“And what do you do?” “Oh, I’m a YouTuber!” The number of Americans who derive at least a part of their yearly income from posting original content on the Internet exploded over the past decade. The rise of new platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, combined with the video sharing site YouTube, has unlocked a […]
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Supreme Court to Clarify Copyright Act Knowledge and Publication Standards: Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, LP: Addendum
This post is an update. Read the original post here. We previously reported on Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, LP, in which designer Unicolors asked the Supreme Court to decide if under the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (“PRO IP Act”) an inadvertent mistake of law invalidates a copyright registration. […]
Read more...NCAA Rule Change Paves the Way for Student Athlete Endorsement Deals: Addendum
Entertainment, Culture and the Arts
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Internet and Social Media
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Privacy, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity
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Trademarks and Brand Protection
This post is an update. Read the original post here. On January 20, 2022, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) member schools ratified a new, briefer version of its constitution. The most contentious issues involved athletic scholarships for Division II and III schools, as well as self-governance of each Division. However, continuing to permit student […]
Read more...2022 Brings New Requirements Via ID.me for Filing Trademark Applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office: Addendum
This post is an update. Read the original post here. We previously reported on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announcement that in Spring 2022 parties filing trademark applications would have to provide biometric data and other personal information to a private company, ID.me. These requirements raised privacy issues as well as concerns […]
Read more...50-Year Anniversary of Federal Copyright Protection for Sound Recordings
Sound recordings — i.e., the recorded versions of musical works — were not protected by federal copyright law until Congress passed legislation on February 15, 1972, giving them limited protection. Until the passage of Title II of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) in 2018, sound recordings created before February 15, 1972 were only protected to […]
Read more...Stamping Out Uyghur Culture: The Winter Olympics Shine a Light on Misappropriation of Traditions
The Winter Olympics underway in Beijing are fraught with controversy. Both the United States and the United Kingdom imposed a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics to protest China’s grave human rights violations. Athletes are up in arms over the requirement that they download a state-owned digital surveillance app. Amidst the many voices of protest against […]
Read more...An Expensive Copyright Mistake?
We have previously written about some of the legal issues surrounding the current NFT craze. Issuing an NFT presumes that the creator of the NFT owns the necessary rights to the underlying work. Did the group Spice DAO misunderstand this, costing them $3 million and a lot of embarrassment? Spice DAO stands for Spice Decentralized Autonomous […]
Read more...Free the Australian Indigenous Flag: Addendum
This post is an update. Read the original post here. The “Free the Flag” campaign in Australia has come to what is generally seen as a happy resolution. We previously reported on the long-simmering controversy over rights to the Aboriginal flag, which was designed in 1971 as a protest symbol by Indigenous artist and copyright […]
Read more...2022 Brings New Requirements Via ID.me for Filing Trademark Applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
In August, 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced that effective April 9, 2022 all parties, including lawyers, individuals or representatives of large or small businesses wishing to file a trademark application, will be required to have a USPTO.gov account and provide certain personal information to establish their identity. ID.me, a third […]
Read more...Trademark Owners: Beware of Scams
As IP lawyers we frequently receive emails from our clients asking us if official-looking unsolicited correspondence they have received about upcoming trademark deadlines is legitimate. These scam solicitations attempt to get the owner to pay a fee for services not needed or to pay inflated fees to maintain their trademark registration. There are many varieties […]
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