The selfie queen herself, Kim Kardashian West, is being sued for $100 million for copyright infringement relating to her signature light up smartphone case. A man by the name of Hooshmand Harooni filed suit against West’s company Kimisaprincess Inc., claiming the LuMee case she endorses is a rip off his own light up case.

The LuMee cases act like portable ring lights, providing continuous lighting around the phone’s perimeter, and typically retail for around $55-$70.

According to the lawsuit, Harooni obtained a patent in 2013 for an “integrated lighting accessory and case for a mobile phone device” and licensed it exclusively to Snap Light LLC.

West has frequently promoted the LuMee case on her social media accounts, and even used it when taking her now infamous selfie with then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

On the Ellen Show today Hilary Clinton talks about how she never looked better in our perfectly lit selfie! #LUMEE pic.twitter.com/6svy37T46u

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) January 11, 2016

Aside from stealing his product, Harooni also claims that West’s promotion of the case awarded LuMee an unfair competitive advantage due to her trendsetter status.

“Despite having superior, patented products, it has been extremely difficult for Snaplight to compete in the selfie case market against Ms. West’s product influence and Defendants’ ongoing infringement,” Harooni claims. He is also suing Urban Outfitters for distributing LuMee. “Snaplight and Mr. Harooni have suffered financially as a result.”

Harooni is suing for $100 million to recoup his lost profits, and is also asking that West stop promoting the LuMee cases.

In a statement to TMZ, a rep for the Kardashians  called the lawsuit another “attempted shakedown.”

“The patent lawsuit filed by Snap Light has no merit and is just another attempted shakedown,” the statement reads. “Kim has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

LuMee echoed that sentiment in a statement of its own:

LuMee is an innovator of illuminated cell phone cases and was the first to market. Between its patents, copyrights and trademarks, LuMee has developed substantial intellectual property rights surrounding its product line. LuMee is currently asserting patent infringement against Snaplight.

For those of you “keeping up” with the Kardashian/Jenner family’s intellectual property lawsuits, July was a rough month for the reality stars. Both Kylie Jenner and her sister Kendall were sued for misappropriating and exploiting images of Tupac Shakur with their controversial vintage tees, and last week, Kylie was also accused of copying a British artist’s work with her lip bite logo for her new television series “Life of Kylie.”

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Kim Kardashian Sued for $100M Over Selfie Phone Case appeared first on Law Street.

Colloquially speaking, the term “unicorn” is often used to describe something that’s pretty unique. Well, that definitely wasn’t the case with Starbucks’ now-extinct “Unicorn Frappuccino,” according to a new lawsuit filed against the company.

Williamsburg coffee shop The End Brooklyn is suing the green-strawed giant, claiming it ripped off its popular “Unicorn Latte” and created an unfair competitive advantage.

!! RG: @lorensaidwhat

A post shared by The End Brooklyn (@thendbrooklyn) on Feb 4, 2017 at 1:35pm PST

The End introduced its $9 Unicorn Latte in December and applied to register the name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in January. The application is still pending.

But even though “latte” is in the drink’s name, it actually doesn’t contain coffee or milk. Instead, it’s made up of a latte blended fresh ingredients such as cold-pressed ginger, lemon juice, cashews, and maca root–while Starbucks’ drink is made up of a whole lot of sugar and food coloring.

“The Unicorn Latte has been the most popular product we’ve created to date, so we were shocked and disappointed when Starbucks came out with the Unicorn Frappuccino, which is similar to our product in name and appearance, but has none of its healthy ingredients,” The End co-owner Bret Caretsky said in a statement.

The Unicorn Frappuccino was available in stores from April 19-23. The pink-and-blue drink quickly boosted Starbuck’s third-quarter earnings, inspiring the brand to announce more “Instagramable” drinks to come.

Missed out on the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino? Fear not, there’s a new DRAGON version out now https://t.co/Fo7lTVwKmg pic.twitter.com/0spOv7nstw

— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) April 26, 2017

The End claims Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino is “deceptively similar” to its Unicorn Latte, to the point where it “caused consumer confusion whereby customers began referring to Starbucks’ product as a ‘Unicorn Latte,’ ” and “began asking employees at The End to serve them a ‘Unicorn Frappuccino,'”according to the lawsuit.

Starbucks fired back with its own official statement:

We are aware of the claims and believe they are without merit. The Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino blended beverage was inspired by the fun, spirited and colorful unicorn-themed food and drinks that have been trending in social media. The beverage was offered for a limited time in April and is no longer available in our stores.

The End is seeking an undisclosed amount of money for damages–although some reports place the number at $10 million–and a public apology, according to the lawsuit. However, it’s unlikely that it will ever see a dime since it technically holds no copyright for the latte name and Starbucks no longer sells the drink.

Check out the full lawsuit below.

Unicorn Complaint by Eater.com on Scribd

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Unicorn v. Unicorn: Starbucks Sued Over Mystical Frap appeared first on Law Street.

The Wikipedia Zero project was launched in 2012, with the goal of sharing Wikipedia via mobile phones across the world without forcing users to burn up their data. The program is specifically designed for users in developing countries where mobile data is incredibly expensive. Operators “zero-rate” Wikipedia and its affiliate projects don’t register as websites that users need data to access. Wikipedia Zero is active in 59 countries, and made headlines this week after partnering with Asiacell to launch the program in Iraq.

Wikipedia’s mission is similar to initiatives like Mark Zuckerburg’s Internet.org and Facebook Free Basics. Internet access is rarely prioritized in communities where access to food, clean water, housing, and healthcare are all lacking–yet connection to the internet means greater opportunities for business, education, and political participation.

While the project has the best of intentions, it has been criticized for copyright infringement as users in Bangladesh and Angola have used Wikipedia Zero and Facebook’s Free Basics to share copyrighted files. Wikipedia editors have tried to monitor and block this file sharing but it’s a daunting task that may not be possible without completely shutting down the project. Wikipedia Zero’s copyright infringement issues came to be because users realized they could manipulate the system in place–but internet piracy happens around the world, and these countries are hardly breaking the mold. Does the project really deserve to be shut down just because a portion of its users are engaging in piracy?

The internet is inextricably linked with development, so shutting down projects like Wikipedia Zero can only be a step backwards.  Yet as projects like Facebook Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero expand, they have to grapple with the consequences of users manipulating the tools they are given.  Beyond that, these companies have to recognize what expanding their audience means, as an audience with limited internet access may rely on them as their only source of information. Think about how fake news on Facebook has a genuine impact on public opinion–that fake news can be accessed globally, not just within the U.S., and suddenly a story that has no grounding in reality has been publicized across the globe. Wikipedia faces a similar problem as virtually anyone can edit or add to a Wikipedia page, which is why fact checkers and researchers generally shudder at its use as a resource. False information is being disseminated at a far greater rate when it seems to have been vetted by a brand name and Wikipedia’s branding is global.

It would be ideal if a more credible site like Encyclopedia Britannica or a useful news site like Reuters could be granted the “zero-rate”–but those sites simply aren’t as easy to access and navigate as the straightforward Wikipedia page, nor do they have the same foundational interest in spreading their content without financial gain that Wikipedia has. There are valid arguments for condemning or rolling back Wikipedia Zero, but what should it be replaced with? Unless governments can take on the herculean task of funding mobile data for their citizens, this may be as good as it gets.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Strange Case of Wikipedia Zero appeared first on Law Street.

Take a listen to these two songs. The first is easily recognizable as Led Zeppelin’s classic “Stairway to Heaven,” and has been hailed by fans and critics alike as being one of the greatest rock hits of all time since its 1971 release.

Now listen to song #2. This instrumental is titled “Taurus” and was released in 1968 on the debut album of the lesser known American rock band Spirit. Somewhere near the 45-second mark you may begin to notice something. The melodies begin to sound pretty similar.

So much so that a Los Angeles judge ruled Friday that a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Led Zeppelin’s lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page will head to trial.

The lawsuit was brought by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for estate of the late Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, who was Spirit’s guitarist as well as the composer of “Taurus.” Skidmore first filed the lawsuit against Led Zeppelin in 2014 claiming that Led Zeppelin was inspired to write “Stairway to Heaven” after hearing Spirit perform “Taurus” during shared gigs in 1968 and 1969.

However, the judge noted that Led Zeppelin’s surviving members testified “they never toured with, shared a stage with, or listened to any of Spirit’s music during these brief encounters.”

Still in a 1979 winter issue of the magazine “Listener,” Wolfe called Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” a  “ripoff” saying,

And the guys made millions of bucks on it and never said ‘Thank you,’ never said, ‘Can we pay you some money for it?’ It’s kind of a sore point with me. Maybe someday their conscience will make them do something about it.

Wolfe drowned that same year while rescuing his 12-year-old son from a rip current near his home in Hawaii.

According to Rolling Stone, Spirit and Wolfe’s family waited until now to challenge the song’s copyright because they lacked the finances to afford an attorney.

