If for no reason other than the fact that I’m out of monkey jokes, I’m pleased to announce that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has finally put an end to PETA’s ridiculous litigation in which the organization alleged that the Sulawesi crested macaque in the photograph known as the “monkey selfie” is rightfully the owner of the copyright in ...
In what may be the most aptly named copyright case in recent history, “Blurred Lines” (properly Williams v. Gaye) is generally viewed as a mistake that many composers and songwriters fear will have a chilling effect on the craft of music-making. The headline complaint is that the outcome thus far asserts copyright protection for musical style, and, if true, this ...
Attorney and journalist Charles J. Glasser published an editorial in The Daily Caller titled: Mind Manipulation? No, Censorship By Copyright is The REAL Threat to Elections. The irony of that misleading headline, which does not truly reflect the substance of Glasser’s article, is that it reinforces a general bias about copyright (i.e. that it is censorship) for the simple reason ...
When Black Panther opened last month and proceeded to set records at the box office, it just so happened to be 200 years, almost to the day, after Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland. The significance of this particular symmetry might be observed through any number of lenses, including those distorted by presentist emotions, which tend to ...
In Monday’s post (and quite a few others) I stated that certain parties have worked very hard to distort the character of the fair use doctrine until it no longer has any boundaries or meaning, and simply nullifies copyright’s protections. For the last two years, every time I’ve made that accusation, the case foremost in mind has been TVEyes v. ...
