Recent reports that Neil Young is no longer asking or insisting that the Trump campaign stop using his music, but is instead suing Trump for America for copyright infringement, highlights the extent to which this longstanding controversy between artists and politicians has heated up in recent years. It is a subject that overlapped recently in the Senate IP Subcommittee hearing ...
When Viacom et al, in 2014, settled their copyright infringement suit against YouTube, that outcome had significant consequences for millions of independent creators. For one thing, the settlement left YouTube and other major platforms to over-emphasize the district court’s summary judgment that the DMCA had fully shielded the video platform against any liability in that case—this despite the appellate court ...
Emergencies have a way of shining a bright light on flawed thinking and dumb ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed latent, and embarrassing, American weaknesses, from the highest levels of government right down to the grocery stores, where Karen and Ken refuse to follow basic public safety rules. All in, it’s been a rather stunning demonstration of national incompetence laid ...
Because I defend the principles of copyright, I write a lot about the value of creative expression and the author’s right to choose how that expression is used. In this context, then, I think it is within the editorial nature of this blog to respond to Franklin Graham’s public complaints about last week’s Super Bowl halftime performances by Jennifer Lopez and ...
Every once in a while, a copyright litigation story makes a fine cautionary tale for users of social platforms, and this is true partly because the conflict tends to spawn misleading headlines or comments that add fuel to an outrage already borne of ignorance. In this case, I am referring to Prince’s estate easily prevailing on summary judgment in a ...