This isn’t the first time Led Zeppelin has been accused of plagiarizing other artists. In 2014 Bloomberg Businessweek explained that the band has built somewhat of a reputation for “borrowing” bits and pieces from blues and folk singers. Over several decades Led Zeppelin has been forced to alter credits and royalties for some of its biggest songs after artists successfully won similar copyright infringement lawsuits against it. The plagiarism accusations have even lead to rise in YouTube mashup videos comparing Led Zeppelin’s songs to their alleged influencers.

The music industry has seen a rise in high profile copyright infringement cases in recent years, including Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ loss to Marvin Gaye’s family over their song “Blurred Lines” and Sam Smith’s rumored settlement with Tom Petty over his song “Stay With Me.” In both cases the songs’ similarities to their predecessors are almost unnoticeable to non-audiophiles’ ears. That can’t necessarily be said of Led Zeppelin and Spirit’s case.

The “Stairway to Heaven” trial is set to begin on May 10. Wolfe’s estate attorneys are asking that he be credited for the song and earn a portion of the song’s profits, which according to NPR were up to $562 million in 2008. However, Wolfe’s trustee could only earn half of any awarded damages due to a 1967 contract that Wolfe signed.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Did Led Zeppelin Steal the Opening Riff in “Stairway to Heaven?” appeared first on Law Street.

America’s favorite (or least favorite, depending on who you ask) blonde is back in the headlines this week: Taylor Swift is being sued by musician Jessie Braham over the lyrics to her song “Shake it Off.” Even though neither the lyrics nor the melody of Braham’s song are identical to Swift’s song, he has launched a lawsuit worth $42 million, and has also demanded he receive writing credit on Swift’s song. Braham’s case seems less than credible and with the massive legal resources at her disposal, it is almost inevitable that Swift will never pay him a cent–yet Swift’s case is only the latest in a string of high profile intellectual property lawsuits involving pop stars.

Earlier this month, Jay-Z and Timbaland defeated a lawsuit brought against them by Osama Ahmed Fahmy, who claimed the duo’s song “Big Pimpin'” had infringed upon the copyright of his uncle Baligh Hamdi’s song “Khosara Khosara.” Timbaland had already paid $100,000 in 2001 to secure the usage of the flutes from Hamdi’s song as a sample for the track, but Fahmy argued that the rights to the sample were invalid. After testimony from both Jay-Z and Timbaland, the judge threw the case out. Fahmy’s lawyer announced plans to appeal the decision, but with the massive legal power behind the hip-hop duo, Fahmy is fighting an uphill battle.

Copyright lawsuits against singers and songwriters are nothing new–but what are the legal bases for these kinds of suits? Read on to learn about the history of copyrights in music and the current cases in play.

The Complexities of a Copyright Case

A copyright:

Protects a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictoral or graphic, audiovisual, or architectural work, or a sound recording, from being reproduced without the permision of the copyright owner…the author(s) may transfer the copyright to any other party if she(they) choose(s) to do so. Subject to certain limitations, the owner of a copyright has the sole right to authorize reproduction of the work, creation of a work derived from the work, distribution of copies of the work, or public performance or display of the work. This right lasts for the life of the author plus fifty years; or in the case of a copyright held by an entity, for seventy-five years.

Copyright law is well-defined and there is a substantial legal precedent in the U.S. that protects authors from losing the rights to their content. However, modern music relies heavily on multiple producers and record labels, instead of a single artist recording and copyrighting their work. Increasing the number of “authors” increases the complexity of the copyright and leaves more openings for copyright infringement suits in the future.

Music has also been transformed by the introduction of sampling–taking pieces from a pre-existing song and incorporating them into the melody of a new song. Sampling in modern American music was born in the 1970s, as hip hop DJs experimenting with multiple turntables mixed samples from older songs with newer hip hop records. The 1980s created a new variety of dance and pop music, and sampling spread quickly from the alternative world of hip hop into the mainstream. When so many hit songs are reliant on samples, it is difficult to discern where sampling ends and copyright infringement begins. Most artists pay for the rights to sample a given track, but there are many pieces that are considered part of the public domain or that are old enough that artists assume that the copyright has expired on them, making them fair game for an unlicensed sample. There is also a “50 second/5 second, 8 bar/1 bar” myth in the music industry that informs artists that if they use brief enough clips of another song, it does not technically count as a sample and they do not need to file for the privilege to use that song. In reality, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2004 that:

The use of a two-second sample was an infringement of the sound recording copyright. The court went further stating that when it came to sound recording there was no permissible minimum sanctioned under copyright law.

Major pop artists who have to promote albums and perform in the public eye should be less likely to commit copyright infringement. They are signed to major labels that have impressive legal departments, are surrounded by handlers who vet all of their songs and work with production teams that are familiar with the intricacies of copyright law.  Yet prominent members of the music world still violate copyright law, both on purpose and unintentionally. The “Blurred Lines” case of 2015, which resulted in Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams paying $5.4 million in damages to Marvin Gaye’s family, represents the ambiguous nature of copyright law in pop music. Thicke and Williams did not directly sample Gaye’s hit “Got to Give it Up” but they claimed that they were “inspired” by Gaye’s work. It is not up to the legal system to police what inspires an artist, but that word can cover all manner of sins. Let’s examine the 1950s and 1960s as a case study of what happens when musicians are “inspired” by their contemporaries–and disregard copyright law on their way to the recording booth:

Copyright Conflict and Rock and Roll 

Copyright infringement is by no means a recent trend in the music world. In the 1950s, copyright law was hardly the organized mechanism that it is today and it was not applied to protect all races and genders equally. Well-publicized lawsuits regarding copyright infringement may seem like a recent development, but the theft of intellectual property has been thriving for decades in the music industry. One of the most infamous cases of plagiarism in American musical history involves black jazz and blues musicians of hte 1950s. Examine, for example, Chess Records, the Chicago-based record label that launched Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf. The artists signed to the Chess Records label were pioneers of blues and rock and roll, influencing countless musicians, including the Rolling Stones, who named their band after one of Muddy Waters’ original songs. Although Chess Records’ musicians were legends in their own time, they were often denied paychecks or paid significantly less than their white contemporaries. Furthermore, some musicians blatantly stole content from the Chess Records stable. Both Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry filed suit against multiple artists for stealing their melodies and lyrics–the most famous of these lawsuits was leveled against the Beach Boys for their unlicensed use of the melody from Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” in their song “Surfin’ USA.”

Then there is the problematic nature of Elvis Presley’s success. It is obvious that Elvis was an incredible talent who shaped modern music, yet his success also relied greatly on black rock and roll music. The famous song “Hound Dog” was in fact originally recorded by “Big Mama” Thornton and Elvis’ version was intended to be a cover, yet history has painted his rendition as the original. Presley openly acknowledged that his music was inspired by black pioneers yet he has consistently received a far greater share of the credit for the rock and roll revolution than any of his black contemporaries. Elvis did not invent the style in which he sang and danced, he simply made it popular with white audiences. Elvis did not directly infringe upon the lyrics or melodies of other artists, but imagine if he was singing on stages across the country today. Would Thicke and William’s “inspiration” argument apply to his music or would he be taken to court? If music is a medium that incorporates the most exciting aspects of our predecessors’ lyrical and melodic abilities, their stage presence and public personas, where do we draw the line between a heartfelt tribute and plagiarism? These are still questions we struggle to answer today.

Modern Copyright Laws

Modern copyright legislation has expanded and adapted to protect authors regardless of race or record label.  Beginning in the 1990s, the Supreme Court and host of other appellate and circuit courts ruled on various intellectual property cases in the music industry, largely coming down on the side of the authors. In 2012, the introduction of SOPA and PIPA represented a conscious legislative shift towards protecting intellectual property in the Internet age. In 2015 alone, ten bills have been proposed to expand copyright holders’ privileges and protections. However, despite this extended legislative protection, authors may still struggle to receive damages in a lawsuit. The Blurred Lines case was exceptional because it is one of only a handful of music copyright infringement cases in the past decade in which significant damages were awarded to the defendant. The defendants (Marvin Gaye’s family) had access to a powerhouse of a legal team, but not every author has access to such representation. Without sufficient funds and skilled legal representatives, many authors may not be able to pursue a lengthy and bureaucratic court battle.

Conclusion

Copyright lawsuits are not a novel phenomenon in American music. While the spike in high-profile musical lawsuits in the past two years may suggest that litigation is becoming more popular in the music industry, it is less the lawsuits themselves that are garnering our attention than the artists. When major pop stars are put on trial for copyright infringement, the spotlight is thrown onto the complex and unpredictable nature of intellectual property law. However, that focus only stays on the issue for as long as the pop star takes the stand–the minute they are acquitted, we lose interest in their copyright compliance. Many cases of copyright infringement are flimsy or invalid, but it is important to treat them with respect.  Our favorite musicians may make us dance and cry and air guitar, but they don’t have the right to profit off of other’s hard work.

