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 Audrey Millemann

The United States Supreme Court has dismissed a closely-watched patent infringement case, declining to narrow patentable subject matter. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc., Case No. 04-607 (U.S. Supreme Court, June 22, 2006). The stage is set, however, for just that. Continue Reading Patentable Subject Matter -Not Any Clearer

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

Scott Hervey was quoted in a June 20, 2006 edition of Lawyers USA in an article about the MLB filing a federal lawsuit against a fantasy baseball league operator to determine who has the right to use the baseball statistics for commercial purposes.   Scott was quoted as saying "the statutory right of publicity is the hook on which Major League Baseball can hang this case."

To read the full text of the article, click here.