Video games, such as Grand Theft Auto®, remain popular around the globe, and two recent matters made headlines on two different aspects of the games: copyright and cryptocurrency.
Copyright
On August 16, 2018, the federal trial court in Manhattan issued
On July 17, 2018, the federal appeals court located in Washington, D.C. issued a ruling in a case involving an intersection of copyrighted material (standards) and non-copyrightable material (laws and regulations). The appeals court remanded the matter back to the trial court, to determine under what circumstances a non-profit organization could publish private standards as part of the organization’s publication of the laws. (American Society for Testing and Materials v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., No. 17-7035 (D.C. Cir. July 17, 2018).)
On June 14, 2018, a federal trial court in New York issued a decision relating to a restaurant owner’s claim that the restaurant manager was using the owner’s trademarks on social media in violation of the federal trademark law known as the Lanham Act. The trial court denied the owner’s claim, in a ruling that provides some useful lessons to anyone who licenses a trademark. (Thousand Island Park Corp. v. Welser, 5:18-CV-117 (N.D.N.Y. June 14, 2018 (2018 WL 29803231)).)
We had previously covered the March 22, 2017 U.S. Supreme Court copyright ruling on designs on cheerleader uniforms. In Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands Inc., a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the two-dimensional designs on cheerleaders uniforms were at least in theory eligible for copyright protection. On August 10, 2017, seven years after this case was originally initiated, the trial court refused to send the case into overtime and dismissed Star’s complaint with prejudice in a way that serves as a reminder that, although a plaintiff can control when to bring a case, the plaintiff case lose control over when that case should be withdrawn. (Varsity Brands, Inc. v. Star Athletica, LLC, Case No. 10-02508 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 10, 2017 & June 20, 2018).
If your business discovered that its revenue covered only 60% of its costs, it would be time for a re-examination of operations. According to the U.S. Copyright Office’s notice in the May 24, 2018 Federal Register (83 Fed. Reg. 24054), historically, the fees collected by the Copyright Office covered only 60% of its costs. It has proposed for public comment a new fee schedule, which includes many higher fees and some new fees.
We had previously written about a September 1, 2016 ruling from a New York State appeals court relating to New York’s right of publicity and claims brought by celebrities Lindsay Lohan and Karen Gravano against the creator and distributor of
We wanted to remind our readers that, as of January 1, 2018, all paper designation of “notice and takedown” agents will become invalid. As we have previously written, in order to have a valid “notice and takedown” procedure in the copyright laws (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act), the website owner must designate an agent to receive notices of claimed copyright infringement, and register that agent with the Copyright Office. The good news is that the cost of the electronic registration is only $6.
Every website owner (called a “service provider” in the DMCA) that is currently registered for DMCA takedown notices with the Copyright Office will need to re-register under the new electronic system by no later than December 31, 2017. Any website owner that does not have a registered agent, but wants the advantages of the “notice and takedown” safe harbor under § 512 of the DMCA should register an agent by December 31, 2017. (All paper designations will become invalid as of January 1, 2018.)
On May 18, 2017, the US Copyright Office proposed some regulatory changes in its requirement for a handwritten, wet signature in order to a record a document with the Copyright Office. The Copyright Office has proposed permitting electronic signatures in
On March 22, 2017, while millions of viewers were watching U.S. college basketball teams vie for the national championship, the uniforms worn by the cheerleaders became the focus of a U.S. Supreme Court copyright ruling. In Star Athletica, L.L.C. v.
On February 2, 2017, a federal trial court judge in Washington, D.C. ruled, in a 55-page opinion, that private standards developing organizations (“SDOs”) do not lose their copyright or trademark protection if a federal regulation adopts their standards.