Author: Delain Law Office

Beatles Collection DOES Have Protection Under Copyright

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BlueBeat.com tried. They sold digital copies of Beatles music without proper licensing. They can’t do that.

U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker, who ruled that BlueBeat.com violated the copyrights and presented unfair competition to music company EMI Group and others, is quite correct. Although the judgment she issued does not specify damages for infringement and for unfair competition, the fact that BlueBeat.com created and distributed digital files of Beatles music, evidently based on the complete CD collection of their music makes them liable for what would seem, from an outside viewpoint, to be enhanced damages. This site sold some 67,000 copies for 25¢ per track. iTunes, which has properly licensed the Beatles’ music, sells each track for $1.29.

BlueBeat.com’s owner, Hank Risan, evidently tried to bamboozle the judge by calling his activities “psycho-acoustic simulation”; he claims that this activity results in unique copies of copyrighted music. However, the key word in that sentence is “copies”; Mr. Risan’s “psycho-acoustic simulation” is nothing more than a derivative work; the right to produce derivative works belongs exclusively to the copyright holder.

I don’t know whether BlueBeat might have fared better with a fair use defense. My guess is probably not. However, there are some uses of Beatles’ music that are educational, and the attorney might have stood a better chance of convincing the skeptical District Judge with the “fair use” defense. I dunno; maybe he did pull that rabbit out of the hat. I haven’t read the pleadings.

Anyway, it’s an interesting case, and the judgment gives the remaining live Beatles and the estates of the Beatles who have passed on some good news for the holidays. The judgment also reasserts my faith in the system, which has gotten somewhat battered of late.

Musings of the Season

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The other day a cashier was lamenting, in advance, to one of my FaceBook pals (from whom I copied this posting) of the “dreaded next few weeks”. He said that he dreads the holidays and the number of customers that will yell at him, scowl at him, complain to him and push their way into lineups just to get ahead.

“Hmmmm,” my friend thought to herself, “Doesn’t sound much like Christmas to me.” Then she thought some more. She promised the cashier that if by chance she came to his till again over the holidays, he would be guaranteed one smile and no grumpiness. He grinned at my FaceBook friend, thinking that she was joking……but my friend kept on thinking.

So, here’s what’s become of my friend’s thought process. This is a challenge for me and for you. Take time daily over the month of December to be intentional about doing something for someone else that expresses the Truth of Christmas (or of whatever winter holiday you choose to celebrate): show love by shoveling a neighbor’s driveway; show peace by letting someone ahead of you in line; show hope by paying for someone’s groceries or plugging their parking meter; show joy by writing a note to put in your kids lunchbag or to send to a long lost friend; show hospitality by inviting someone new over for dinner; show compassion by holding a door open for an elderly person. Whether its for a stranger, a friend or someone we live with, the list is endless, but its so easy to lose sight of in the hustle and bustle of our Christmas obligations.

I hope that by being intentional, our eyes will be opened more often to the people around us and the ways that we can make their lives better. Maybe, by experiencing a bit of hope, love, joy or peace, the recipient will choose to continue to do the same.

Maybe the world can become a better place.

This post is the brainchild of Jacki Petker Kliever, whom I have never met except to steal this posting from her Facebook page.

Copyright a Chilean Note

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The author who said, “estamos bien en el refugio los 33” has registered a copyright on the phrase.

So what, you ask?

That phrase, written in red ink, announced to the world that the trapped Chilean miners were alive and well down there in the broken mine.

That copyright registration has some pretty interesting ramifications.

First, it’s a very (very) short work of authorship; in the USA, one sentence very, very rarely, if ever, qualifies for copyright registration. Senor Ojeda registering his sentence, it seems to me, is something like Capt. James Lovell registering “Houston, we have a problem.” Are we seeing a muddling building between copyright and trademark?

