Copyright Law

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By Andrea Anapolsky

Once perceived as just a means for personal expression, blogs have grown into a mainstream form of communication used by business entities, the media, political campaigners and individuals alike. Just last month, Yahoo!® News reported that approximately 40 million blogs have been created, with more than 75,000 blogs added every day. The act of blogging, however, is not exempt from traditional defamation claims, and like any other form of communication, can be both false and defamatory and cause damage to one’s reputation. However, due to the complexity and nature of the Internet, the courts are still feeling their way through two central issues: first, whether to characterize the content publicized in a blog as opinion or fact, and second, who may be held liable for publicizing defamatory statements on a blog. This article briefly reviews trends in case law regarding defamation claims against bloggers, with a specific focus on whether operators and/or owners of network providers who publish or edit and then republish allegedly defamatory statements may be held liable for defamation.

Continue Reading Defamation Claims Pierce the “Blogosphere”

By Andrea Anapolsky

The “work made for hire” doctrine is a major exception to the fundamental principle that copyright ownership vests in the person who created the work. The significance of this doctrine is that, as the copyright owner of the work, an employer will own all exclusive rights to the work and may freely commercialize the property to its fullest extent. This article examines the provisions and case law underlying the “work made for hire” doctrine and provides some practical advice for employers when hiring an independent contractor or an employee who may create an original work during the course of the parties’ relationship.
Continue Reading Ownership Issues Underlying the “Work Made for Hire” Doctrine

By Dale Campbell

Companies that remove “objectionable” content from mainstream movies failed in their attempt to add a new public policy test to the fair use defense to copyright infringement. The United States District Court of Colorado issued summary judgment in favor of several big-name producers and movie studios and against several “clean movie” companies in the business of creating sanitized versions of movies. (Clean Flicks of Colorado LLC, et al. v. Stephen Soderbergh, et al., Case No. 1:02-CV-01662, in the United States District Court of the District of Colorado.)
Continue Reading Court Rejects Adoption of a Public Policy Test Component to Fair Use Doctrine

By Scott Hervey

A class action lawsuit filed this past May by a small group of independent music publishers against major online music services for failing to secure licenses to sell downloadable versions of certain songs brought to light what could be a crack in the way labels, digital content distributors and online music services clear music for digital distribution. The publisher’s copyright infringement lawsuit names as defendants Apple, AOL Music Now. Buy.com, Microsoft, Napster, Real Networks, Yahoo and others.
Continue Reading Digital Applications of the Compulsory License