New Here? Subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe to get updates via email (fill out the form in the sidebar). Thanks for visiting! Copyright registration is increasingly important for all types of businesses and all types of documents. it’s not just about media content.
Companies and individuals should consider registering their copyrights [...]
Theatre, Film, Television, Music & New Media
Category Archives: Intellectual property
3 Reasons why copyright registration is important for all kinds of documents
Asked & Answered: Copyright duration and the public domain.
Q: If 1977 is the dividing line for copyright laws, is it possible to, say, erase all challenging doubts by merging two pre-1977 stories and create an entirely new work? Such as, say, LITTLE WOMEN (1800s) meets the rogue PAL JOEY (1940). Or must one check to see if Louisa Mae Olcott’s estate still has [...]
What's the REDBOX flap really about?
Well, money, of course. Here’s the background:
Redbox is a company that provides $1 DVD rentals through kiosks set up in local supermarkets and other convenient locations. You’ve probably seen the large red kiosks standing next to the Coinstar machines, lottery ticket vending machines, and Rug-Doctor rental stands.
Redbox purchases the DVDs it sells through the same [...]
P.R.O.s continue policy of suing bars and Restaurants. Are your licenses in place?
As I blogged here last December, Performance Rights Organizations like ASCAP and BMI continue their policy of pursuing legal action against bars and restaurants that play music without proper licensing. The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. blog has a piece today, that reminds us of the policy.
Earlier this week, BMI filed a suit against a restaurant [...]
Copyright Registration and other fees increase August 1st
Everybody knows that copyright registration is important, and that doing so in a timely fashion can provide a copyright owner a greater award in an infringement suit.
With the current backlog of registrations in the Copyright office, it’s especially important to get your works into the que for registration as soon as possible. The agency [...]
Congratulations, Tony Award nominees and winners!
Congratulations to the Broadway League, The American Theatre Wing, and to all of our friends, clients and colleagues who were nominated and/or took home Tony Awards last night!
What a show. Host Neil Patrick Harris was terrific, and the musical numbers were just right.
On Domain Names, squatters and new show titles.
One of my favorite blogs is Ken Davenport’s PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE. Ken has posted an insightful piece about cyber-squatters and the need to register your show’s domain name(s) early. The article is titled: Got an idea for a show? Here’s the first thing you should do.
This is among the first recommendations I make [...]
Court grants summary judgement over failed copyright transfer.
A ruling in American Plastic Equipment, Inc. v. Toytrackerz, LLC, 2009 WL 902422 (D. Kan. 2009) reminds us that under Section 204 of the Copyright Act, any transfer of copyright must be in a written instrument by the owner.
The case involved copyright in eleven Marx action figures that had, after a number of transfers and [...]
The YouTube plot thickens…
Further follow up to my post on Wednesday regarding YouTube’s automated audio-muting of user-generated videos containing unlicensed music…..
According to this piece at the Hollywood Reporter.. YouTube is taking things a step further… allowing users to REPLACE offending music in video soundtracks with pre-cleared music…. (automatically?)
I ask you again… does this kind of filtering do any [...]
YouTube institutes automated removal of unlicensed music from posted video
UPDATE: News.com reports in greater depth on this situation, and as it turns out, the system isn’t a unilateral, automated removal of soundtracks at all. Apparently,YouTube identifies videos with unlicensed music using an automated filter, and then notifies the uploader/user of the situation, giving the CHOICE to mute the audio, or remove the entire video. [...]
