Shortly after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Warhol v. Goldsmith, I wandered deep into the tall grass, PJs tucked into my boots, thinking about the fair use analysis in the difficult context of fine art. And then the Supreme Court delivered Justice Breyer’s opinion in Google v. Oracle, which, among other transgressions, broke a cardinal rule by ...
Once the die was cast (i.e. after oral arguments) in Google v. Oracle, I don’t think I was alone in feeling that if the Supreme Court held that the computer code at issue in this case was not properly a subject of copyright protection, that would be an acceptably narrow decision, even though many might disagree with it as a ...
I realize the Court will rule anytime now, and that I may be gilding the proverbial lily here; but I drafted this post in early January, and then the world got a little crazy and distracting. Anyway, FWIW, below is my last observation about Google v. Oracle. At least until after the decision. 🙂 In Google v. Oracle, the Supreme ...
Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a fair use decision in Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) v. ComicMix. After oral arguments were presented in April, I wrote about this case as an example from which creators could learn what not to do when they propose to make substantial use of protected works—especially very famous works. The lawsuit involves ...
As mentioned in my last Google v. Oracle post, the Supreme Court devoted considerable attention during oral argument to addressing the standard applied by the Federal Circuit when it determined as a matter of law that Google’s copying of Oracle’s code was not fair use. Google maintains that the Federal Circuit failed to show proper deference to a jury decision, ...
