In this week’s episode of the Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss recent news stories reporting that police officers played copyrighted music during filmed encounters, ostensibly to keep the videos from being uploaded to the Internet. Scott and Josh discuss how copyright law, the DMCA, and fair use apply to this tactic.

Listen to the podcast of this episode on your favorite podcast platform or online here.

Watch this episode on the Weintraub Tobin YouTube channel, here.

Scott’s article on this topic can be read here.

Case discussed: Lenz v. Universal Music Group

In this bonus episode of the Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss the stringent trademark enforcement protection for Olympic symbols, words, and phrases as well as recent lawsuits that have reinforced that protection.

Lawsuits discussed:
San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v United States Olympic Committee
USOPC v Puma

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube, here.

Listen to the podcast of this episode on Apple/Google/Stitcher/Amazon, or online here.

In December 2019, Scott Hervey wrote about the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Taylor Swift by the writers of the song “Playas Gon’ Play.”  The song was released by the girl group 3LW in 2001 and included the lyrics “Playa, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate.”  In 2014, Taylor Swift released “Shake It Off,” which included the lyrics “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”

Continue Reading Taylor Swift Keeps Fighting the ‘Players’ and the ‘Haters’

This week on The Briefing by the IP Law Blog, Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss the copyright lawsuit over a Black Mirror episode starring Miley Cyrus, the plot of which filmmaker Geoffrey Blair Hajim said was lifted from his film “Strange Frame: Love and Sax.”

View the episode on the Weintraub Tobin YouTube channel, here.

Listen to the podcast, available on Apple/Spotify/Stitcher/Google platforms or online here.

Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of news articles and stories about police officers playing popular music during a citizen/officer interaction that is being filmed by the citizen.  For example, Vice reported on a Beverly Hills police officer breaking out his phone and playing over a minute of Sublime’s “Santeria” when the officer discovered that his interaction with a well-known LA-area activist was being live-streamed by the citizen via Instagram.  Similarly, Mashable reported that an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy played a Taylor Swift song during an encounter.  Why is this happening?  There seems to be a belief that police service, when paired with a musical interlude, will prevent a recording of the interaction from being posted on social media due to algorithms that detect and remove videos incorporating copyrighted music (among other types of content).

Continue Reading Don’t Film So Close To Me: Can Copyrighted Music Keep Vids of Police Encounters Off The Internet?