Will the real Sarah Palin please standup?: Interplay between Right of Publicity and Trademark
OR, What’s in a Name? Personal Names as Trade Names REMIXED. By Barry Neil Shrum, Esquire (with Ashley Trout) “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” You may know this quote from William Shakespeare’s classic play Romeo and Juliet or from the more “pop-culture” [...]
Solutions for the Orphaned Works of Copyright: Google Books Decision Highlights Need for Action
The recent decision presented by the honorable Judge Chin on the matter of copyright infringement in the case The Authors Guild v. Google Inc. raised numerous issues in the arena of Intellectual Property. In addition to opposing the “opt-out” stipulation written into the settlement, Judge Chin also contested the way Google Inc. approached and viewed [...]
Congress proposes Copyright Protection for Fashion Design
In response to concerns in the fashion industry, a bill originally introduced by Senators Schumer and Senator Clinton in 2006 has been revised and reintroduced to the new Congress as Senate Bill 3728. The new bill would amend Title 17 of the Copyright Act of 1976 of the United States Code to include copyright protection for “fashion design.” If it passes, this would represent the first addition of a new protected class of copyrighted works since Congress passed the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act in 1989
TIVO v. ECHOSTAR
Editors Note: The following is a research paper from one of the students in my Entertainment Law & Licensing class I teach at Belmont University’s Curb School of Music. By G. GRANT GUINANE On July 30, 1998 Tivo Inc. registered a patent for their multimedia time warping system that allows a user to store selected [...]
The Limewire Ruling: New King of the Hill for Illegal Downloading Decisions
The U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled against LimeWire and its parent company, Lime Group, finding them liable for inducement of copyright infringement based on the use of their service by subscribers. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued the 59-page decision Wednesday, siding with the 13 record companies that [...]
“Not Accepting Unsolicited Material”
What songwriters can do to protect their ideas when submitting demo tapes to publishers Every songwriter has heard the words “sorry, we’re not accepting unsolicited material” from at least a dozen publishers. In fact, in a recent informal survey conducted by Law On the Row, two-thirds of the thirty publishing companies contacted indicated that they [...]
Politico’s interview with Corgan following his testimony before Judiciary Committee on HR 848
Link to Politico Interview As a follow up to my previous post on the subject, the radio widget above should play Politico’s interview with Smashing Pumpkin’s founder and frontman Billy Corgan following his testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee in support of HR 848, the Performance Rights Act. Corgan testified on Capitol Hill [...]
Judiciary Committee holds hearings on HR 848, the “Performance Rights Act”
The House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on H.R. 848 (this year’s version of HR 4789) tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Although the Committee’s website does not identify any witnesses at this time, I am informed by musicFIRST that Smashing Pumpkins’ founder Billy Corgan and Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the RIAA will be [...]
Music Row gears up for CRS
When big events like the Country Radio Seminar occur, Music Row begins to buzz with various activities and talk about the celebrities. The Country Radio Seminar is an annual convention designed to educate and promote the exchange of ideas in the country music industry. This year marks the event’s 40th anniversary and it promises to [...]
Nothing left to lose – the ongoing war on copyrights
Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster once penned one of my favorite lyrics in the song Me and Bobby McGee, i.e., “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” The sentiment is perhaps appropriate for the ongoing war that is being waged against copyright laws as we know them. The latest battle in this war [...]
My Avvo rating
My Avvo.com rating is a perfect 10! Please take the time to check out my information there and, if you’re a past client or a colleague, give me a recommendation. It would be greatly appreciated. Barry Neil Shrum View lawyer’s profile
Thomas verdict vacated; new trial ordered
The trial in Capital v. Thomas was one of the first stories I began tracking over a year ago. See Jury Awards RIAA $222,000 against Thomas: My Thoughts on the Verdict and Jammie Thomas to appeal verdict in RIAA Litigation. Now, in a decision issued on September 24, 2008 – only eight days shy of [...]
Sugarland Lawsuit filed in Georgia illustrates need for prior provisions among band members
On August 7th, a lawsuit was filed by Kristen Alison Hall, former member of the country band, Sugarland, against the remaining original members of the band, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush. A copy of the complaint can be viewed here. Essentially, the lawsuit alleges that Nettles and Bush breached a partnership agreement between the three [...]
Second Circuit gets it wrong in Cartoon Network v. Cablevision
On August 4, 2008, the Second Circuit court of appeals overturned a lower courts opinion that Cablevision’s Remote Storage” Digital Video Recorder (“RS-DVR”) system violated the Copyright Act by infringing plaintiffs’ exclusive rights of reproduction and public performance. The full 44-page opinion is available at Cartoon Network, LLP, et al. v. Cablevision. In my humble yet [...]
Hey, what’s the big idea? Protecting your ideas when submitting them to a third party.
One question clients often asked me is whether an idea can be protected. The question frequently arises when a client has an idea for a screenplay, or an outline for a story, or a unique title for a song or book, and wishes to submit or “pitching” that idea to a major movie house, publisher [...]
You Say You Want A REVOLUTION?
You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world . . . You say you’ve got a real solution Well, you know We’d all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well, you know We are doing what we can [...]
Fair is not always "Fair Use"
The concept of “fair use” is a very misunderstood concept. The first common misunderstanding that people espouse is that the concept of “fair use” is a right or privilege granted by copyright law. It is not. Secondly, many people mistakenly believe that so long as they do not make any money from an infringing use [...]
"More than a Feeling" – Momma, look what they’ve done to my song!
I received a call from one of my readers to address the topic of whether a songwriter has the ability to restrict the use of his or her composition in the instance it is being used in advancing a cause opposite to that espoused by the songwriter. This was spawned, of course, by the recent [...]
Atlantic Records et al. v. Brennan: Federal Judge Denies Default Judgment for RIAA
U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut Justice Janet Bond Arterton, handed down a very pointed and decisive opinion hammering the R.I.A.A. for its boilerplate style of pleading in the nationwide wide campaign against illegal file sharing. Justice Arterton was appointed by President Clinton in 1995. The full decision is here: Decision. At several [...]
New Copyright Legislation, H.R. 4279, being considered by House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House of Representatives introduced a 69-page bill entitled the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007.” The legislation is significant in that it increases civil penalties for copyright infringement, expands criminal enforcement, and creates both a new federal agency and a new division of the Attorney General’s office of the [...]
Copyright Royalty Board begins critical hearings
On Monday, January 28th, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) began what will be four weeks of hearings. The CRB will hear testimony from interested parties on both sides of issues which will ultimately determine the statutory mechanical rates for songwriters and music publishers. The CRB sets these rates periodically, but these particular hearings are more [...]
Expert Witness Fund established to defend against RIAA Lawsuits
The Recording Industry v. the People, an anti-RIAA blog operat ed by New York attorney, Ray Beckerman, is cooperating with the Boston-based non-profit, The Free Software Foundation, to establish “a fund to help provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA’s ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA’s attempt to redefine copyright law.” The Free [...]
The Magic Bubble Bursts: Did the Record Labels make their own grave?
For almost a decade now, the major labels (at the beginning there were five of them, now only four, EMI, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and Warner) have declared that illegal downloading is ravaging their business by destroying the sales of physical product. One may question this declaration, however, in few of the fact that ever [...]
Music Publishing 101, Part 4: Show me the money!
Section 106 of the Copyright Act gives the owner of a copyright a bundle of rights which includes the rights to 1) reproduce the work, 2) prepare derivative works, 3) distribute copies of the works, 4) publicly perform the work and 5) publicly display the work. All of the music publisher’s income flows from this [...]
