees to sell its devices 'on safe mode' before trial, the Plaintiff will terminate this litigation."
The 50-pages contain a plethora of eyebrow-raising gems. Sevier claims his porn addiction started because of a simple typo in Safari (he was trying to access "facebook.com"). He alleges Apple's porn offering led to unfair competition between his wife and porn stars, which ultimately caused a deteriorating relationship. Sevier's electronic group, called Ghost Wars, even made a supportingYouTube video (referenced in the complaint) "that summarizes the issues in the lawsuit as it relates to rewiring, voyeurism products liability, and systemic problems that are the direct result of our collective arrogance to not do something about an problem area [sic]."
Unsurprisingly, Apple has yet to respond to the filing according to cir.ca.
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(my favorite idiocy: "He alleges Apple's porn offering led to unfair competition between his wife and porn stars, which ultimately caused a deteriorating relationship..".)
I had kind of thought that after we posted our response to Teri Buhl, who got upset about our original article about her whacko claims that her publicly posted tweets could not be quoted, that the story would hopefully fade away. However, this morning, Jim Romenesko, who allowed Buhl to "respond" to us via his blog, has published another story noting that the thanks he received from Buhl is that she is threatening to sue him. Lovely. Oh yeah, and in her communication with Romenesko, she apparently told him she's planning to sue us at Techdirt, too (which, by the way, is the first we've heard of this):
Today, Buhl is threatening to sue me for using the photo from her Twitter page. She says she owns the image and never gave me or others permission to publish it. She adds that she's going to file a small claims suit against Mark Bennett and Techdirt for keeping the photo on their sites after being told to take it down.
"I don't want add you the same list [sic]," she writes. "I'm asking Poynter and Knight to do the same thing today before I file."
My response to her: "Really, Teri?"
She replied:
yes really Jim – I am going to push it. It's a matter a principle I am sick of other publications lifting other jurnos ideas, photos, words etc… and printing them on their publications with out permission or proper credit with links etcc. I think it's an issue that should have been challenged a long time ago. I took the photo I own it etc…
Of course, in our last post on the subject, we suggested that Buhl acquaint herself with fair use rules. It would appear that she has chosen not to do that. We did not "lift" her "ideas, photos, words." We reported on her actions and statements. It also appears that she has not familiarized herself with the nature of copyright law, and the fact that small claims courts have no jurisdiction over copyright issues. Not that I should be doing the legal work the lawyer she claims to have contacted failed to do, but 28 USC 1338notes:
The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents, plant variety protection, copyrights and trademarks. No State court shall have jurisdiction over any claim for relief arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents, plant variety protection, orcopyrights.
This is kind of basic stuff...
Feds Raid Gibson; Musicians Now Worried The Gov't Will Take Their Guitars Away
from the norwegian-wood dept
Last week, the feds apparently raided the premises of Gibson Guitar, searching for "illegal wood" used in those guitars. Apparently, the government and Gibson have been involved in an ongoing lawsuit for some time, after the feds seized some guitars in 2009 and a case commenced against the wood in the guitar (yes, against the wood, since it was one of those "in rem" cases): "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms." Apparently, now the government is taking it up a notch, and while there is a grandfather clause, if you get your paperwork just marginally wrong and happen to own a Gibson guitar with illegal wood, the government could seize it and fine you. Apparently, a bunch of musicians are reasonably afraid, and some suggest not taking any such guitar out of the country if you ever plan on bringing it back:
John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar." [....] It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."
And since this is a "strict liability" situation, asking the government for help in making sure you're being legal may actually make things worse. Much worse:
Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny. There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling. Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.
I'm all for not destroying the environment -- and if Gibson is really doing something bad, then that should be dealt with. But some of these other situations just seem flat out ridiculous. Don't the feds have more important things to do?
With the Space Shuttle program ending, it appears that NASA has some spare time on its hands... and it's using it to sue a former astronaut for trying to auction off a lunar movie camera that he claims he was given after becoming the sixth man to walk on the moon in 1971. Yes, he has had the camera for forty years, and it's just now that he was seeking to auction it off that NASA suddenly remembered it existed and is claiming that it owns it. Is there really no statute of limitations here? Or possibly a laches claim? Frankly, the whole thing just seems petty.
You may recall that Apple has been trying to convince the world that there can be only one "app store," first by suggesting it really means Apple Store and then by suing Amazon for its own app store. Amazon has now responded to the lawsuit by using Steve Jobs own words against him:
In 2008 Apple launched its app store, which allows a consumer to view and instantly download apps for their Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. In press releases, Apple has claimed that its app store is "the largest application store in the world." In October 2010, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs called Apple's app store "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone."
That certainly sounds like Apple and Jobs admitting that the term is generic. To further support its own position, Amazon notes to some linguists as well:
The American Dialect Society, a leading group of U.S. linguists, recently voted "app" as the "Word of the Year" for 2010, noting that although the word "has been around for ages," it "really exploded in the last 12 months" with the "arrival of 'app stores' for a wide spectrum of operating systems for phones and computers." Indeed, the words "app store" are commonly used among many businesses competing in the app store market.
It certainly looks like Apple may have a difficult job convincing anyone that app store is not generic.