Resources

Betsy Rosenblatt: Copyright Basics

Thomas Kennedy: The History of Sampling

CNN: Haters gonna sue: Taylor Swift hit with copyright infringement lawsuit

Manatt Phelps and Philllips LLP: Blurred Lines-The Sequel: Post-Trial Rulings Edition

Time: Elvis Rocks. But He’s Not the First

The Atlantic: Getting Elvis’s Legacy Right

Michelle Fabio: 8 Basic Facts Every Musician Should Know About Copyright Law

USA Today: Jay Z Prevails in Major Copyright Case

Mita Carriman: 4 Music Law Myths That Indie Musicians Need To Unlearn

Stanford University Libraries: Copyright Law Changes that May Affect You

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Copyrights, Sampling and Rock ‘n’ Roll: Intellectual Property in the Music Industry appeared first on Law Street.

We live in a world where fan communities–fandoms–are becoming increasingly popular. Fandoms fixate on a particular television show, band, movie, musical, anime, or other pop culture subject. Creation of content based on these fandoms has also become ubiquitous. People of all ages gather together on any number of fanfiction websites, ranging from social media sites that post stories and art, like Tumblr and Live Journal, to websites designed for fanfiction, like Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own. Some fandoms have even developed websites devoted entirely to fanfiction for a particular couple or desired couple, known to many as a “ship.”

When using characters and worlds created by other people, however, there are quite a few potential copyright issues. Fan creations have become so popular that some fandoms are even branching out and making money from their fanfiction and fan art roots. Yet getting the “rights” to your own work is a nightmare when you’ve used a couple from your favorite television show. Though some fandoms have successfully made the switch from unoriginal characters to new creations, many struggle with it.

Fanfiction and fan art are always going to be a part of fandom communities because they bring people together in a way so few things really can. These fandoms have created large communities all over the internet. “Harry Potter,” for instance, is still hugely popular in the fanfiction world, even though J. K. Rowling and Warner Brothers have successfully fought against fan creations.

What exactly are your rights when you take to your computer and write or draw that missing scene from “Once Upon a Time?”

The Official Word

According to a University of San Francisco law blog, fanfiction “can be considered a copyright violation under the Copyright Act of 1976, ” because the holder of the copyright has the right to distribute any derivative works based on an original creation. This often includes sequels, prequels, and art work.

One of the most famous cases of a fan-fiction author is that of J. D. California who penned a sequel to J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” and called it “60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye.” During this case, it was found that characters were granted copyright protection–in this case, Holden Caulfield, an iconic character in Salinger’s novel.

Many would argue that fair use may actually protect fan creations like artwork and stories from being copyright infringement, but many authors have still successfully fought that claim. Legal challenges tend to come more from book authors than movie or television show creators for pretty pragmatic reasons–fandoms often boost the number of viewers for television shows.

So why are so many publishers now actively looking for fan-fiction authors? In part because these stories are sometimes better or more successful than the canonical source material. One cannot ignore the success of recent fanfiction-based novels like “50 Shades of Grey.” Rebecca E. Hoffman for Bloomberg describes how “50 Shades” got around the fan-fiction ties:

But before they became ‘real’ books, they were a Twilight fan fiction series called ‘Master of the Universe.’ ‘MotU’ appeared on fanfiction.net and–with Twilight references removed and character names changed–was later published as three e-books by an Australian company that specializes in fan fiction publishing. Vintage Books, a subdivision of Random House, which ultimately published the Fifty Shades trilogy, maintains that the material is original and no longer based on ‘Twilight.’

According to a Washington Post interview with Jennifer Bersgtrom, Vice President and Publisher of Gallery Books, fanfiction is simply becoming a way to recruit talented authors. She stated, “fanfiction has absolutely become part of the fiber of what we publish. This is changing at a time when traditional publishing needs it most.”

Most fanfiction is safe if it doesn’t criticize or parody the works in question. Even so, the Internet and Intellectual Policy Clinic at the University of San Francisco points out that the only way a person would get in trouble is if the person who holds the copyright ever sees the work:

It is clear though that the law surrounding fanfiction is highly dependent on the copyright owner actually enforcing their rights and prosecuting offenders of their copyright. In cases such as J.K. Rowling in which she is choosing particular pieces of work to prosecute while letting other works that violate her copyright be published, the law clearly sides with her.

The Legal Dos and Don’ts of Fanfiction

The Don’ts

The biggest rule you need to know to avoid getting into copyright hot water is to determine who exactly owns what you are writing about. Some authors simply do not like fanfiction and are very open about that fact. Vulture says that “some authors–George R.R. Martin, Anne Rice, and Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, among them–protest [fanfiction’s] appropriation of their creations and ask fans to refrain from writing it.” They mostly target websites based on the stories, but have targeted large forums as well.

Some fanfiction creators also have some problems in that they don’t know where to draw the line. Typically there are concerns about RPF or Real Person Fanfiction. Celebrities like Chris Colfer of “Glee” and Taylor Swift have said that they find fanfiction and fan art uncomfortable, especially when it is explicit in nature. Swift has even gone so far as to get fan creations taken off of Etsy, though that may be more of a business decision.

Read More: Taylor Swift vs. Etsy Vendors: Singer Trademarks Song Phrases

It isn’t always easy, however, as every writer, designer, and artist has the right to make the choice for themselves where they want the line drawn and whether or not to take legal action. It is then up to the forum and fandom at large to enforce that line as they see fit, an important thing to remember when dealing with fanfiction and fan art.

Nonetheless, as Hugh Howey told Desert News National: “Just as there have been independent filmmakers [who] enrich the film industry, there are and will be independent authors who experiment and write groundbreaking works.”

The Dos

If you truly love a fictional couple, a storyline, or a show, you might still want to write fanfiction or create fan art, and there is truly nothing wrong with that. However, you should take note of a few rules to keep yourself out of the limelight and out of trouble.

1. Follow the rules of the online forum: Most forums that post fanfiction and/or fanart have been around for a long time for a reason: they know how to skirt the line. Look at the rules and FAQs of a website before you upload your latest “Shameless” story.
2. When in doubt, go for public domain: The Daily Beast points out that there is a lot of Jane Austen fanfiction. Why? Her works are all part of the public domain, meaning you can use the characters however you see fit. According to Teaching Copyright, public domain occurs “70 years after the death of author, or, for corporate works, anonymous works, or works for hire, 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever expires first.” If you are using something a little more modern, use a disclaimer, meaning make sure that you state clearly that you don’t “own” whatever you are writing about.
3. Take it down if you need to: Online musical theater troupe Team StarKid famously took down A Very Potter Musical when they feared that Warner Brothers would sue them. They re-posted the material after some severe edits and a disclaimer on the video–and then went on to make two more and were invited to the screening of the final movie. Most creators or agents will start with a mailing or a polite request, and you should probably grant it.

4. Don’t make money from it: This might seem like a no-brainer, but do not make money from your work if it’s based on someone else’s creations. Don’t sell your art or stories, do not get sponsors, and don’t use advertisements. You are saving yourself a load of potential headaches from the people who own the content.

Conclusion

In the end, the best thing to remember about fanfiction, fan art, and anything derived in any other universe is this: it is typically an infringement of the copyright holder. With that said, it is usually done with the best of intentions by fans and it often continues and strengthens the importance of the story being told.

When creating within a fandom, use your head to make decisions about what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate and you likely won’t find yourself in trouble. It’s also important to note that if you are creative enough to take pre-existing characters and create new stories, you are probably creative enough to make your own original characters.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Copyright Office: Duration of Copyright

Additional

Bloomberg BNA: It’s Never Black or White: Is Fanfiction Fair Use?

Desert News National: With Fanfiction, is Publishing Following in Hollywood’s Unoriginal Footsteps?

Teaching Copyright:  Public Domain Frequently Asked Questions

Washington Post: From ‘Fifty Shades’ to ‘After’: Why publishers Want Fanfiction to Go Mainstream

University of San Francisco Law Blog: Fanfiction and Copyright Law

Vulture: Fanfiction Guide

CNN: Lawsuit Targets ‘Rip-Off’ of ‘Catcher in the Rye’

Daily Beast: Why Fanfiction is the Future of Publishing

Geeky News: Unauthorized Starkid Production Brings Wrath

The New York Times: Rowling Wins Lawsuit Against Potter Lexicon

Fox News: How Harry Potter Superfans Won a Battle for Fair-trade Chocolate

People: Fifty Shades of Grey and Nine More Examples of When Fanfiction Became Blockbusters

USA Today: Must-Read Fanfiction From ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Farscape’

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Re-Writing the Classics: What Are Your Fanfiction Rights? appeared first on Law Street.

Beyoncé and Jay Z just received some probably upsetting news–they’re being sued. A Hungarian folk singer, Mitsou, or Mónika Juhász Miczura, is claiming that 29 percent of Drunk in Love uses her music. Artist Timbaland is also being sued, given that he co-produced the power couple’s song. Watch the video below to hear the song in question.

