The Licensing Plate

Regarding Bella’s Jacket

…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 due to Pixar’s reputation for quality, the consumer could be harmed if the unlicensed good had inferior qualities to those that Pixar would guarantee.

That’s not the case here…

madisonian.net (full article)

‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Comic Book Author Sues Universal for Copyright Infringement

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 called Cowboys & Aliens.

The Hollywood Reporter (full story)

Fight for your right to party rip DVDs legally

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 CSS encryption on DVDs has always been a bridge too far.

ars technica (full article)

How The Stop Online Piracy Act Will Kill Innovation

Without safe harbor and several related provisions, much of the internet as we know it could not exist, because forcing websites to pre-screen everything that comes from users is untenable. And that is one reason why the copyright cartel’s friends and puppets in Congress have introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), a bill designed, among other things, as an end run around safe harbor.

paidContent.org (full article)

Warner Bros: we issued takedowns for files we never saw, didn’t own copyright to

In a Monday court filing, Warner Brothers admitted that it has issued takedown notices for files without looking at them first. The studio also acknowledged that it issued takedown notices for a number of URLs that its adversary, the locker site Hotfile, says were obviously not Warner Brothers’ content.

ars technica (full article)

‘Provocative’ Dakota Fanning perfume advert banned

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a perfume advert featuring teenage actress Dakota Fanning, saying it could be seen to sexualise a child.

BBC (full article)

Philip K. Dick Estate Sues Media Rights Capital Over ‘Adjustment Bureau’

Attorneys for the estate of iconic science fiction author Philip K. Dick have filed suit in US District Court in California against Media Rights Capital over what it alleges is an attempt to get out of payments for the rights to use Dick’s short story as the basis for the Matt Damon thriller The Adjustment Bureau.

Deadline New York (full article)

NinjaVideo Execs Plead Guilty to Copyright Conspiracy

The Justice Department announced Tuesday it had gotten guilty pleas from Joshua Evans and Jeremy Andrew of NinjaVideo, a Web site Justice says allowed millions of users to illegally download digital copies of copyrighted TV shows and movies.

Broadcasting & Cable (full article)

Stallone sued, accused of stealing screenplay

Action movie star Sylvester Stallone is accused in a lawsuit of copying another writer’s screenplay to make “The Expendables,” a movie about mercenaries hired to defeat a military dictator.

The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday by writer Marcus Webb, who said the screenplay for “The Expendables” is “strikingly similar and in some places identical” to his work entitled “The Cordoba Caper.”

Reuters (full article)

How Universal Re-Copyrighted Frankenstein’s Monster

How did this happen? Much the same way that Disney has managed to exert a great deal of copyright control over public domain stories such as Pinocchio, Snow White and Cinderella: By creating a movie retelling of the story that adds copyrightable elements they can control.

It’s a simple plot, but one that has helped to largely keep other re=tellings of Frankenstein off the shelves and out of theaters.

Plagiarism Today (full story)

Viacom Urges Second Circuit to Revive YouTube Suit

Viacom International and a host of content providers asked a federal appeals court yesterday to reverse a decision dooming their claim that YouTube is liable for $1 billion in damages for copyright infringement.

Law.com (full story)

Actress Sues Amazon for Revealing Her Age on IMDb

An actress is suing Amazon.com in federal court in Seattle for more than $1 million for revealing her age on its Internet Movie Database website and refusing to remove the reference when asked.

The actress is not named in the lawsuit filed Thursday that refers to her as Jane Doe. It says she lives in Texas and is of Asian descent and has an Americanized stage name.

AP (full story)

‘Hurt Locker’ Case Dismissed: Read Judge’s Decision

A federal judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit brought by an Iraqi war veteran who claimed to be the inspiration behind the Academy Award winning film, The Hurt Locker.

The Hollywood Reporter (full story)

Sony Is Said to Buy Film Rights to Jobs Biography

Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio that the produced high-speed and high-profile movies “This Is It,” with Michael Jackson, and “The Social Network,” about Mark Zuckerberg, could do it again with the Apple co-founder Steven P. Jobs.

The New York Times (full story)

A 19th Century Threesome Becomes A Modern Day Copyright Triangle For Emma Thompson

…But before Thompson begins shooting her film set to star Greg Wise and Dakota Fanning, she’s locked in a copyright triangle that might not yet be the talk of the town in 21st century America, but could demonstrate the difficulty in making a film adaptation about a well-trodden historical subject without stepping on another artist’s toes.

The Hollywood Reporter (full story)

VH1 Movie Used Unlicensed Photos of N.W.A., Suit Says

VH1 did not have permission to use pictures of group N.W.A. in its documentary about the iconic hip hop founded by Dr. Dre with Ice Cube and others in 1986, the photographer claims in Manhattan federal court.

Courthouse News Service (full story)

Hurt Locker File Sharing Suits Come North: Federal Court Orders ISPs to Disclose Subscriber Info

File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie.  Late last month the court ordered the three ISPs to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers linked to IP addresses alleged to have copied the movie. The ISPs were given two weeks to respond and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses. In reaching its decision, the court cited the BMG Canada v. Doe case, the last major Canadian case involving peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits. That

Michael Geist (full story)

Ghostface Killah Sues Universal Music, Hits Back At ‘Iron Man’ Composer

Ghostface Killah is making a renewed effort to collect full royalties for his work as a member of the Wu Tang Clan, at the same time he’s fending off a lawsuit brought by a Hollywood composer who objects to the way the hip hop artist sampled the “Iron Man Theme” for a 2000 solo album.

The Hollywood Reporter (full story)

In Battle With MPAA, Zediva Is Down For The Count

When the Zediva DVD-streaming service popped up earlier this year, its novel legal strategy immediately became a subject of debate among law school professors and digital copyright pundits. Whatever the bounds of copyright are in the digital age, Zediva now appears to be outside them. A Los Angeles federal judge has hit the service with an injunction that will force Zediva to stop streaming very soon.

paidContent.org (full story)

George Lucas Loses U.K. ‘Star Wars’ Copyright Case

A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for “Star Wars” has won a legal battle with the director over his right to sell replicas.

The Hollywood Reporter (full story)