release

I wrote almost exactly a year ago about the lawsuit against Turnitin.com filed by several Virginia high school students, alleging that the anti-plagiarism service violated the students’ intellectual property rights. Then, I said, “Does Turnitin have a valid defense? There are two likely possibilities: fair use, and license.” My predictions (unlike, say, [...]

The Oregon Attorney General’s Office has asked a federal court to require the RIAA to tell the state who is downloading information from computers belonging to students at the University of Oregon. In proceedings to determine whether the University must reveal the names of its students in response to the ex parte subpoena issued [...]

Of the twenty-thousand or so (I’ve heard higher) people who have been sued by the RIAA in the past four years for file-sharing, not one has ever gone to trial before this week. But this week in Duluth, Minnestoa, Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas is just about to go to the jury. [...]

I’ve got three:

Rage Against the Machine: RIAA Litigation Update
The recording industry has ramped up its litigation campaign against peer-to-peer file sharing suspects, with cases now numbering in the high thousands. This session explores recent developments in the various cases nationwide and how someone caught in this driftnet litigation might defend themselves.

Among Thieves: Preventing Online Copyright [...]

In the great file-sharing war, it looks like the tide may be turning. Deborah Foster, the defendant in a peer-to-peer file-sharing case out of Oklahoma, not only got the records companies to dismiss their case against her, she got a court award of $68,000 for attorney’s fees - the cost of defending her lawsuit.
The [...]

RIAA Keep your Hands Off My iPod by (_nickd)

By the way, the site that led me to the previous post is a pretty good read if you’ve got a law degree and a strong sense of sticking it to The Man. Recording Industry vs The People chronicles all the [...]

Some people think all lawyers are scum. Then, once every 13 years or so, a lawyer does something that makes everyone stand up and say, “Well done, my good man!”
This news is a couple of months old by now, but it still is worth re-telling that Merl Ledford is a hero for standing up [...]

Do you know the significance of this number?
13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640
It’s currently at the heart of a battle over First Amendment rights. Some think it’s hexed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Florida lawyer Michael Alex Wasylik announced that he has filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Tampa against Chicago-based web application firm 37Signals. The suit alleges trademark infringement of the Perpetual Beta name and seeks damages in the amount of 13 signals - just over one-third of the [...]

UPDATE (3/27/08): This case has been decided.
Ted Frank at Overlawyered weighs in on this Washington Post story about a lawsuit against anti-plagiarism service Turnitin:
There are entrepreneurs who come up with good ideas for services and products, and entrepreneurs who come up with good ideas for lawsuits against the first group.
Unfortunately, Ted doesn’t [...]

Via Eloquation, an apology from LogoMaid.
In name of Vilords media I need to apologize for the inconvenience caused. I feel really sorry that we didn’t remove the logotype rightaway…and let this situation ascalate. It took us too long to understand the designer we worked with for over 3 years obviously did copy the main shape [...]

One of the most persistent myths in the area of copyright law is the notion that wrapping something in an envelope, mailing it to yourself, and then holding onto the delivered envelope somehow helps you protect your legal rights as the creator of a work. The “envelope method” not only doesn’t work, using it [...]

As Dan originally noted, and as Jon Gruber has reported in more detail, some shabby logo mill has ripped off the SimpleBits logo to re-package and sell for their own profit.
The Flickr thread is lengthy, and much of the amateur legal analysis on both sides is quite simply wrong. But it’s very [...]