Do you hear that sort of high-pitched singing in the background, particularly for the first 30 seconds or so? Mitsou is claiming that’s her, and was part of a song she recorded with her folk band Ando Drom. She claims that it’s been edited and altered, but it is still her voice. In addition, she claims that overall, her vocals and music feature on roughly one-and-a-half minutes of a five-and-a-half minute song–or just under thirty percent. According to E! here is what Mitsou claims is the actual breakdown:

Mitsou claims ‘Drunk in Love’ begins with her voice singing an a cappella solo for the first 13 seconds of the song. After this introduction, she purports that her ‘voice continues to sing as Beyoncé begins to sing’—up until the 41 second mark. Mitsou states that her vocals join Jay Z when he raps in the song from 3:14 until 4:05, a total of 51 seconds

The song that Beyoncé, Jay Z, and Timbaland supposedly took from is entitled “Bajba, Bajba Pelem.” The song was also released in the United States in 1996, under the English name “Gypsy Life on the Road.” That song doesn’t appear to be available anywhere online, but here is a song by her band with an almost identical title, and definitely sounds very similar to my admittedly very untrained ear.

It’s not just the fact that her voice may have been stolen by Beyoncé and Jay Z that offends Mitsou. It’s also the way in which her music was allegedly used. The original Hungarian song was described by Mitsou as evocative of “hopelessness, when one can no longer trust anyone but her own mother and God.” Beyoncé’s Drunk in Love is certainly about a significantly different topic–sexual relationships between long-term partners. Mitsou also purportedly has issues regarding how her song was used to provide sort of an exotic background noise for Beyoncé’s music.

The suit argues that the use of Mitsou’s music was a copyright infringement, and it was filed last week in a Manhattan Supreme Court. It asks for unspecified damages. It also asks for the song to stop being distributed, but given that the album on which Drunk in Love appeared was the fastest-selling album on iTunes–ever–and sold five million copies worldwide, I doubt it’ll slow down the spread of the song. And that’s not even including all the times (presumably a ton) that the song was illegally downloaded.

Beyoncé, Jay Z, and Timbaland are nowhere close to being the first artists to be accused of infringing copyright; however, we’ll have to wait and see who ends up being right.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Beyoncé and Jay Z Sued Over Song “Drunk in Love” appeared first on Law Street.

Author Eric Dahl claims that Toyota stole a story from his book and used it in a recent Toyota Camry commercial.

According to Dahl’s complaint, his book, “B.B. King’s Lucille and the Loves Before Her,” contains a story that is similar to the story that occurs in a Toyota Camry Commercial.  In particular, Dahl alleges that he visited a pawn shop in Las Vegas and purchased a Gibson Lucille guitar.  He researched the guitar’s origin and discovered that the Gibson Lucille—the Prototype 1—was the same guitar that Gibson gave B.B. King on his eightieth birthday that was later stolen from his home. Dahl stated that he agreed to give King the Gibson guitar without compensation, and King arranged a meeting where King autographed another Gibson Lucille and gave it to Dahl in appreciation for his generosity.

If you have watched television in the last few weeks then you may have seen a Toyota Camry commercial where a girl finds a guitar, tracks down the previous owner — who happens to be B.B. King — gives him the guitar, and is given an autographed guitar in return. Take a look at the commercial below.

Dahl claims that Toyota’s commercial is a derivative work and is suing for copyright infringement.

Section 101 of the Copyright Act defines a derivative work as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ‘derivative work.’”

Under United States Copyright Law, derivative works give authors exclusive rights to license new works based on the author’s work. For example, motion pictures based on novels are considered derivative works because they are works based on the author’s work (i.e., the novel). In this case, the Toyota Camry commercial may be a derivative work because it is based on Dahl’s work, and Dahl never licensed use of his book to Toyota.

In order for Dahl to have a claim for copyright infringement, he must prove two elements: that Dahl has a valid copyright in his work, and that Toyota copied constituent elements of his book.  In other words, the second element means that Dahl has to prove that Toyota actually copied Dahl’s work, and Toyota improperly appropriated Dahl’s work.

Proving copying is a factual question, which can be proven by direct evidence like testimony; however, copying is usually proven through circumstantial evidence like proving that Toyota had access to Dahl’s work, and there is a substantial similarity between Dahl’s book and the Toyota Camry commercial.

Dahl claims that Toyota had access to his book. The Entertainment Law Digest states that “members of Gibson Guitar who were aware of his book and the story of the returned Gibson Lucille prototype were consulted by Toyota and the advertising production crew and confirmed the ad is based on the account in Dahl’s book.”

Thus because Dahl owns a valid copyright of his work, and Toyota may have had access to Dahl’s book, there might be circumstantial evidence that Toyota committed copyright infringement. However, we will have to wait and see Toyota’s answer.  My guess is that Toyota will claim fair use in defense of its commercial.

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law whose goal is to become a publishing and media law attorney. He has interned at William Morris Endeavor, Rodale, Inc., Columbia University Press, and is currently interning at Hachette Book Group and volunteering at the Media Law Resource Center, which has given him insight into the legal aspects of the publishing and media industries. Contact Joe at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Author Sues Toyota Over B.B. King Commercial appeared first on Law Street.

On Tuesday, a New York federal district court ruled that TVEyes’ use of Fox News’ video clips is a fair use according to the federal Copyright Act.

Who is TVEyes?

You may not have heard of TVEyes, Inc. before, but you’ve probably heard of some of its subscribers: the White House, 100 members of Congress, the United States Army, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and the Associated Press.

So your two next questions may logically be: 1) who is TVEyes? and 2) why do portions of the federal government and the country’s major media outlets care about it? The answer is that TVEyes is a for-profit 24/7 media-monitoring service that monitors and records more than 1,400 television and radio broadcasts and transforms the broadcasts into searchable databases. The searchable databases allow TVEyes’ subscribers,like the White House, to see how different television and radio stations from across the country are reporting a particular event.

How Does TVEyes Work?

You may also be wondering how TVEyes is able to record thousands of broadcasts at once, and how subscribers are able to use its database.  According to a New York federal court opinion published on Tuesday, September 9, TVEyes uses closed captioning and speech-to-text technology to record television and radio broadcasts, and then the company creates a database of the recorded content.  Subscribers log onto a Watch List Page, which monitors keywords, tabulates the total number of times a keyword was mentioned by all 1,400 television and radio broadcasts, and organizes keyword search results by day for a 32-day period. From the Watch List Page, subscribers can click on the Results List Page, which shows the number of times a keyword was used on a particular day.  Each result on the Results List Page contains transcripts of the television and radio broadcasts that mention the keyword as well as thumbnail images of that television or radio broadcast that said the keyword. The subscriber can then click the thumbnail image, and a video clip of the broadcast will play alongside a transcript on the Transcript Page, which contains a wealth of information such as the name and location of the broadcast channel, Nielsen Ratings data about the clip, and the publicity value of the clip.

TVEyes also provides the following notable features and pages:

• A Media Stats page that graphically illustrates the number of times a keyword has been used over a period of time;
• A Marketshare page that contains a “heatmap” indicating the geographical locations that use the keyword the most;
• A Broadcast Network page which depicts in a pie chart the breakdown of which broadcast stations use the keyword;
• A Date and Time Search that lets subscribers play a video clip that aired on a specific date and time on a specific television station; and,
• A Media Snapshot featurethat allows subscribers to watch live streams of everything that TVEyes records.

Moreover, subscribers can save, archive, edit, and download an unlimited number of clips, and email clips to anyone, regardless if he or she is a TVEyes subscriber. Once a recipient clicks on the e-mailed clip, he or she is directed to TVEyes’ website and not the content owner’s website (i.e., Fox News’ website).

Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

Fox News sued TVEyes because it believed that TVEyes would divert its viewers to TVEyes’ website. Fox News claimed that TVEyes committed copyright infringement because TVEyes used Fox’ News copyrighted video clips to create content on TVEyes’ website, which its subscribers can play, save, edit, archive, download, and share. Specifically, Fox News alleged that TVEyes copied and infringed 19 one-hour programs on the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network, such as two episodes of On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, three episodes of Special Report with Bret Baier, three episodes of The Five, four episodes of The O’Reilly Factor, two episodes of The Fox Report with Shepard Smith, four episodes of Hannity, and one episode of Special Report Investigates: Death & Deceit in Benghazi.

Fair Use Defense

Whenever a plaintiff sues a defendant for copyright infringement, the defendant has certain defenses in the arsenal.  One of those defenses is fair use, which is a doctrine that allows the public to use a copyrighted work without an author’s permission in certain situations.  In this case, TVEyes argued that the features on its database constituted fair use.

The fair use statute, which is listed under 17 U.S.C. 107 in the federal Copyright Act, says that if a defendant uses a copyrighted work for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, there is a strong presumption that the defendant’s use of the work is fair use.  Nevertheless, a court must consider the four factors listed therein:

1. The purpose and character of the work.
2. The nature of the work;.
3. The amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work that the defendant used.
4. The effect the defendant’s use has on the potential market or value of the copyrighted work.