Second, you know there will be movies made about this incident. If the copyright on the note is registered, the moviemakers will have to pay a chunk of money to license the use of the text for their movies, at least for those movies distributed in Chile. If an “author” can register copyright on essentially a tagline, it looks like Chile might be redefining the concept of “authorship.” After all, how much creative thought goes into the statement of the fact that all 33 miners are safe in the mine?

What does the registration of what is essentially a tagline under copyright bode for the future of copyright?

China to issue the most patents in 2011

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Now isn’t this interesting. China, whose ancient and noble culture does not include much respect for intellectual property, believes that it will be the leader in the world for issuing patents in 2011, outgunning the USPTO, the European Patent Office, and Japan. They say that both number and quality of patents have increased steadily to the point where the Chinese Patent Office will issue the greatest number of patents in 2011.

I never knew it was a race. Patents are good within the geographic boundaries of the sovereign nation that issues the patent during the term of the patent. Therefore, patent offices don’t compete with each other the same way that, say, a car dealership competes with the dealership down the road. You can — and often should — obtain patent protection in more than one country. China cannot grant patent protection in the United States or in Japan or in the European Union or in any other country; the patents issuing in China may well also issue in other countries. Other patent offices might consider hunkering down and getting ready for a blitz of applications based on the number of Chinese patents whose owners may seek foreign protection.

I am delighted, however, to see that China’s Patent Office is so very busy. That says to me that Chinese law recognizes the intellectual property rights of others; the culture, then, should follow suit, though perhaps the culture will move more slowly than does the law in this instance. The fact that they are signatory to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (they entered the treaty on 1 January 1994) says that the laws governing this culture are changing, which will eventually change the culture’s respect for intellectual property.

So, bravo for China!

The Lion Sleeps Forever

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens George David Weiss of The Tokens, the group that brought The Lion Sleeps Tonight to worldwide fame, died yesterday.

I always thought that The Tokens had written the song. Turns out I was wrong. The tune was written by a Solomon Linda, who lived outside of Johannesburg. He sold the rights to his song to a movie for less than $1. That tune went on to make millions, but the songwriter died in squalor. He was so destitute at the time of his death in 1962 that his wife couldn’t afford a headstone. Meanwhile the song was raking in millions of dollars for the copyright holder.

Mr. Linda’s estate sued the copyright holder in 2000, and the copyright holder agreed to pay royalties on the song retroactive to 1987. There was really no reason for the copyright holder to agree to share the wealth with the songwriter’s estate. The copyright had been sold in 1952, before the song came into its own. The purchase and sale transferred the rights to the song to the purchaser. It was really very decent of the studio to agree to share the wealth. It was, in fact, the right thing to do.

Salinger v. Colting Is Making Its Impact

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This case is about copyright and the burden of proof to obtain an injunction in the Second Circuit.

Up until this case came down in April 2010, the courts in the Second Circuit held just about automatically that a preliminary injunction should be granted when a copyright holder claimed irreparable damage. This is one of the features of second-circuit case law that made it so very popular with plaintiffs; most circuits hold that the test for a preliminary injunction is that “[a] plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction. eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC, 547 US 388, 391 (2006).

In Salinger, the Second Circuit holds that the law of eBay, a patent infringement case, specifically applies to copyright cases.

So what does this mean for the average copyright holder? It means that, to obtain a preliminary injunction in the Second Circuit, a plaintiff must show that:

(1) it has suffered an irreparable injury; accomplish this by showing that defendant has infringed copyright, thereby depriving plaintiff of benefits other than money that are available to it under the copyright law.

(2) remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; accomplish this by showing that the damage done cannot be fixed by throwing money at the problem.

(3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; show this by showing that plaintiff suffers more harm through the lack of a preliminary injunction than defendant suffers under a preliminary injunction.

(4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction; show this by showing how the plaintiff’s case advances the public interest in maintaining a bundle of rights exclusive to copyright owners.

