Author Archives | Stephen Bernstein
Stephen Bernstein - who has written 13948 posts on The Licensing Plate.
FTC: Skechers deceived consumers with shoe ads
Skechers USA Inc. will pay $40 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that the footwear company made unfounded claims that its Shape-ups shoes would help people lose weight and strengthen their butt, leg and stomach muscles. Kardashian, Burke and other celebrities endorsed the shoes in Skechers ads. AP (full article)
Continue reading...Village People Singer Victor Willis Breaks Silence About Copyright Lawsuit Win
Friday, May 11, 2012
Victor Willis, the songwriter and original lead singer of the Village People, isn’t done being a provocative figure in the music business. Fresh off a victory earlier this week in a battle to terminate his share of a copyright to the band’s hit songs, including “YMCA,” Willis has scored a second victory in an unresolved [...]
Continue reading...Raskally fellows: Are copyright infringers “pirates” and “thieves”?
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The habit of relying on metaphors such as “piracy” and “theft” to describe violations of copyright protections can elicit enraged reactions online—“it’s infringement, not theft!” is one common lament. True as that may be, using tough words in the copyright context is a centuries-old practice. Consider the following extracts from a 1704 essay by Daniel [...]
Continue reading...CBS sues ABC, says new show copies “Big Brother”
Thursday, May 10, 2012
CBS has sued rival ABC, accusing it of cloning its long-running U.S. summer series “Big Brother” with its new reality TV show, “The Glass House.” Reuters (full article)
Continue reading...18 Olympians suing Samsung over Facebook app
Friday, April 27, 2012
Eighteen Olympians, including swimming greats Mark Spitz and Janet Evans, and diver Greg Louganis, have sued Samsung Corp. over a Facebook app they allege misuses their names and images. According to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, the athletes object to the Samsung Olympic Genome Project, which shows Facebook users how [...]
Continue reading...EFF Calls Foul on Robo-Takedowns
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal judge Monday to reject arguments from Warner Brothers Entertainment claiming that the company’s automated scheme to send copyright infringement notices absolves it of responsibility for the system’s major flaws. In this case, Warner is accused of sending thousands of takedown notices for content it did not own [...]
Continue reading...Cybersquatting Cases Reached New Record In 2011, WIPO Reports
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The number of cybersquatting cases filed with the arbitration body of the World Intellectual Property Organization reached a record high in 2011 with 2,764 cases filed by trademark owners, the UN agency reported today. WIPO also expressed alarm over the potential impact on cybersquatting of a move underway to add more generic domain names to [...]
Continue reading...Navajo Nation sues Urban Outfitters for trademark infringement
Friday, March 2, 2012
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in a district court in New Mexico, alleges trademark violations and violations of the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which makes it illegal to sell arts or crafts in a way that falsely suggests they were produced by Native Americans. The Guardian (full story)
Continue reading...Copyright kings are judge, jury and executioner on YouTube
Thursday, March 1, 2012
On Friday, a YouTube user named eeplox posted a question to the support forums, regarding a copyright complaint on one of his videos. YouTube’s automated Content ID system flagged a video of him foraging a salad in a field, claiming the background music matched a composition licensed by Rumblefish, a music licensing firm in Portland, [...]
Continue reading...Music rights agency Merlin wins illegal file sharing battle with LimeWire
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Merlin, the rights agency for independent record labels representing acts including Adele and Arctic Monkeys, has reached a landmark deal with LimeWire worth millions of dollars to artists to end a long-running legal battle over illegal file sharing. The Guardian (full article)
Continue reading...Judges Say No To Crack, Refuse ‘Crackberry’ Trademark
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Embattled BlackBerry maker Research In Motion got a rare bit of good news this week after judges refused to let a gadget site trademark the name “Crackberry.” The ruling came after RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) asked the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board to refuse Crackberry’s request for a trademark covering clothes and internet services. paidContent.org (full [...]
Continue reading...Artist alleges mural drove aesthetics of music video
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Artist Maya Hayuk of Brooklyn filed a complaint against RCA Records and Sony Music alleging that several aspects of her mural “Sunshine” were incorporated into the music video for “I Only Wanna Give It To You” by Elle Varner. The Legal Satyricon (full article)
Continue reading...France: All your books are belong to us
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
If the phrase “digital pirate” conjures up a lone socially challenged male with a large collection of Manga comics and Cory Doctorow ravings, think again. Some of the biggest “pirates” in the world are nation states. Last week France passed a law that permits the state to seize authors’ rights on books published before 2001. [...]
