Digital Britain: The UK Government’s vision for a 21st century digital economy Last month, the UK Department for Culture, Media, and Sport released Digital Britain, a report regarding the future of communications infrastructure in the UK, how to deal with challenges of a digital economy (such as copyright infringement), and containing policy recommendations regarding how to move forward. Click below for our thoughts on the report and […] Continue Reading →
Pirate Bay operators guilty of criminal infringement in Sweden; no webcast of US file sharing case In the past day, there has been two interesting bits of news in the world of cases alleging copyright infringement by way of peer-to-peer file sharing. The first is that the individuals who operate and maintain the servers that host The Pirate Bay, the world's largest bittorrent tracker, were held to have committed criminal copyright […] Continue Reading →
Tenth Circuit: Insufficient proof of access dooms copyright infringement claim In a recent decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court's finding of no copyright infringement after a bench trial and the findings for the defendants on related claims. The district court held there was insufficient evidence of copying, specifically that there was no evidence the defendants had access to the copyrighted work. The copyright […] Continue Reading →
United States did not waive immunity for copyright infringement claim brought by prisoner In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit held the Court of Federal Claims correctly dismissed a copyright infringement suit against the United States for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff is a federal prisoner who created various coyprightable works while in federal prison. He brought suit alleging copyright infringement after his works were distributed […] Continue Reading →
Eleventh Circuit: Similarity of architectural plans depends largely on arrangement of features In a recent decision, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a district court's grant of summary judgment of non-infringement in an architectural copyright case. The appellant had argued that the district court had effectively heightened the standard for infringement by performing an element-by-element comparison focusing on the differences between two floor plans. The Eleventh Circuit held the […] Continue Reading →
Ninth Circuit: Pre-1923 published foreign works may still be copyrighted, depending on notice In a decision last week, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff in a copyright case. The works at issue, sculptures by the famed artist Renior and coauthored by one of his assistants, Richard Guino, were created between 1913 and 1917, and first published in France […] Continue Reading →
Ninth Circuit: Copyright owner’s ambiguous reservation of rights clarified with extrinsic evidence In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court's grant of summary judgment that a copyright holder did not have standing to sue for copyright, trademark, unfair competition, and related declaratory judgment claims. The case involved the film Gone in 60 Seconds, produced and directed in 1974 by H.B. "Toby" Halicki, and remade […] Continue Reading →
Second Circuit: Copyright license of indeterminate term improperly read to be perpetual In this appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, the Second Circuit reversed the dismissal of a copyright claim based on ambiguity in a contract, but affirmed dismissal of the antitrust claims because the plaintiff's proposed market definition was not plausible.The district court dismissed the copyright claims based […] Continue Reading →
Tenth anniversary of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act On October 28, 1998, President Clinton signed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act into law. The Act is probably best known for two of its provisions: (1) the anti-cirumvention provsion, which prohibits circumventing a "technological measure that effectively controls access to" a copyrighted work, and (2) the online "safe harbor" provision, which generally insulates parties that […] Continue Reading →
Ninth Circuit: Absent evidence of intent to the contrary, custom software purchaser retains license In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's decision that a software developer's delivery of customized software includes a grant of an unlimited, non-exclusive, implied license to use, modify, and retain the source code of the programs in the absence of written agreements to the contrary. The Ninth Circuit also affirmed the […] Continue Reading →