A recent open letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jointly by consumer advocacy groups, including Consumer Reports, US PIRG and fifteen other entities, may be an early signal of future FTC focus. The letter...more
On 5 April 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a major copyright dispute that had wound through the federal courts for over a decade. In a 6-2 decision written by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court held that Google’s copying...more
4/12/2021
/ Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Fair Use ,
Google ,
Google LLC v Oracle America Inc ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Java ,
Oracle ,
SCOTUS ,
Transformative Use
First there were CryptoKitties. Then came digital art, CryptoPunks and NBA Top Shot. But when Beeple’s digital art piece “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold at Christie’s for US$69 million, the NFT mania truly began. And as...more
On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts that copyright protection does not extend to the annotations in Georgia’s official annotated code. In the case, Georgia v....more
4/29/2020
/ Annotated Case Law ,
Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyrightable Subject Matter ,
Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc ,
Government Edicts Doctrine ,
Legislative Duties ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Code ,
The Copyright Act
On March 23, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (“CRCA”) does not abrogate the states’ sovereign immunity from copyright infringement suits....more
All companies that conduct business online should take note of a potential upcoming renewal deadline for the “safe harbor” from copyright infringement liability. Online service providers seeking safe harbor under 17 U.S.C. §...more
Those hoping California lawmakers might delay or significantly narrow the scope of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) before it takes effect on January 1, 2020, were disappointed last week, when the legislature...more
9/20/2019
/ California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Personal Information ,
Popular ,
Privacy Laws ,
Private Right of Action ,
Right to Delete
March 4, 2019, marked the first time in over 100 years that the Supreme Court of the United States issued two copyright decisions in the same day – both unanimous and both strict interpretations of statutory language....more
Over the past few months, the question of “if” Congress should strengthen privacy protections has increasingly become a matter of “when” and what form the legislation should take. ...more
On October 11, 2018, President Trump signed the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) into law. The MMA is intended to “modernize copyright law” as applied to songwriters, music publishers, digital...more
All companies that conduct business online should take note of an upcoming deadline for “safe harbor” from copyright infringement liability. Online service providers that allow users to store or post content (essentially, any...more
Setting music sampling up for a potential U.S. Supreme Court battle, the Ninth Circuit sided with Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone and her producer (Shep Pettibone) in emphatically rejecting the Sixth Circuit’s bright-line...more