This NY Times article is a must-read on digital rights management.
Law school hypo – Customer buys, let’s say a Tivo-enabled receiver from a satellite or cable tv provider. Vendor does not reveal to customer that the box contains DRM technology which vendor can enable remotely. Vendor does so, effectively prevent customer from engaging in legal behavior, such…
Via BNA Internet Law News we learn of a decision from the Eastern District of Louisiana, Greg Lloyd Smith v. Intercosmos Media, civ no. 02-1964 Section C, 2002 US Dist LEXIS 24251 (ED La Dec. 17). Plaintiffs brought state tort claims against Defendant, a domain name registrar. Plaintiffs claimed to have been libeled by various …
UDRPlaw.net, a terrific resource for all things UDRP, has published its list of “the more interesting, controversial and relevant domain name decisions of the past year.” Keep your eye on the last case on the list involving BARCELONA.COM, now on appeal. As the case stands now, the owner of a Spanish national trademark has…
The Ninth Circuit’s order in the SEX.COM case and some comments from Bag and Baggage.
This article reports that Verisign, registry operator of .com, is returning to the NETWORK SOLUTIONS brand for its registrar unit. If so, it’s UK operations will have to do without the domain name NETSOL.CO.UK, which, as reported here, was dropped and registered by someone named NameGrab. As to the reputation of the…
More on the sex.com litigation via Law.com. The Ninth Circuit has punted the case to the California Supreme Court. At issue is registrant’s abilities to obtain compensation in part from NSI, due to its allegedly negligent handling of his domain name which was the subject of a fraudulent transfer. The fraudfeasor has no visible assets…
Law.com on KPMG Consulting’s re-branding to BEARING POINT.
Do a Google News of Peter Pan Copyright and you will coverage like this of the lawsuit filed by owner of the Peter Pan copyright. Peter Pan appeared in a series of works in the UK in 1904. Determining when and if characters fall into the public domain can be complex (see this excellent resource for international…
Here is a DMCA demand letter from attorneys for Dow sent to the Yes Men, originators of a Dow parody site. For those of you wishing to use the letter as boilerplate, the second sentence contains a typo and “Dear Verio” is probably not standard business salutation.
More information on the Dow dispute is here…
Thanks to How Appealing for the link to this NY Times article on the effect of the expiration of European music copyrights as great recordings from the 50’s go into the public domain under a 50 year term for copyright. In theory, it would be legal to place a European public domain recording on a European…