The Copyright Act protects many works that may not have great commercial value. When a copyrighted work, like a photograph, is used without permission, there is often not a significant amount of economic damage to the copyright owner, and the costs of bringing a lawsuit against the infringer may actually dissuade them from filing a lawsuit. Imagine someone takes one of your Facebook photos and uses it on her personal website without your permission. Your copyright in that photo has been infringed, but what are you going to do about it? In the real world, this type of infringement usually…
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Archives: Copyrights
Copyright Challenges: Software as a Work for Hire?
October 5, 2011
Who Really Owns My Company’s Software, or How Does the Work for Hire Exception to the Copyright Act of 1976 Effect Computer Software? The Copyright Act of 1976 gives the author of a copyrightable work protection through Federal law. Generally, this means that the creator of the work enjoys intellectual property rights, including legal protection from infringement – meaning, protection against having someone else copy the work. However, there is a “work for hire” exception. This doctrine applies either (a) when employees create works within the scope of their employment, or (b) where someone (we’ll call this person the “employer”…
Is Missoni’s Zig Zag Design a Trademark?
September 15, 2011
This week, the Italian design house Missoni debuted a line at discount retailer Target, resulting in sell-outs, website crashes, eBay markups, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and so on. Clearly, Missoni is a popular brand. Upon information and belief (that’s lawyer-speak for “somebody told me”), Missoni is known for incorporating zig-zag patterns into their designs. A quick Google Image search confirms this. Even the little image that appears next to http://www.missoni.com/ in my browser bar is a zig-zag: So, the question is, can the zig-zag patterns be protected under U.S. intellectual property law?
Are Cloud Music Services Legal?
September 8, 2011
Over a decade ago, a teenage Sean Parker took on the music establishment with his basement project Napster and the industry has never been the same since. While Napster was ultimately shut down, various online music download services have continued to sprout up. The latest trend involves “Cloud Music Services” such as Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player and Google’s Music Beta, both of which launched within the last 6 months. Music “clouds” are services that store your music on the Web and allow you to stream those songs to any computer or mobile device, such as a computer or…
