Can I Use This Song In My Podcast? It Depends.

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According to Podcast Insights, there are currently over 660,000 podcasts in existence and over 28 million episodes available to listen to. This number is certainly growing as are the legal concerns and issues associated with hosting or producing a podcast. This article will provide some general guidelines and outline some of the rules around using […]

Hollywood Studios Prevail Against Family-Friendly Video Streaming Site

In a 3-0 ruling, a federal appeals court sided with Disney, Warner Bros., and Twentieth Century Fox by affirming an injunction that shut down movie filtering service VidAngel, Inc., saying that a ruling to the contrary would “create a giant loophole in copyright law”. VidAngel is a video filtering service that lets users stream films […]

Spotify Settles Class Action Lawsuit for $43.4 Million

In February of last year, I wrote a blog discussing the filing of a class action lawsuit against Spotify seeking $150 million in unpaid mechanical royalties (Read the previous post here). In a settlement announced on Friday, Spotify has agreed to set up a fund worth $43.4 million to compensate songwriters and publishers whose compositions […]

Political Campaigns & Unauthorized Music

As the presidential caucuses approach so do the opportunities for political candidates to end up in the headlines for using unauthorized music in their campaigns. In nearly every campaign cycle you hear about a recording artist upset that a politician or campaign used the artist’s music without authorization. A list of notable disputes include Bruce […]

Supreme Court Determines Internet Service Violates Copyrights

The Supreme Court has issued its much anticipateddecision in American Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. The Court held that an internet service provided by Aereo—which allows subscribes to watch television programs over the internet contemporaneous with the programs as they are broadcasted over the air—violates of a copyright owner's exclusive right to perform a […]

2014 Supreme Court Cases Relating to Intellectual Property

On January 10, 2014 the Supreme Court agreed to review a variety of intellectual property cases in the upcoming session, including two patent cases, a copyright case, and a trademark case (including Lanham Act claim). A brief overview of these cases is provided and more detail will be available once decisions are entered by the […]

Second Circuit: Remote DVR system does not infringe content providers’ copyrights

In a decision last week, the Second Circuit reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment holding that the defendant's remote-storage DVR system violated the plaintiffs' rights of reproduction and public performance. The Plaintiffs were various content providers, and the defendant was a cable company. The remote-storage DVR system lets customers store recorded television shows […]