BOOK REPORT: WITHOUT COPYRIGHTS
As readers of this blog and my book, Unfair to Genius, must know, I am fascinated by the ways in which developments in the law sometimes shape and are sometimes shaped by developments in the arts. They will also know that I have a weakness for a good story about the colorful luminaries and rapscallions that populated the arts and the…
Read MoreCHUNGA'S REVENGE
The lead vocals for Frank Zappa’s fine 1970 Chunga’s Revenge album were performed by a duo billed as the THE PHLORESCENT LEECH & EDDIE. It was a badly kept secret that this was actually Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, founders of the 60s soft rock band the Turtles, who used the pseudonym due to a lingering contractual dispute…
Read MoreFULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING
Some time ago, in our continuing series of “Cease and Desist Letters from Beyond the Grave,” we reported on a complaint for copyright infringement filed by William Faulkner’s literary estate against Sony Pictures, arising out of a single line spoken by Owen Wilson in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris: “The past is not dead. Actually, it’s not…
Read MoreNOT ONE PENNY FOR TRIBUTE
Music professor, rock historian, and guitarist John Covach has suggested that tribute bands may play an important role in the future of rock music, keeping up a live performance tradition long after the original acts are gone, much as a symphony orchestra keeps the classical repertoire alive. If so, a newly filed case reported on…
Read MoreGOOGLE LIBRARY CLASS DECERTIFIED
When last we checked in with The Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc., the long-running copyright dispute over Google’s plan to digitize all the world’s libraries, Judge Denny Chin had certified the case as a class action on behalf of all “persons residing in the United States who hold a United States copyright interest in…
Read MoreOWNING HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Stick around until the lights come up after any movie in which characters sing “Happy Birthday to You” (and there are probably a dozen of those every year), and one of the last credits you see will be a copyright notice for that song, noting that it was used with the permission of Warner/Chappell Music,…
Read MoreTHE BREYER ASCENDANCY, PART TWO
In a post here a few months ago, I noted that a series of dissents in intellectual property cases over the past decade had established Justice Stephen Breyer “as one of the Supreme Court’s leading intellectual property law skeptics, along with now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens.” “Not coincidentally,” I added, “Justices Breyer and Stevens were…
Read MoreOWNING OWN THE POWER
Some of my favorite trademark cases involve “reverse confusion.” Instead of the usual scenario in which a rich and powerful senior trademark user crushes a little start-up for trading on its good name, the essence of a reverse confusion case is that a rich and powerful entity has flooded the market with much more promiscuous use of a…
Read MoreBOOK REPORT: DEMOCRACY OF SOUND
I still have a Proustian experience every time I take my old vinyl copies of The Who Live at Leeds or The Mothers-Fillmore East June 1971 off the shelf. It is not just fond memories of seeing those bands perform back in the early 70s that come flooding back. The artless covers and handwritten labels…
Read MoreSPOILER ALERT
Caleb Crain has written a thoughtful and detailed review of my book, Unfair to Genius, which appears in the current issue of The Nation. Almost too detailed, in fact, but I assure you there are still plenty of twists and surprises in store for the intrepid reader. UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” blog has picked up…
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