It's like a scene from the Wizard of Oz: Righthaven is almost dead as a corporate entity. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Philip Pro ordered "the transfer of all of Righthaven’s intellectual property and intangible property" — including 278 registered works filed with the U.S. Copyright Office — to court-appointed receiver…
Articles Posted in Copyright
The Associated Press (AP) filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court this morning against the Meltwater Group over the company's Meltwater News product, charging that the competing site collects, stores, translates, and redistributes AP content to paid subscribers, but without paying the 165-year-old company a penny. Other online news aggregators…
In pre-Super Bowl style, prosecutors charged a Michigan man with criminal copyright violations for allegedly operating nine (9) websites chock full of pirated sports broadcast videos (read the complaint below). Separately, federal agents also seized a purported $4.8 million in knock-off Super Bowl merchandise imported into the U.S. The U.S.…
GOP candidate Newt Gingrich and his campaign were sued for copyright infringement in federal court yesterday for reportedly playing the band Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" song at Gingrich campaign events, but without obtaining rights to do so (Read the lawsuit below). Plaintiff Rude Music, Inc. is a music publishing…
On the Internet, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be rich and famous. Popularity can help! Take Snooki for example. The MTV star extended the reach of her intellectual property by licensing rights to her name, images, and more in a "Snookify Me" app for the iPhone…
A new antitrust lawsuit filed on behalf of iPhone users could get rid of Apple's exclusivity agreements ('EA') with AT&T and Verizon. The class-action lawsuit (below) accuses Apple of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA') because the EAs do not giving consumers the "absolute legal right to modify their…
Forty years after acquiring publishing rights to the award-winning children's book "Julie of the Wolves" by author Jean Craighead George, HarperCollins is claiming copyright infringement by Open Road, a Manhattan e-book publisher distributing the work electronically via downloads on Amazon.com, Apple, and others e-commerce web sites. The outcome of the…
A federal indictment unsealed today alleges that a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack by a Connecticut resident who "was affiliated with Anonymous" brought down KISS band member Gene Simmons' web site last year. The felony charges allege that Poe and other unnamed co-conspirators used an open source software program to send…
Going to the dentist can be an unnerving experience. It can also feel like you're getting more than a tooth pulled if you're asked to give up any rights to critique the dental work you've had done, and assign all copyrights to any comments you make about it to…the dentist.…
Record label UMG Recordings, Inc. sued Escape Media Group, Inc., the owner of online music streaming website Grooveshark, five of the company's executives, and two other employees for alleged copyright infringement. UMG's newest lawsuit contains purported email exchanges with company director Sina Simantob alleging, in part, that Escape "bet the…