This is a much higher standard of proof than previously existed in the Second Circuit for preliminary injunctions in copyright matters. It remains to be seen whether the additional burdens of proof will impact the number and quality of preliminary injunctions issued in the Second Circuit.

Stay tuned….

Copyright Law Turns 300 Years Old

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Copyright turns 300 – Boing Boing.

The Statute of Anne, the first modern copyright law, is now 300 years old. The Statute of Anne is the precursor of the copyright law as it exists today in the US and in Great Britain today, although those two progeny sets of law differ in several of their details. I write from the point of view of a lawyer in the US.

I disagree with this author, who thinks copyright is in place to stifle the creative muse. Copyright is in place “…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; …” United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8.

The author states: “Today, ‘copyright curriculum’ warns schoolchildren not to be ‘copycats’ – to come up with their own original notions.”

Copyright does not protect notions (ideas). Copyright protects the expression of ideas. I cannot read your mind to show that you, in your mind, copied someone else’s work; to show infringement, I must show that a “substantially similar” copy exists of a work that is protected by a valid copyright. We do have a problem with uncredited copying of others’ materials; that is both copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The author of this piece says he learned to write by picking Star Wars apart. As a copyright lawyer in the USA, I have no problem with that; it’s a fine way to learn to write. The author was engaging in making a fair-use derivative of Star Wars: he copied the story for educational purposes, and I doubt very much that he ever published his Star Wars derivative. Fair use is an absolute defense to the copyright of others.

However, there are those who would, if given the legal chance, be more than happy to copy Star Wars (or any other successful franchise). The intellectual property laws are in place to protect the originators and owners of the successful (and not so successful) products of human thought.

Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Co., Fed. Cir., No. 2008-1248, 3/22/2010.

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From the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s website:

“Section 112, first paragraph of the Patent Act requires that a patent specification not only describe the manner of making and using a claimed invention, but also separately requires a written description of the claimed invention itself, the en banc Federal Circuit held March 22, 2010, in a 9-2 decision.”

…

“The Court rejected the argument that the required written description of the invention is only for purposes of identifying what is to be enabled, concluding that the statutory phrase “to enable” pertains only to the required description of making and using the invention. If Congress meant to require only a description of enablement, the statute would have been written differently, Judge Lourie pointed out. He added that the Patent Act has always required a description of the invention as a basic element of the quid pro quo bargain for exclusive rights.”

I’ve been writing patent applications to include a written description of the invention itself since I started writing patents. It’s just common sense: a patent, which is an exercise in disclosure, requires that the inventor disclose not only what the invention is but also the best mode of making and using the invention. How do you do that without providing a written description of the invention?

Read the slip opinion here.

Viacom v. YouTube

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Analysis Of Google And Viacom’s Arguments Over YouTube: A Lot Of He Said/She Said | Techdirt is a nice analysis of the Viacom v. Google copyright infringement suit as it currently stands. The article leans heavily toward Google’s side of the argument.

Viacom vs. YouTube Unsealed! YouTube’s Steve Chen on Copyrighted Content: ‘Steal It!’ is a nice analysis of Viacom v. Google. The article leans heavily toward Viacom’s position.

This case tests the Title II of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA). OCILLA provides ISPs with a “safe harbor” from a copyright infringement suit provided the ISP follows the guidelines. In the current case, Viacom, a motion picture studio that has produced many popular films, has sued YouTube, an ISP that hosts user-posted video content, some of which is taken directly from Viacom’s movies. YouTube is using OCILLA to say it has no responsibility to Viacom after following the statutory guidelines.

The question is whether YouTube actually followed the safe harbor guidelines. To get to that answer, the case must determine just how much knowledge of infringement on the part of the ISP is too much knowledge. Should YouTube, sua sponte, have taken down the copyrighted materials even before Viacom complained to them about the infringement by YouTube users?

The two blog posts cited here give you the summary judgment motions of both parties

Me, I tend toward Viacom’s side in this one. The presence of what I know to be copyrighted materials on YouTube has always bugged me.