Each factor, however, must be viewed in isolation, and the court uses a balancing test.  No one factor brings about a resolution. Let’s see how the court analyzed the four factors.

Factor 1:  The Purpose and Character of the Work

The court noted that the main reason for looking at the purpose and character of a defendant’s work is to see if it adds something new to the original copyrighted work and is not merely a substitute for the original work. The court’s investigation of whether a work adds something new is referred to as “transformative” use. TVEyes argued that its features providing subscribers with Fox News’ video clips is transformative, but Fox News argued that TVEyes’ copying and disseminating of its copyrighted excerpts, circulations, and summaries is not fair use.

The court held that TVEyes’ features that provide its subscribers with Fox News’ video clips was transformative because the database converted Fox’s copyrighted works into a research tool. Moreover, TVEyes’ subscribers use TVEyes for research, criticism, and comment. Finally, although TVEyes is a for-profit company, and commercialism can sometimes weigh against a finding of fair use, the more transformative a work is, the less significance is placed on commercialism.  Since TVEyes’ work was transformative, factor one favored TV Eyes.

Factor 2:  The Nature of the Work

This factor considers the nature of the copyrighted work because some types of work are closer to the kinds of works that copyright law intends to protect. For example, the type of work at issue in this case (i.e., the news) is not copyrightable because the news contains facts. Facts are not copyrightable because society wants everyone to be able to freely disseminate facts in order to find the truth; however, the creativity in deciding how to portray, film, direct, sequence, communicate the news is copyrightable

Nevertheless, courts may favor fair use for a work that is factual or informational.  Wwhere the work is transformative, however, the second factor has limited value.  Thus, the court said that the second factor does not weigh for or against a finding of fair use in this case.

Factor 3:  The Amount and Substantiality of the Copyrighted Work the Defendant Used

TVEyes concedes that it copied all of Fox News’ content. This factor, however, does not just employ a quantative comparison between the original copyrighted work and the defendant’s work, it also asks whether the defendant copied no more than was necessary for any valid purpose stated in the first factor (i.e., transformative use). Since TVEyes’ business model depends on copying all of Fox News’ content, the court said that TVEyes did not take more than what was necessary to obtain its transformative use; however, like the second factor, the court held that the third factor weighed neither for or against a finding of fair use.

Factor 4:  The Effect of the Defendant’s Use on the Potential Market or Value of the Copyrighted Work

This factor considers the economic injury that the defendant’s work causes and the benefit the public generates from use of the defendant’s work, if any.

• Economic Injury: This part of factor four determines whether the defendant’s use would have an adverse impact on the potential market of the original copyrighted work. Fox News argued that TVEyes’ services decreased its ratings of the 19 individual, hour-long programs it aired between October 2012 and July 2013, and thus diminished the amount of per-subscriber carriage fees that advertisers and cable and satellite providers paid Fox News because TVEyes’ subscribers watched TVEyes’ copies rather than the Fox News Channel or the Fox Business Network.

The court stated, however, that the 19 shows were no longer available for TVEyes’ subscribers, and TVEyes erases its content every 32 days.  Moreover, during the 32-day period in which these programs were available, only 560 video clips played, and 85 percent of those played were less than a minute long. In addition, between 2003-2014, only 5.6 percent of all TVEyes users saw any Fox News content on TVEyes.  In only three instances between March 2003 and December 2014 did TVEyes subscribers access 30 minutes or more of Fox News Channel’s content, and no subscriber accessed any Fox Business Network content. Furthermore, 95 percent of all video clips played on TVEyes are three minutes or shorter. Thus, the court said there was no basis that TVEyes’ subscribers would likely watch ten minute clips sequentially in order to use TVEyes as a substitute for Fox news.

Fox also argued that TVEyes impairs the derivative work market for syndiciation partners like YouTube and Fox News’ exclusive licensing agent, ITN Source and Executive Interviews.  However, Fox could not point out the alleged customers that Executive Interviews lost.  Moreover, Fox’s revenue from syndication partners and licensing clips is a small fraction of Fox News’ overall revenue (i.e., north of $212,000 and $246,000 respectively) and would likely be outweighed by the public’s benefit of using TVEyes’ services.

• Public Benefit: TVEyes argued that it provides a tremendous public benefit because it creates a library of television broadcast content and makes it easy and efficiently text-searchable. It also argued that without TVEyes there would be no way to search 27,000 hours of daily television broadcast programming, most of which isn’t available online or anywhere else.

Moreover, TVEyes argued that subscribers use its service to comment and criticize broadcast news; government bodies use it to assess factually-reported accuracies; political campaigns use it to monitor political advertisement and campaign appearances during elections; financial firms use it to monitor and archive employees’ public statements for regulatory compliance; the White House uses it to evaluate news and to provide the press with feedback; the United States Army uses it to track media coverage about worldwide military operations to ensure national security and troop safety; journalists use it to research, report, compare, and criticize broadcast news coverage; and elected officials use it to conform informational accuracies reported on the news and to correct misinformation.

Thus, after analyzing the economic injury and public benefit factors, the court held that factor four favored a finding of fair use because the public benefit of TVEyes outweighed its minimal possibility of competition to Fox News.

Balance of Four Factors

Since TVEyes captures and indexes broadcasts that would otherwise not be there — and journalists, the White House, the United States Army, financial firms, elected officials, and political campaigns use TVEyes for purposes like criticizing news, correcting misinformation, assessing commercial advertising, evaluating national security risks, and tracking financial regulatory compliance — the court held that copying Fox News’ content for indexing and clipping services for TVEyes’ subscribers was fair use.

Limited Fair Use

The court held that it did not have to decide fair use for the full extent of TVEyes’ services because no sufficient evidence was presented about whether features that allow TVEyes’ users to save, archive, download, email, and share clips of Fox news’ broadcast content were integral to the transformative purpose of indexing and providing Fox News clips or whether they threatened Fox News’ derivative businesses.  Moreover, neither party was entitled to summary judgment on whether the date and time search function because the record failed to show whether the date and time search function was integral to the transformative purpose of TV Eyes’ service. The court said the factual record regarding the date and time search function should be developed further.

What’s Next?

The court scheduled the next court date for October 3, 2014, which will determine the remaining issues stated about in the “Limited Fair Use” case. We will have to wait and see how the court handles those issues.

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law whose goal is to become a publishing and media law attorney. He has interned at William Morris Endeavor, Rodale, Inc., Columbia University Press, and is currently interning at Hachette Book Group and volunteering at the Media Law Resource Center, which has given him insight into the legal aspects of the publishing and media industries. Contact Joe at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Fox News Suffers Major Fair Use Defeat to TVEyes appeared first on Law Street.

In the age of the internet, phones with cameras, and digital picture-taking, it’s become much easier to “steal” artistic property. Both the United States and the international community try their best to prevent the theft of artistic and intellectual material through copyright laws. In addition to regular copyright laws, there also exists something called “moral copyright.” Moral rights are artists’ rights to protect the integrity and ownership of their copyrighted works. They include the right of attribution, the right to have the work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work.  Preserving the integrity of the work creates limitations upon the rights of others to distort the work, alter it, or do anything that attenuates the artist’s relationship with the work.

Read on to find out how both artists’ copyright and moral copyrights are protected by law, the effectiveness of the laws, and the arguments for and against the different laws in place to protect artists’ rights.

U.S. Copyright Law

The stated purpose of U.S. Copyright law is “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Copyright law protects many forms of artistic works including literary, musical, dramatic, pantomimes and choreographic works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, audiovisual works, sound recordings, derivative works, compilations and architectural works. Even though the realm of works protected is wide, there are differing levels of protection that apply for some of these works.  For example, sound recordings are protected in a different manner than written documents are.

Copyright law protects the author’s manner of expressing the idea but it does not protect the idea itself.  This means that copyright-protected works of authorship can still be plagiarized under the law. For example, a paper that describes a scientific theory may be protected from reproduction or distribution, but someone else can restate the theory with a different manner of expression and circumvent the original creator’s copyright protection.

Copyright protection ensures that the protection of the work lasts longer than the person who created it. Current law mandates that an individual person’s copyrighted works are protected for the duration of his or her life, plus 70 years afterward. For works created by multiple authors, the length of the protection is based on the life of the last surviving author. If a work is made for hire, an anonymous and pseudonymous works (where the author’s identity is not in Copyright Office records), the duration of protection will be ninety-five years from publication or one hundred and twenty years from creation, whichever is shorter. This makes it less likely that an author’s work will fade into the public domain before he or she has a chance to reap its full commercial value. This also serves as somewhat of a safeguard to an author’s legacy after he or she has passed on.

Copyright protection does not exist for articles that have a “useful function.”  For example, an artist’s drawing of a train would be protected by copyright, also the creation of a 3D model of the train would be actionable. However, creating an actual, working version of the depicted train would not be actionable under copyright law. Some creators’ work have both useful and non-useful, aesthetic attributes. Copyright law protects the aesthetic attributes but not the useful ones. If the aesthetic attributes cannot be separated from the useful ones, then the owner does not receive federal copyright protection. This means that owners can potentially lose copyright protection because their creation has applications that are useful to society.

