©opyBites: Copyright Law Blog

Kozinski To Speak On Fair Use

The Second Annual Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property

The Honorable Alex Kozinski
Judge, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

"Fair Use Revisited"

DATE, TIME, & LOCATION
September 21, 2006
Reception ~ 5:00 PM | Lecture ~ 6:00 PM
Washington College of Law, 4801 Mass Ave NW | Room 603

REGISTRATION
Email: iplecture@wcl.american.edu
Phone: 202-274-4148
www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/Kozinski.cfm

WEBCAST
The webcast will be available at www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/webcast.cfm.

HBO's Six Feet Under Not Infringing

CVBT:

In an opinion that reads like a television critic’s review of a TV program, a federal court has rejected arguments that the HBO series “Six Feet Under” violated the copyright of a similar show.

While there seem to be similarities in plot between the cable TV series and the script for “The Funk Parlor,” the court says “an actual reading of the two works reveals greater, more significant differences and few real similarities at the levels of plot, characters, themes, mood, pace, dialogue, or sequence of events.”

Those differences, it says, make the HBO series an original work and not one violating the “Funk Parlor” copyright.

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Critics Question RIAA Video

Cnet News.Com:

The music industry's educational video about copyright law is full of baloney, according to several trade and public interest groups.

The Consumer Electronics Association and Public Knowledge are among the groups to issue a joint statement condemning some statements on the Recording Industry Association of America's video, which the RIAA has plans to distribute to the nation's universities.

The RIAA's video, a copy of which can be found on its Web site, suggests that students should be skeptical of free content and that it's always illegal to make a copy of a song, even if it's just to introduce a friend to a new band, said Robert Schwartz, general counsel for the Home Recording Rights Coalition, one of the groups opposed to the video.

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EFF vs. Barney

New York Times:

On Wednesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in New York against Lyons Partnership of Allen, Tex., which owns the Barney brand.

The group’s aim is to bring an end to what it characterizes as the partnership’s relentless harassment of Web site owners who parody the Barney character, chiefly through threatening cease-and-desist letters from Lyons’s law firm in New York, Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty.

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Copyright Interest Shut Down Guitar Tablature Sites

The New York Times:

The Internet put the music industry and many of its listeners at odds thanks to the popularity of services like Napster and Grokster. Now the industry is squaring off against a surprising new opponent: musicians.

In the last few months, trade groups representing music publishers have used the threat of copyright lawsuits to shut down guitar tablature sites, where users exchange tips on how to play songs like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Highway to Hell” and thousands of others.

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