An illustrated book titled “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!” did not make transformative use of Dr. Seuss’s copyrighted pictures and stories, although Lanham Act claims were properly dismissed under the Rogers test. In a closely watched copyright and trademark dispute over a “mash-up” book imitating and combining features of the works of author/illustrator Dr. Seuss and…
Rotary turntable control system’s technical drawings were not copyrightable, but underlying software source code could be, depending on full development of factual record. Whether the software source code for a rotary turntable control system was copyrightable raised a question of fact that required full development of a factual record, the U.S. Court of Appeals for…
In the last few months of 2020 there have been further developments in Italy with regards to private and administrative enforcement against illicit distribution of copyright content over the Internet. 1. New Italian case law against Content Delivery Network (CDN) operators In a 2019 post on this Blog (here), we analysed the impact of illegal…
Appellate court declines to reopen infringement judgment for a case that was not open on direct review. In a copyright infringement case brought by Christ Center of Divine Philosophy, Inc. for infringement of religious books and sound recordings, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver has refused to reopen a judgment awarding $80,000 for willful…
The reproduction of an author’s articles in a newspaper’s online archive was not protected from copyright infringement claims by Section 108(a) of the Copyright Act because this archive was not a “library” or “archive” within the meaning of this section. The author of two articles whose copyright infringement claims against a newspaper over the electronic…
Because the copyright owner had held the book out as nonfiction, the “asserted truths” doctrine precluded the owner from later claiming copyright protection for facts contained in it. The members of the pop music quartet The Four Seasons and the producers of the hit musical “Jersey Boys” were entitled to post-verdict judgment as a matter…
Lower court ruling dismissing claims accusing HP of selling unauthorized software updates was reversed on appeal. Claims of direct and indirect infringement by Hewlett Packard and a third party in connection with software updates for Oracle’s Solaris operating system were time-barred to the extent Oracle failed to investigate suspicions of misconduct, the Ninth Circuit has…
Pastor and church who sent YouTube DMCA takedown notices for videos of sermons posted on operator’s channel had good faith belief that videos were infringing. An ongoing dispute between a church and its pastor and a YouTube channel operator has been put to rest by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which affirmed the…
On 9 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in Case C-264/19 Constantin Film Verleih v YouTube and Google Inc. Providing clarification on the scope of the copyright holder’s right to information, the CJEU decided that the notion of “address”, as set in Directive 2004/48/EC (Enforcement Directive), does…
The Court of Justice of the EU has handed down its judgment (18 December 2019, Case C-666/18) following the request for a preliminary ruling from the Paris Court of Appeal (IT Development v Free Mobile, 16 October 2018, No 17/02679; see our post here). In answer to the question: does the breach of a software…
