12/24/2024 6:03:50 PM Weaponizing Trademark Law When Copyright Won’t Work By Brian Murphy This case involves two works by the late artist Robert Indiana. The first is the famous “LOVE” image, created by Indiana in the 1960s and...
1/23/2024 2:05:42 PM French Montana and the Scope of Copyright Protection for Sound Recordings vs. Compositions By Brian Murphy You have to tip your hi-hat to Eddie Lee Richardson, a/k/a Hotwire the Producer, a/k/a the plaintiff in this case. When he was 16 years...
12/29/2023 2:51:23 PM Mickey Mouse (Version 1.0) Enters the Public Domain in the U.S. By Brian Murphy So, it is happening. The animated short “Steamboat Willie,” which was released in 1928 and features an early version of Mickey Mouse,...
12/26/2023 7:46:04 PM Hallmark Holiday Movies and the Scènes à Faire Doctrine By Brian Murphy During the holidays, the television in my octogenarian parents' home toggles back-and-forth between Fox News (my father's choice) and the...
3/15/2022 7:51:48 PM How Does That Song Go Again? Lyrics Database's Claims Alleging "Scraping" in Violation of TOS Preempted by Copyright By Brian Murphy Be honest. Were you as puzzled as I the first time you (mis)heard Taylor Swift, in "Blank Space," singing about “all the lonely Starbucks...
3/10/2022 6:21:30 PM What Does it Take to Dismiss a Copyright Complaint in the Ninth Circuit? By Brian Murphy Within ten days of each other, two Ninth Circuit panels took up the question of whether complaints alleging copyright infringement had...
3/4/2022 11:30:14 AM An Interesting Cross-Border Copyright Dispute Involving the (Typically Not That Interesting) Government Edicts Doctrine By Brian Murphy In the 2019-2020 term, the Supreme Court issued two copyright opinions that seemed, at the time (at least to me), to be of little...
2/22/2022 1:11:19 PM Texas A&M Immune From Copyright Lawsuit Over Unauthorized Publication of Article About the "12th Man" By Brian Murphy 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Texas A&M University's "12th man" tradition. For those who are not familiar with the...
2/15/2022 12:49:12 AM Jeff Koons Accused of Copyright Infringement For Unauthorized Use of a Snake Sculpture in Three Iconic Works By Brian Murphy Plaintiff Michael Hayden is an American who, in the late 1980s, was living la dolce vita in Italy, working as an artist and set designer....
2/6/2022 8:04:52 PM The Eleventh Circuit's Melodramatic (?) Copyright License Interpretation (About a Telenovela!) By Brian Murphy El Señor de los Cielosthe plot summary, to be my kind of fare. The series tells the story of Aurelio Casillas, a drug lord who has la...
2/4/2022 2:56:16 PM District Court to Plaintiffs: If You Don't Like Perfect 10 v Amazon, "Appeal to Ninth Circuit"! By Brian Murphy Alexis Hunley and Matthew Brauer are not fans of Instagram's embedding functionality. And they (and their counsel) are nothing, if not...
1/31/2022 2:03:10 PM When Copying Isn't Infringement: Filtering Out Facts By Brian Murphy Another day, another copyright lawsuit involving car advertising. Last week's case - our first nominee for "Silliest Copyright Case of...
1/17/2022 3:18:04 PM Rapper Fat Joe Lost the Signed Contract ... But Still Wins Case Over Ownership of "All the Way Up" By Brian Murphy Lawyers often tell clients: put it in writing. A corollary, which often goes unsaid (but perhaps shouldn't), is: save a copy. This case...
12/31/2021 6:35:50 PM Taylor Swift Can't Catch a Break, Break, Break, Break ... By Brian Murphy Taylor Swift just can't ... give it the slip ... skip out on it ... pay no mind to it ... Oh, Jiminy Cricket. I'm just going to say it....
12/20/2021 1:17:08 PM Vegan Dog Treats and Copyright By Brian Murphy Chef Chloe Coscarelli - the first vegan chef to be crowned a winner on the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars - has been waging a years-long,...
9/19/2021 9:22:46 PM Instagram Prevails with "Server Test" Defense in Photo Embedding Case By Brian Murphy Yet another photo embedding case, but this time Instagram wins based on the court's application of the "server test." The plaintiffs own...