Why do proponents argue in favor of current American copyright laws?

Proponents of the adequacy of U.S. copyright law argue that the duration of the rights gives authors time to effectively profit from their work without fear of having their labors stolen. The law properly makes exceptions for certain socially valuable non-commercial uses of copyrighted material by providing such users with Fair Use as a defense to an infringement claim. This allows copyrighted works to be used for socially beneficial purposes before the expiration of protection without infringing on the author’s commercial or economic interests. The substantiality requirement prevents frivolous uses of copyright protection e.g. for single words.

Why do opponents argue against current American copyright laws?

Opponents of the adequacy of U.S. Copyright protection argue that the exceptions are too broad and too easy to invoke. In certain situations, alleged infringers can cause significant economic damage to a creator’s interests and still be protected by a defense granted by copyright law. Copyright protection only protects the author’s manner of expression, not his ideas.  Ideas can often still be plagiarized without giving rise to a copyright infringement claim. Also, useful articles that don’t qualify for patent protection still don’t get copyright protection. Since patent protection is more difficult to obtain and has a shorter duration than copyright protection, some authors are disadvantaged by the usefulness of their work, which is contrary to the purpose of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution. Finally, if content is too minimal then copyright law does not protect it.

Moral Copyright Laws in the United States

U.S. Copyright law does not recognize moral rights beyond the extent to which they are recognized by the Berne Convention, of which the U.S. is a member.

The rationale for the lack of additional moral rights protections in federal law is that Congress believed that they were unnecessary because other areas of law are sufficient to protect artists’ interests. U.S. copyright law, governed by the Copyright Act of 1976, already grants artists the exclusive right to create derivative works. Defamation laws, unfair competition laws and trademark laws governed by the Lanham Act grant artists sufficient civil claims against entities who intentionally or recklessly mislead the public about an author’s work and those who attempt to profit from such conduct. Moreover, certain states have created their own moral rights laws, mitigating the need for a federal statute.

Furthermore, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) provides increased moral rights to certain types of art i.e. paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures and still photographic images that are produced for exhibition only, and existing in single copies or in limited editions of 200 or fewer copies, signed and numbered by the artist. These rights include the right to claim authorship, the right to prevent the use of one’s name on any work the author did not create, and the right to prevent use of one’s name on any work that has been distorted, mutilated, or modified in a way that would be prejudicial to the author’s honor or reputation. Authors of works of “recognized stature” may prevent the grossly negligent or intentional destruction of their work. The phrase “recognized stature” has not been statutorily defined, but there is a lot of case law interpreting the same. VARA rights only apply to a limited set of works but the protections for those works are substantial. Buyers of the works must get written waivers from the copyright owners if they wish to employ any VARA rights. If the rights are not waived then the author or last surviving author of a joint work generally retains them for life.

What are the arguments for keeping the moral copyright laws as they are? 

Proponents of the sufficiency of U.S. moral rights law argue that VARA grants vast protection to artists. VARA rights generally last for life and they can only be extinguished by signed, written waivers. They are secure enough to ensure that artists have recourse to act when owners of individual instantiations of their work infringe their creative rights. Furthermore, even when VARA rights don’t vest in an artist’s work, he or she can still utilize copyright, defamation, unfair Competition laws, or any relevant state statute, to defend moral rights of their work.

What are the arguments against keeping the moral copyright laws as they are? 

Opponents argue that there are many works that VARA does not protect. For example, VARA doesn’t apply to written works or to works made for hire. Also, since copyright law does not protect ideas, an author who is known for innovating an idea cannot utilize copyright law to protect the moral rights to that idea. Finally, state moral rights laws vary and it is difficult for an artist to know if the state he or she is located in will have jurisdiction over the alleged infringer of their Moral Rights.

Conclusion

Given that art is so subjective and so rarely indexed, it can certainly be difficult for artists to protect their work. There are many different kind of laws in place to protect artists’ copyrights, including some laws that loosely protect moral copyrights. While there are disagreements about the effects and implementations of the laws, its clear that artists’ works do need to be protected.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Congress: 17 USC 501 Infringement of Copyright

Cornell  University Law School: Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990

U.S. Congress Committee on the Judiciary: Copyright Law Revision

Additional

McClanahan Powers: Innocent Copyright Infringers: The Importance of an Adequate Copyright Notice to Defeat Them

Electronic Frontier Foundation: New Study Affirms Fewer Copyright Restrictions Benefit the Economy, Amid Renewed Calls for SOPA 2.0 

Copyhype: Who Benefits from Copyright?

Law and Economics Consulting Associates: Agreed Use and Fair Use: The Economic Effects of Fair Use and Other Copyright Exceptions

Harvard Law School: Moral Rights Basics

Library of Congress: Waiver of Moral Rights in Visual Artworks

Washington University in St. Louis: Economists Say Copyright and Patent Laws Are Killing Innovation; Hurting Economy

TechDirt: Yet Another Study Shows That Weaker Copyright Benefits Everyone

Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal: A Case of Bad Credit? The United States and the Protection of Moral Rights in Intellectual Property Law

Washington and Lee Law Review: Toward an American Moral Rights in Copyright

Boston University International Law Journal: Protecting Moral Rights in the United States and the United Kingdom

Information Today: Moral Rights for Authors and Artists

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Intellectual Property

Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports: Protecting Philosophical Ideas With Copyright?

U.S. Copyright Office: Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians

College Art Association: Intellectual Property and the Arts

Leech Tishman: Litigation; a Counterfeit Pays

Golden Gate University Law Review: The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990: Further Defining the Rights and Duties of Artists and Real Property Owners

vLex: VARA Rights Get a Second Life

John Gomis

John Gomis earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in June 2014 and lives in New York City. Contact John at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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I don’t know about you, but I had a great Labor Day. My sister Ariel flew up for the weekend, and we stuffed our days full of fun activities like seeing Book of Mormon on Broadway and going to a Yankees vs. Red Sox Game. We laughed, cheered, and created the “Adventures of Stick Figure Amber” – where I drew our annoyingly absentee sister into every single picture and gave her some wacky adventures of her own in an effort to pretend she was there.

Perhaps the highlight of this trip was what we did on Saturday and Sunday: attend Jay Z’s “Made in America” music festival in Philadelphia. We saw tons of great acts – one being Kanye West. (We also saw that in our advanced old age of early-to-late twenties, we were perhaps already too old for this type of event. I’ve never wanted to say “Do your parents know you are here?” more than when I saw all those pre-teens dressed in practically nothing openly drinking and doing drugs. Kids today! But that is straying from the point…)

As Ariel and I danced (rather I jumped up and down like an idiot while Ariel stood still glaring at me with disdain) and people-watched, we had no idea what shameful secrets were brewing just underneath the surface. (That might be an overly dramatic opening to what I am about to write.)

The lawsuit about which I am going to tell you is not really all that funny or even out of the ordinary; however, it is really exciting because it kind of, sort of, on a tangent, not really but I’m counting it deals with an event that I was attending. And that makes it interesting to me if to no one else.

Courtesy of gifsoup.

Did you know that “Made in America” the music festival was named after a Jay Z and Kanye song with the same name? Brooklyn rapper Joel McDonald didn’t. Or rather, he knew it was named after a song with the same title, but he was under the impression that it was his song, not the rap legend duo’s. He came to this conclusion based on the fact that he sang and sold on iTunes this song in 2009, but it was done by Jay Z and West in 2011 — with no mention of McDonald there.

Let’s compare…

McDonald’s song:

Jay Z and Kanye’s song:

Are they the same? McDonald hopes people will think they are close enough, because to celebrate the third annual “Made in America” festival, now located in Los Angeles as well, McDonald sued for $3 million for copyright infringement in Manhattan Supreme Court.

What do you think: Will Jay Z soon be in a little less of an empire state of mind or will McDonald find out that New York isn’t the concrete jungle were dreams are made for everyone? Was Kanye acting more stupidly or did McDonald say something when he gon’ end up apologin’? Will Jay Z…I could go on with these all day.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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I’m just going to cut to the chase: I hate Forever 21. Don’t get me wrong, I spent plenty of my parents’ money there on a seasonal basis when I was a teen, but by the time I was 17 I had completely sworn off the fast fashion mega-chain. Ironically, I used to shop at stores like Forever 21 and H&M because their merchandise was strikingly similar to the clothes I would see in magazines. But the more I immersed myself in the industry, the more I learned that these stores were the antithesis to the look I was striving to emulate. Forever 21 blatantly copies designers’ prints from big names like Diane von Furstenberg to independent clothing boutiques. In publishing that’s called plagiarism, but in retail it’s called making fashion “accessible” to the masses.

Courtesy of Simka sol via Facebook

The whole concept behind Forever 21 disturbs me. I used to walk into a store in complete awe, wondering how I was ever going to manage to thoroughly browse through all of the trendy merchandise. Now I walk in and feel disgusted.

