Copyright

By Megha Kalbag • April 18th, 2013

Earlier this month, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in favor of Aereo, a groundbreaking company providing live and time-shifted streaming of free, over-the-air television channels to paying Aereo customers. To provide this service, Aereo relies on its use of tiny antennae – none of which is used at the same time [...]

Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. *Silence.* The smart phone apocalypse has come. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) criminalizes electronically decoupling a mobile phone from its contracted service provider, otherwise known as “unlocking”:“No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” “Section 1201 also makes it [...]

The Library of Congress Ruling Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Congress set up a mechanism to allow copyright holders to enforce penalties against individuals who bypass “copyright protection systems” (i.e. the digital locks that copyright holders use to restrict access or manipulation to copyrighted content). DMCA § 1201 grants the Library of Congress [...]

The Science and Technology Law Review will host a lunchtime lecture by author Russell Jacobs, entitled Non-Digital Copyright in the Digital Millennium Thursday, February 21 at 12:10pm William and June Warren Hall 103 1125 Amsterdam Avenue Lunch will be provided The presentation will be based in part on Mr. Jacobs’s Fall 2011 article, “Copyright Fraud [...]

In Washington, the House and the Senate backed competing spectrum incentive auction bills, which would encourage current licensees to sell their under-utilized frequencies at auction to wireless carriers.  Lawmakers in both chambers want to package it with the payroll tax extension, which is expected to pass before the end of February.  Former FCC Chairman Reed [...]

This week, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down a hotly anticipated ruling in Football Association Premier League v. Murphy, et al. The case pitted the English Premier League (EPL), the highest tier of club soccer competition in England, against, among others, Karen Murphy, a Portsmouth-area pub owner. Why would a billion-dollar sports juggernaut [...]

The 9th Circuit’s Vernor v. Autodesk test demolishes the first sale doctrine by making its application contingent solely on the licensing agreement written by the copyright holder. Though the Vernor case centers on the distribution of software, there is no limiting principle that prevents the Vernor test from being applied broadly to all copyrighted works. [...]

On February 8, 2007, Stephanie Lenz uploaded a 29-second home movie of her son walking around her kitchen and dancing to YouTube.  Her son is bopping along to the beat of Prince’s “Let’s Get Crazy.” Unlike some YouTube videos, this music was not added after through an editing process – it is merely the song [...]

In a decision delivered on February 4, 2010, the Federal Court of Australia (see Wikipedia entry here) ruled that Australian Internet Service Provider (ISP) iiNet could not be held liable for unauthorized downloads of copyrighted movies by its customers (Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3)). The applicants were a coalition of thirty-four [...]

The RIAA’s suit against Jammie Thomas-Rasset for sharing music files looks like it is headed for a third trial. In order to avoid this trial, Thomas-Rasset would have to accept the settlement offered by the RIAA. Her lawyers have stated that she will not accept it, reports Wired, making another trial likely.  The lawsuit has [...]