Patent, Copyright, Internet, Et Alia

A Trip To The Mall

Posted by Keeley Vega at 5:57 pm under Copyright.

A trip to the mall today led to some [not so] surprising discoveries. 
On the top, a $10 wallet from The Icing.  On the bottom, a $280 Louis Vuitton monogram wallet with a similar pattern.

On the top, $14 plastic shoes from The Icing.  On the bottom, $30 Crocs.

Should these be considered infringing?
Look what else you can […]

Counterfeit Crackdown

Posted by Keeley Vega at 1:49 pm under Copyright.

On Tuesday, NY police and city agents shut down “Counterfeit Triangle,” which includes Canal, Walker, Baxter, and Centre Streets.  This area, like its Los Angeles counterpart Santee Alley, is known for selling counterfeit handbags, watches, sunglasses, perfumes, and more.  According to the New York Times, consumers can score a Prada handbag for $40; a Patek Philippe watch […]

Free books online?

Posted by Dirk Avery at 10:33 am under Copyright, Technology.

I recently downloaded Charles Bock’s Beautiful Children for free. The 434-page novel is a 2 MB PDF. Everything looks to be high-quality. It was published by Random House. You can even buy the book at Amazon (here). It’s currently #7 on Amazon’s US-fiction bestsellers list. My question is why […]

An article in this month’s GC California magazine discusses the User Generated Content Principles recently promulgated by a coalition of motion picture, television, computer and Web 2.0 companies. The proposed “best practices” for UGC sites are intended to supplement the notice-and-takedown regime of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and have already been implemented by many […]

National Geographic has been attempting for nearly a decade to release a CD-ROM version of the magazine but has been thwarted by copyright issues. The freelance contributors claim that a digital version is a new work and would infringe their copyrights. NG, on the other hand, led by Ken Starr of Clinton-fame, argues […]

Copyright cites: Google

Posted by Dirk Avery at 11:48 am under Copyright, Litigation.

Last week Reuters reports that a Viacom, YouTube/Google document production deadline has been extended two additional months:
A deadline for Google Inc to turn over documents in Viacom Inc’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit against the Web search leader has been extended by two months by a federal judge.
Google’s attorneys had asked that a March 7 deadline […]

If you’ve seen the new trailers for Wolverine and X-Men, you might have noticed some cool Foo Fighters music. Unfortunately, Marvel allegedly did not get permission to use the music! Oops.

Lessig for Congress?

Posted by Dirk Avery at 10:16 am under Copyright, Internet.

Yesterday Keeley posted Lessig’s “final” lecture on free culture as he now plans to move his attention to congressional corruption. CNET’s Anne Broache reports that Lessig is considering running for congress himself. What better way to fight corruption than on the inside?
Larry Lessig, the Stanford University law professor and “free culture” icon, has confessed that […]


The Library of Congress has launched a pilot program with photo-sharing site Flickr to enable people to enhance the metadata on visual materials in its collection.
According to a blog posting by Matt Raymond, director of communications, the program is starting modestly — with 3,000 photographs that are out of copyright from two of the Library’s […]

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