I first noticed something was off about the store when I visited a three-level unit at the Garden State Plaza, much larger than any other store I had seen before. The bottom floor was overstuffed with sale merchandise. Upon seeing this I immediately thought, “What do they end up doing with all of these clothes? Surely, not that many people end up buying sale when there’s so much on-trend and reasonably-priced merchandise upstairs.” I pictured those factories where they shred old clothes and realized that even if the store never sells most of its sale merchandise, it will hardly make a dent in the company’s revenue. Forever 21’s clothes could cost around 20 cents to make and they sell them for $20 apiece, that’s a 1,000 percent markup. Something about that just doesn’t seem right.

Copyright laws allow for retailers like Forever 21 to copy garment designs, but not any prints that designers place on their garments. Which, if you think about it makes a lot of sense. Most clothes are made with one of a few possible patterns and ultimately it is what a designer puts of those patterns that makes their work unique and innovative. Considering part of their job description involves designing prints, how is it fair for them to do all the work only for someone else to come along and sell the same thing at a fraction of the price? Not to mention that fast fashion retailers can make a whole lot more money off of a copyrighted item by selling it in mass quantities.

Left: A dress by Diane von Furstenberg Right: Forever 21’s version. Courtesy of Susan Scafidi via Counterfeit Chic

Granted, the role of a fashion designer is also to set the example so other fashion retailers can sell on-trend clothing to the masses. However, trends usually dictate a silhouette or color that is “of the moment.” Sometimes a particular generic print may be in style, for example leopard print, but in that case there are so many variations that retailers can make that it is completely unnecessary for them to literally copy a designer’s version of that print. So why does Forever21 win or settle nearly every lawsuit filed against it?

In addition to over 50 copyright lawsuits, the company is also notorious for numerous labor violations. So not only does it cheat designers out of profits, but it also fails to pay employees fairly. Employee lawsuits go as far back as 2001, when workers claimed they were being paid under minimum wage. There was even a three-year boycott of the retailer by its U.S. garment workers. This year, U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined three stores with over $100,000 in safety violations.

Despite all of the company’s lawsuits and violations, Forever 21 is one of the largest clothing retailers in the world, so independent designers and small design firms often do not stand a chance against it. Also, Forever 21 has a history of settling before cases are ever brought to trial. Susan Scafidi, fashion law professor at Fordham University, explains that “they’ve been caught so many times, they’ve been publicly exposed so many times, they’ve even been sued — although many fewer times, because all they do is settle — this is just part of their business strategy. They go ahead and they take what they want, and when they get caught, they pay up. It’s probably cheaper than licensing it in the first place.”

The way Forever 21 runs its business is unnecessary as there are plenty of other retailers who run honest businesses, while still offering on-trend merchandise. Despite their involvement in the Bangladeshi factory collapse last year, Gap is a respected retailer in the industry and often collaborates with high-end designers and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in order to provide designer fashions to the masses. In fact, the recent explosion of designer collaborations with retail chains like Target, J. C. Penney, and H&M is the perfect antidote to the moral fast fashion dilemma. When designers willingly and legally offer their pieces to retailers, then there is no need to copy their designs because consumers can have access to the real thing at their desired price-level.

High-end designers control trends in this industry, but large chain retailers control how these trends get delivered to about 90 percent of consumers. Stricter copyright laws should be implemented in order to protect the artistic integrity of these designers. The garment industry is just like any other creative industry, so if it’s illegal to copy famous works of art, it should be illegal to copy wearable works of art as well.

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Katherine Fabian (@kafernn) is a recent graduate of Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center and is currently applying to law schools, freelance writing, and teaching yoga. She hopes to one day practice fashion law and defend the intellectual property rights of designers.

Featured imaged courtesy of [Adam Fagen via Flickr]

Katherine Fabian

Katherine Fabian is a recent graduate of Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center. She is a freelance writer and yoga teacher who hopes to one day practice fashion law and defend the intellectual property rights of designers. Contact Katherine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is There A Legal Way to Offer Fast Fashion to the Masses? appeared first on Law Street.

The road to the Google Books Library Project was paved with good intentions. Equalize the reach of books to anyone with Internet access. Oh, and make the books free. Knowledge for the people.

But somewhere beneath this pavement there was a hitch — copyright law.  A lot of the books that were digitized for public access were under copyright. However, I must note that the scanned books were only available in snippets and wholly scanned so that they could be researched through the Project’s online card catalogue. Is this a violation of copyright law or is it fair use?  At first glance, I thought this was quite clearly copyright infringement, but upon deeper exploration I had to agree that the Google Books Project could be interpreted as transformative. But here’s how I really feel: it’s a stretch and I don’t respect it.

Let’s explore how the suit against Google has been unfolding.

On December 23, the Authors Guild, a coalition that aims to promote the copyright protection of written works, announced their intention to appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit against Google.  The suit centered on the notion that Google was infringing on the copyrights of numerous authors by scanning more than 20 million books for the Google Books Project without the authors’ permission. Though the Project’s stated purpose is to “make it easier for people to find relevant books while [also] respecting authors’ and publishers’ copyrights,” the contested point here is this: when does fair use cross the boundary into infringement?

Because I thought that blatantly copying another’s entire work without their permission would be an obvious case of infringement.

The suit was initially filed more than eight years ago and was abruptly dismissed by a New York Circuit judge on the basis that the Project doesn’t actually harm the creators of these written works. Granting a summary judgment motion in Google’s favor, the judge referenced the defenses of fair use and transformation. He made a point to factor in the educational purposes fulfilled by the Project in his determination that the Project was transformative. Ok. Sure.

I guess you could say that taking anothers’ works and printing them verbatim for your own use hidden by the pretext of ‘education for all’ would transform your creation into something new. Sure. Like I said, there are definitely some good intentions here, and I’m all for wider dissemination of book content. But I’m just not buying why these authors shouldn’t be compensated or why their permission isn’t needed.

Does anyone remember the Harry Potter case? Five years ago, someone attempted to create a Harry Potter encyclopedia for pretty much the same purpose as Google Books – to make information easier to find. However, in that case, the judge ruled that while the online guide was slightly transformative because it put all of the terms into one source, it still didn’t satisfy the defense of fair use because of the amount of verbatim text taken from the Harry Potter books. Is Google not doing the exact same thing?  Are they not copying the books verbatim and offering them to the public without author compensation or permission? Who is Google to determine the appropriate amount of content to freely display to the public?

Which brings me to my next question — does Google win merely because they are Google?  These books were created to entertain, to educate, and to bring forth whatever purpose the author may have fathomed. So in my opinion, the only new purpose that Google is adding is dissemination. I guess now we can take entire books and create our own educational or research-related excuse for stealing them and have the courts deem it a “transformation.” Google shouldn’t be allowed to decide the amount of content that can be utilized in creating this reference bank — the authors should. And the authors should’ve been given a voice throughout the Project’s entire creation.

I truly appreciate what Google Books stands for as far as enlarging the audience for these books and making intellectual power more easily obtainable. I just don’t understand why Google, with their absurd amount of wealth, couldn’t settle with the authors who created the information they wish to share — even after eight years! This case is nothing more than a power play by Google to remind us who’s in charge.

The Google Books Project should exist, but not without compensation to those who built it. Compiling information is not the same as creating it.

Gena.

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Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Get in touch with Gena via email here.

Featured image courtesy of [Aray Chen via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Copyright Law: Why Google Doesn’t Have Time for That appeared first on Law Street.

Happy Holidays Law Street readers!!!

Have you missed me?  It’s only been two weeks, but it feels like a month has gone by since I’ve checked in.  No need to DTR –I know in my heart we’re exclusive.

As I was exploring the crevices of my bag of emotions, I came across a bit of news about the platform that I use to communicate on here, WordPress. WordPress is the conduit through which material is posted to the site you see before you. Side note: I know that I don’t give copyright law a lot of my love so this one is for you, girl.

The company that owns WordPress, Automattic, has proclaimed its intentions to sue Straight Pride UK, an anti-homosexual group for “knowingly materially misrepresenting” a copyright infringement claim. Yep, that’s a crime. It all began in August, when Straight Pride utilized the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to issue a takedown notice to Automattic for material that was posted on the blogging site. The material consisted of an interview given by the anti-gay collective to a student journalist, Oliver Hotham. Hotham then posted the interview to his blog, which had been delivered to him via Straight Pride’s press representative in an attachment titled “Press Release.” Straight Pride claims that the interview was instead intended to be a private release and included a notice that the content was not permitted to be reproduced without consent. Automattic originally complied with Straight Pride’s takedown notice (the DMCA mandates such action to avoid further suit), but announced this past Thursday that enough is enough. In a recent blog post, Paul Sieminski, general counsel for Automattic, noted that these censorship actions have become “increasingly common” and are especially “infuriating.” Thank you, Paul.

