Tech Blog Summarizes Top IP Cases of 2005
“Cyberspace continues to present fascinating and novel intellectual property issues. What follows is our attempt at identifying some of the more significant ‘Cyberspace Intellectual Property’ decisions of 2005. Once again, it was quite a year, with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case heading the list.
“Cyberspace intellectual property law is maturing, as evidenced by the fact that among our top ten cases are one U.S. Supreme Court and five U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases. And we are also seeing the courts struggling with the boundaries of trademark law, as they recognize that not every use of someone else’s trademark in Cyberspace provides a basis for an infringement claim.
“Here are our ‘top ten’ cases (thirteen, actually), followed by other cases which we felt are significant enough to mention. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor are the cases presented in any particular order of importance.”
John Ottovani and Eric Goldman. Top Cyberspace IP Cases of 2005. Technology & Marketing Law Blog. Feb. 21, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Federal Court Delays Blackberry Injunction
A U.S. judge has scolded Research In Motion Ltd. for refusing to concede defeat in its long-running patent feud over the BlackBerry — but his decision to give the Waterloo, Ont., company one last chance to settle its dispute also sent RIM’s stock higher.
RIM shares shot up over $90 yesterday before closing at $84.99, up 6.2 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange, after U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer postponed a decision to shut down more than three million BlackBerrys across the United States. The stock had lost nearly 20 per cent of its value Thursday amid concerns Judge Spencer would slap an injunction on the Canadian tech company.
The delayed decision appears to be part of a last-ditch effort by Judge Spencer to coax RIM and its rival, patent holding company NTP Inc., into a deal.
Barrie McKenna and Paul Waldie. Judge Gives RIM One Last Chance. Globeandmail.com. Feb. 25, 2006.
See also:
Barrie McKenna. Judge James Spencer. Globeandmail.com. Feb. 23, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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Thank You to Our Subscribers
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CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
A Critical Assessment of Creative Commons
“Creative Commons has taken over the world of online publishing, in two years generating over 20 million linkbacks to the Creative Commons license pages. But so far it’s been pretty much a pointless exercise, for all the linkbacks and creative commons buttons out there, a miniscule fraction of the additional rights offered by the Creative Commons licenses are actually being put to use.
“The problem is that Creative Commons licenses have been custom tailored to appeal to the random whims of publishers with no regard for consumers of the commons content. If you read Creative Commons material, it carefully emphasizes that Creative Commons is about creating tools for publishers, not creating free content for people to re-use. In this sense, ‘Creative Commons’ is a misnomer, for the definition of a ‘Commons’ is ‘mutual good, shared by more than one,’ not ‘an entanglement of vaguely defined rights and restrictions.'”
Alex Bosworth’s Weblog. Creative Commons Is Broken. Source Labs. Feb. 21, 2006.
See also:
Lawrence Liang. A Guide To Open Content Licences. December 2004.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Reggae Artists Leverage Copyright for Economic Development
“Early Jamaican artists faced a quandary like blues artists such as Leadbelly or Muddy Waters, stripped of the publishing rights to many of their songs. But Jamaica’s small island status magnified the problem. Without access to major-league capital or markets, Jamaica’s recording industry and its artists made little progress while the United States and Europe advanced.
“Today, the main demand for reggae lies outside of the Caribbean, so the industry remains underdeveloped on the island. “We don’t have the populous or the liquidity to support the superstar lifestyle,” says Steve Golding, Chair of JACAP [Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers], Jamaica’s equivalent to the United States’ Association of Songwriters, Composers and Publishers (ASCAP). As proof, Jamaica has only one major record label, VP Records, which functions as a New York based production and distribution house, and does not formally represent artists.
“Golding believes that building up the industry’s legal and business infrastructure could foster its development. Success “is all about positioning the product,” he says, sounding like a marketing executive for Pepsi rather than a one-time guitarist for Peter Tosh.”
The Global Parish. (No title). Feb. 19, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Commentary on Proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty
“The subject of an ongoing series of discussions between the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), broadcasters, and representatives from a variety of nations, the WIPO Broadcast Treaty carries the promise of standardizing how certain types of intellectual property are treated around the world. It also presents the ominous threat of granting a powerful 50-year right of control to anyone who first broadcasts audio or video content.
“A video featuring comments on the WIPO treaty by U.S. Copyright Office head Marybeth Peters sheds some light on the fact that, although U.S. broadcasters would love to see the additional control granted to them, at least some people in the government are not necessarily in agreement on the issue, and the topic is not yet decided.
“If you’ve ever posted any kind of sound and video on the Internet, you could be affected by this provision of the Broadcast Treaty, should it be adopted.”
ArsTechnica. Broadcast Treaty Has Potential to Grant Unwarranted “Protections.” Feb. 22, 2006.
See also:
Electronic Frontier Foundation. WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. No date.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Google Loses Thumbnail Case
The issue is: Does a search engine infringe copyrighted images when it displays them on an “image search” function in the form of thumbnails but not infringe when through in-line linking, it displays copyrighted images served by another website?
Plaintiff Perfect 10, Inc. filed separate suits against Google, Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc. and its subsidiary A9.com, Inc., alleging copyright and trademark infringement and various related claims. The suits were consolidated. Perfect 10 [then moved] for a preliminary injunction against both defendants, solely on the basis of its copyright claims. Perfect 10 seeks to prevent defendants’ image search engines from displaying “thumbnail” copies of Perfect 10’s copyrighted images and also from linking to third party websites which host and serve infringing full-size images.
The Court conducted a hearing on November 7, 2005. The Court now concludes that Google’s creation and public display of “thumbnails” likely do infringe Perfect 10’s copyrights. The Court also concludes, however, that Perfect 10 is not likely to succeed on its vicarious and contributory liability theories. …
Google argues that the ‘value of facilitating and improving access to information on the Internet … counsels against an injunction.’ This point has some merit. However, the public interest is also served when the rights of copyright holders are protected against acts likely constituting infringement. The Court orders Perfect 10 and Google to jointly propose the language of such an injunction, and to lodge their proposal by not later than March 8, 2006.
United States District Court, Central District of California. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc.: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Perfect 10’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against Google (No. CV-04-9484 AHM). (.pdf, 1.98 MB) Feb. 17, 2006.
Attribution: CopyCense first learned of this story via a post in The Trademark Blog, edited by Marty Schwimmer.
Updates:
Edward Wyatt. Ruling May Undercut Google in Fight Over Its Book Scans. The New York Times. Feb. 25, 2006.
The Patry Copyright Blog. Google Nudes II. Feb. 23, 2006.
EFF Deep Links. Perfect 10 v. Google: More Smooth Than Crunchy. Feb. 22, 2006.
The Patry Copyright Blog. Google Nudes. Feb. 22, 2006.
Declan McCullagh. Nude Photo Site Wins Injunction Against Google. News.com. Feb. 21, 2006.
Elise Ackerman. Judge Says Google’s Image Search Violates Some Copyrights. MercuryNews.com. Feb. 21, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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