Continue reading...Pin with Caution, Says Lawyer Who Deleted All Her Pinterest Posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Kirsten Kowalski, a Georgia attorney and photographer, detailed her decision on her photography blog, DDK Portraits. According to her post, Pinterest’s terms of use agreement states that users are responsible for member content they make available, and either accordingly own the content or have consent from the items’ owners. ABA Journal (full article)
Continue reading...Adam Lambert Legal Settlement Allows Pre-’American Idol’ Album to Come Out
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Adam Lambert has officially put an end to a dispute with Colwel Platinum Entertainment over a deal the singer made before he starred on the eighth season of American Idol. Hollywood Reporter (full story)
Continue reading...Regarding Bella’s Jacket
Thursday, December 1, 2011
…Trademark law today very often involves parties that don’t produce goods licensing their marks for use by parties that do produce goods. So Pixar might license a toy maker to make toys for it. If an unlicensed entity were to make a toy bearing the Pixar brand and a customer were to buy that toy [...]
Continue reading...‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Comic Book Author Sues Universal for Copyright Infringement
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Cowboys & Aliens keeps causing headaches for Universal Pictures. The Jon Favreau-directed summer sci-fi western disappointed at the box office, grossing just $175 million worldwide despite costing about that much to produce. Now the studio has been hit with a lawsuit by a comic book artist who claims the movie infringes his 1995 story, also [...]
Continue reading...Fight for your right to party rip DVDs legally
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Since the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, the Copyright Office has held several triennial proceedings on bypassing digital locks. Gradually, the Office has loosened up; the last time around, it approved jailbreaking smartphones and granted a broad video exemption to educators and mashup-makers. But a widespread exemption for cracking the [...]
Continue reading...Trademark wars heat up. Be ready.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
A trademark can be a company’s greatest asset. It can also be one of its biggest challenges — especially lately. Some 3,652 trademark cases were filed in U.S. courts in 2010, up 8% over the previous year, according to FTI Consulting’s latest figures. That’s the biggest percentage increase in the last 10 years. CNN (full [...]
Continue reading...Glee Club TV Competition Shows in Copyright Infringement Dispute
Monday, November 28, 2011
What Fox’s “Glee” has wrought: Dutch broadcaster NCRV, the creator of “The Singing Office,” has accused the Canadian producer of “Canada Sings” ripping off its series’ format after selling the worldwide rights to Endemol. The Hollywood Reporter (full article)
Continue reading...
Found this on The Hollywood Reporter and thought I would repost it here.
If you aren’t one of the 9 million people who have already seen it, give it a look. It’s wonderfully done. And it’s a copyright infringement. Fantastic!
TLP Original
- The Brand is Not the Band…Nor is it a Record Label
- Why the Louis Vuitton – Hyundai Lawsuit Reminds Me of a Standardized Test Question
- Tiger Woods on Behalf of Toyota
- Mountain Dew – Green Label Art Volume III
- (U.K.) Alice Cooper for Sony BRAVIA
- Fans Don’t Let Fans Steal From Bands
- Travelers Insurance – Ray LaMontagne
- Music Pirates Steal From Earthquake Victims
- Iggy Pop’s Swiftcover Ad is Banned in the U.K.
- Chase Bank tries to purchase ‘Instant Karma’
- Gillette Fusion fails at fusing athletes, music and film
- Honda uses the public domain to ‘Let it Shine’
- Scarlet Johansson for Moet & Chandon
- Jose Reyes runs for Under Armour
- Lindsay Lohan Proves Even Train Wrecks Get Endorsement Deals
Blog News
- A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them
- Clearing Rights for Content: Ask First
- Rock’s New Republic: the Live Nation 360
- What Is Art For?
- The Trouble with Celebrity Endorsements
- Jeff Jampol (manager of The Doors) responds to The Lefsetz Letter
- A lesson in the failures of “fair use”
- Why You’ll Be Seeing More of Marilyn Monroe
- Disney’s rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong
- Staking a Claim in a Virtual World
- FTC: Skechers deceived consumers with shoe ads
- Village People Singer Victor Willis Breaks Silence About Copyright Lawsuit Win
- Raskally fellows: Are copyright infringers “pirates” and “thieves”?
- CBS sues ABC, says new show copies “Big Brother”
- 18 Olympians suing Samsung over Facebook app
- EFF Calls Foul on Robo-Takedowns
- Cybersquatting Cases Reached New Record In 2011, WIPO Reports
- Navajo Nation sues Urban Outfitters for trademark infringement
- Copyright kings are judge, jury and executioner on YouTube
- Music rights agency Merlin wins illegal file sharing battle with LimeWire
Thursday, May 17, 2012
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