Here’s what I think. Blog sites, such as these, need to put those cojones on display every so often.  The DMCA serves to protect copyrightable material, not to stifle unbecoming content so that it never sees the light of day. It wasn’t meant to chill speech but rather to provide incentive for authors to share their expressions with the public. It seems to me that this material was given to Hotham willingly and that it also falls under the fair use provision of the Copyright Act allowing for the reproduction of content for comment or criticism.  The DMCA shouldn’t be used as a vehicle to trample over our First Amendment rights! If bloggers have to post in fear of legal action, the purpose of blogging – sharing reviews on material that’s usually already public – will be muted. Of course, certain legal parameters must be in place to maintain a sense of order just as we have in our physical lives, but where is the line drawn? When does protection morph into suppression?

My only issue with this is that I wish the notion of ceasing internet censorship would have been brought up on a less politically polarizing matter. I fear that the issue of censorship will get lost among the gay rights activists’ amicus briefs. I’m not at all implying that gay rights is not paramount to censorship (because I honestly believe it is) but even now I’m finding myself getting lost in between the rock and hard place that these two issues present. They should be flushed out in turn and on their own merits.

Read the entire complaint against Straight Pride here.

Gena.

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Featured image courtesy of [Armando Torrealba via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post WordPress Takes Action Against Censorship appeared first on Law Street.

Last Thursday, Aereo requested that a federal court in Manhattan rule that its business offers legal services. The gist of Aereo, founded in New York, is to transmit local TV broadcasting to pai subscribers of the service over the internet. As a Comcast customer who’s consistently unsatisfied with my service features to monthly payment ratio, I can envision the untapped market that Aereo is attempting to reach. Consumers still want their daily intake of local news, and occasionally some Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, but don’t want to be obligated to pay $80 a month for additional channels that their schedule doesn’t permit them to enjoy.

The service is $8 per month and enables customers who don’t want to pay ridiculous amounts for cable television to access local broadcasting.  Broadcasters have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to chime in and voice their perspective on Aereo’s services. This is long overdue as Aereo has already been subjected to suits in New York, Boston, and now Utah by major broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, and CBS. Broadcasters argue that their copyrights are being violated because Aereo is taking their signals without their permission and showcasing them to online viewers. Conversely, Aereo points out that it is already legal for viewers to use their own antennas and pick up local tv broadcasts. Additionally, viewers can legally record these broadcasts and replay them at a later time. The Aereo method is to rent out tiny antennas, capture free content in the public airwaves, and stream the content to your internet-enabled devices. So essentially, Aereo only utilizes tools that are legal, making broadcasters throughout the nation cause an uproar in our judicial system because the service has found a way to circumvent their licensing fees.

Federal courts in New York and Boston have allowed Aereo to continue to operate throughout the pending lawsuits, noting that broadcasters have not shown a high probability of winning their cases to warrant an injunction. The service launched a year ago, and there are already (approximately) 90,000-135,000 subscribers of the Aereo service in New York alone.

There is no copyright infringement here, ABC. That’s why injunctions have been denied, and the service has been upheld in different locales for over a year now. The real reason that the broadcasters are experiencing mood-changing-panty-bunching is because Aereo is threatening to interrupt the television system that brings them billions of dollars each year. Cable companies, such as Comcast  (I HATE YOU, COMCAST!), charge us a shit-ton to view local broadcasting, such as NBC and ABC, because they pay these broadcasters billions in retransmission fees to include their shows in subscriptions. And what does Aereo pay? Nothing.

Perhaps this is why Comcast was so eager to haggle with me when I threatened to cancel my service a few weeks ago. Makes sense.  If cable companies don’t begin offering better prices, sooner rather than later Netflix, Apple TV, and now Aereo will replace them faster than DVD players won over VCR owners. And I’ll be the first to go.

I either need to cancel my service, get a hanger and try to reel in some news stations for myself or practice what I preach and join Aereo when it arrives in D.C.

Gena.

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Featured image courtesy of [Pablo Menezo via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Kicking Broadcast and Taking Names: The Aereo Method appeared first on Law Street.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a bill  proposed in Congress in 2011 that immediately made headlines because opponents argued that it was too restrictive and had the potential to hamper free speech. It did not end up passing, but the ideas and motivations behind it still remain up for debate. Read on to learn about SOPA, the legislative battles surrounding it, and where we stand now.

What was SOPA?

The provisions of the bill primarily included increased federal enforcement of copyright laws and increased government action against entities involved in copyright infringement. These provisions include allowing both the U.S. Department of Justice and private copyright holders to obtain injunctions against copyright infringement by foreign-based entities. The bill would have allowed the Justice Department to bar internet advertising networks and payment network providers from servicing infringing websites e.g. torrent websites, sites that allow streaming of copyrighted movies or TV shows, etc. SOPA also would have prevented search engines from providing links to those websites.

SOPA aimed to increase the criminal penalties infringers face under the law.  For example, the penalties for economic espionage would have been a maximum of 15-20 years imprisonment and fines up to $5 million. The bill would have increased the realm of copyright crimes to include those perpetrated by “electronic means.”  Criminal penalties would have increased for IP infringement of government information or infringement that results in harm to government personnel or interests.

SOPA also would have had major implications for IP civil jurisprudence. Private entities are given rights against infringers as well. If a private entity is damaged by infringement and wishes to exercise SOPA rights they could have sent written notification to payment agents and advertising networks connected with the alleged offending site who then have to inform them and cease service unless the alleged infringer can respond with a counter-notification, indicating that they are not infringing. The copyright holder would have been able to bring an action for injunctive relief against the infringing site’s owners if either a counter-notification was provided or payment networks continue serving the alleged infringer without a counter-notification. Applying SOPA rights to foreign sites would have required them to consent to U.S. jurisdiction to determine if they are dedicated to infringement.

What was the argument for SOPA?

Proponents of the bill believed that SOPA could have created a lot of benefits for the public. It created major difficulties for perpetrators of IP crime because it would have given private companies the means and authorization to enforce and protect their own intellectual property rights. This allowed IP crimes to be remedied more quickly and at a far lower cost to the public because it could be done without the time constraints and expense of adjudication. This would improve the economy by decreasing government spending on investigating and prosecuting IP crimes. The fear of facing civil litigation under SOPA and the strengthened criminal penalties would have created a strong disincentive for many forms of infringement. Furthermore, by hamstringing IP infringement SOPA would make the U.S. more attractive to authors and innovators and reinvigorate the economy with increased job creation.

What was the argument against SOPA?

Opponents highlighted SOPA’s drawbacks. Under the law, even when a valid counter-notification would have been sent, third-party servicers were not required to resume serving accused websites.  SOPA also insulated the third parties from all lawsuits except those initiated by the copyright holder.  Therefore, the law allowed and perhaps even incentivized companies to limit other companies’ legal and commercial rights without judicial oversight, leaving SOPA vulnerable to the objection that it violates individuals’ constitutional due process. Non-infringing companies may be damaged by having valuable business relationships taken away from them without a meaningful opportunity to be heard and without legal recourse. This is because even if a company is found to be non-infringing there is no requirement that the discontinued services be reinstated. Finally, SOPA would not have accounted for the proportionality of the alleged infringement relative to the alleged infringer’s website. For example, under SOPA if one person uploaded an allegedly infringing video on Facebook and the owner exercised his SOPA rights he could potentially bring SOPA action against Facebook in its entirety.

What happened with SOPA?

There was a lot of backlash against SOPA from high-profile and much-used websites. On a few different days websites blacked themselves out to protest SOPA. The blackouts not only called attention to the issue, but also served as a sort of warning to consumers that if they did not get involved in stopping SOPA, some of their favorite websites would be threatened. Participants included Wikipedia, WordPress, and BoingBoing. Eventually, SOPA ended up failing. There were attempts to revive it about a year later, but nothing really came of those.

SOPA is the perfect example of the disconnect between technology and the people making our laws. On paper the idea sounded good, but in practice there were significant problems with the proposed law. While the debate over copyright and technology is far from over, SOPA almost certainly is.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Constitution: Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution

House of Representatives: H.R. 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act”

Additional

100gf: Why SOPA Might be the Best Thing That’s Ever Happened to the Internet

Vulture: Polone: Why I’m for SOPA, and How the Entertainment Industry Blew It

Venture Beat: Top 5 Reasons to Support SOPA

Cracked: The Only Argument on the Internet in Favor of SOPA

Washington Post: SOPA Died in 2012, But Obama Administration Wants to Revive Part of it

Mashable: Why SOPA is Dangerous

TechDirt: Supporters of SOPA/PIPA Make Arguments That Make No Sense

CDT: US Piracy Law Could Threaten Human Rights

SOPA Strike: Homepage

Christian Science Monitor: SOPA and PIPA Bills: Old Answers to 21st Century Problems

Masur Law: Summary of SOPA and PIPA

CNN: SOPA Explained: What it is and Why it Matters

NickEhrenberg: The Arguments For and Against SOPA/PIPA (and now CISPA)

PC World: SOPA Controversy Explained

John Gomis

John Gomis earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in June 2014 and lives in New York City. Contact John at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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