Tag Archives: copyright
Warhol v. Goldsmith – My Hot Take
Some interesting and telling moments in yesterday’s Supreme Court oral argument of the Warhol v. Goldsmith case started with the Syracuse hypothetical Justice Thomas posed to the attorney for the Warhol Estate. At bottom the case is about whether Warhol’s orange color alteration of Goldsmith’s photo of Prince qualifies as copyright fair use. Justice Thomas […]
U.S. Copyright Deposits Are Important
U.S. copyright applications must be accompanied by a deposit of “complete copies of the best edition.” Two recent cases underscore the importance of deposit copies. In Pyrotechnics Management v. XFX Pyrotechnics, plaintiff claimed defendant infringed by copying computer commands designed to manage firework displays, generated in accordance with a method protocol. The deposit copy, however, […]
Substantial Similarity 2022 Released
Release #19 of Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law is now available from PLI.
2020 Substantial Similarity Update
Last week my father and I finished the 17th annual update of Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law. As was the case last year, the 9th Circuit upset the apple cart near the end, this time issuing the en banc decision in the Led Zeppelin case just days before the update was due. We got it in there though, so […]
Busy Few Months
It’s been a busy few months writing and speaking. We finished the update to Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law in May, updated the Practical Law Substantial Similarity piece in June and taught AIMP Summer School in July. Thank you to all the clients who assigned work that was equally interesting and challenging this spring and […]
2018 Substantial Similarity Update Available
The 2018 annual supplement to our treatise Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law is now available from PLI.
Practical Law Update Completed
Eric Osterberg’s article Copyright Infringement: Analyzing Substantial Similarity in Westlaw’s Practical Law has recently been updated.
Spirit v. Led Zeppelin, Taurus v. Stairway To Heaven
The copyright infringement lawsuit accusing Led Zeppelin of plagiarizing the song Taurus in the iconic Stairway to Heaven just got really interesting because the judge denied (in part, but in the most important part) defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and whether the songs are “substantially similar” seems like it may be a close call. If […]
2015 Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law Supplement Available
The 2015 annual supplement to our treatise Substantial Similarity in Copyright Law is now available from PLI.
The Government Can’t Take Your Copyright
A little known and infrequently invoked feature of the U.S. Copyright Law is its prohibition against government-mandated copyright transfer from an individual author. 17 U.S.C. § 201(e) reads: When an individual author’s ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual […]
