Protected elements of illustrated children’s book were not substantially similar to defendants’ book and animated adaptation as a matter of law. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has affirmed a district court’s decision holding that an author of a children’s illustrated book failed to state a copyright infringement claim against media company Viacom International,…
A clothing company that knowingly included inaccurate information in its copyright application—which rendered its registration invalid—was ordered to pay $121,423 in costs and attorney fees to retail outlets that successfully defended themselves against infringement claims. In a copyright infringement action brought by clothing company Gold Value International Textile, Inc,. alleging infringement of its fabric design…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from April, May and June. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
Although the litigant was unsuccessful in her prior litigation, allowing her to proceed now by asserting facts completely opposite to those she asserted earlier would create the perception that the earlier court was misled. A litigant who previously had claimed that she was the co-author of a 1978 Julio Iglesias song was estopped from now…
The operator of a YouTube channel criticizing the pastor of a church was not entitled to punitive damages in a malicious prosecution case when the church relied on counsel in initiating a copyright infringement suit. In a malicious prosecution of copyright infringement claims brought by the operator of a YouTube channel that featured videos containing…
The court granted a blocking injunction requiring a number of internet service providers to block their customers’ access to streaming servers where copyright infringements were taking place through the unauthorised streaming of live footage of sports events. Case date: 20 September 2018 Case number: [2018] EWHC 2443 (Ch) Court: High Court of Justice of England and…
A software development company was held to own the copyright in source code authored by its sole programmer on the basis that the relationship between the parties was one of employer and employee. Case date: 30 July 2018 Case number: [2018] EWHC 1924 (Ch) Court: High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Chancery Division A…
In Happy Camper Productions Ltd v British Broadcasting Corporation, the claimant sought an interim injunction in the context of alleged infringement of copyright in a script. The claimant failed in its application for multiple reasons as we explore. The claimant company was the purported owner of the copyright in a script for a pilot episode…
Part 1 of this post discussed the legislative history and significance of the CJEU referral in Tom Kabinet. This part will illustrate content and implications of the three classificatory dichotomies, explain why EU copyright law needs digital exhaustion, and propose interpretative solutions for the CJEU to help with this, leveraging the occasion offered by the…
The Court concluded that the Copyright Tribunal does not have jurisdiction under section 126 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to set the terms of licences of foreign copyrights; but that it nevertheless has the power in some circumstances to make an order in respect of the whole of a licence which covers…
