No, names and titles can't be covered by copyright (they're simply too short). The copyright issue here is not over the LotR character names, but their likenesses as used in the decor of the pub. You could use the names all you want, so long as they're not used in commerce in a manner that implies endorsement by the trademark holder or is likely to confuse consumers. This is almost never an issue with band names (ex: Atreyu, named after a character from The NeverEnding Story).
No smart IP lawyer sleeps on a claim because they think it's unlikely to be a threat. If they ignored it and it became an issue later, they could be estopped from pursuing a claim under a statute of limitations or laches. So I don't blame them for taking some sort of action. But I do blame them for being hamfisted about it.
No smart IP lawyer sleeps on a claim because they think it's unlikely to be a threat. If they ignored it and it became an issue later, they could be estopped from pursuing a claim under a statute of limitations or laches. So I don't blame them for taking some sort of action. But I do blame them for being hamfisted about it.
Article says this fight is copyright-based. That means it's over the copyrighted characters being used, not the name of the business (a trademark issue). Ergo, the pub won't have to change its name, unless there's an unreported trademark claim being pursued as well.
I actually have to agree. If it was just the name and general Tolkien vibe, I'd call it stupid. If they're actively using the characters and even images of the film cast, it crosses over from tribute to near-implied endorsement, and would definitely hamper any future use of Tolkien's IP. But the SMART thing to do here would be to just license the use for a reasonable to nominal amount, if only so they can't be accused of sleeping on their rights, while not seeming like bullies for doing so.
Try reading the court's order. It's even excerpted in the post for you.
While Righthaven has argued now that it does not have more than the bare right to sue, as this Court previously held, Righthaven does possess copyright registrations that can be assigned by operation of law.
Whatever they have, however (in)substantial, it's being auctioned.
“The irony of this? Perhaps those who buy the copyrights could issue DMCA notices to the Review-Journal stopping them from redistributing them?” Randazza said via an e-mail, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
On the one hand, I love the proper application of liability.
On the other hand, I despise StubHub.
Too often in my life do I miss out on the sale of concert tickets by five minutes, only to find them being immediately scalped on StubHub for at least three times their face value. I know that if it weren't on StubHub, it would be somewhere else, but goddammit, still makes my blood boil.
(I wish more acts would have integrity and go paperless. Then I could watch StubHub burn and have Section 230 remain unperverted.)
Seems like a parallel to the Feist case here in the US. The Supreme Court said that you can copyright a phonebook, but not for its raw data, only the particular selection and arrangement of the data (and even then, only if that selection and arrangement is sufficiently creative).
Vinyl sales dropping? How reality-challenged are you?
Now look at this statistic here on global Vinyl disc sales! It has been steadily decreasing for the past 10 years!
Wait, what? Vinyl sales been RISING over the last few years. The BBC just reported a six-year high. Last year, Rolling Stone was all over the vinyl revival and noted that "[t]hough overall album sales dropped 13 percent in 2010, sales of vinyl increased by 14 percent over the previous year, with around 2.8 million units sold" -- a new record for vinyl sales since 1991, when the format basically dropped off the face of the earth.
So, no. Vinyl sales have not been steadily decreasing for a decade. Quite the opposite.
I didn't know arguments could be won and lost simply by comparing resumes rather than conducting factual analyses! Man, I've been wasting my time trying to actually discuss things in life. I just need to get to a point where I can comfortably rest on my CV to validate everything that falls out of my skull as empirically true. Thanks for showing me the way, AC!
Look carefully at your favorite artists latest record. Is it still on a standard record label?
I took him up on his offer and grabbed the two most recent CDs I've purchased; States' "Room to Run" (2011) and The Panic Division's "Eternalism" (2012). And looking at the back of each CD case, the copyright on the record is... to the bands. States is composed of members from Copeland and Lydia, both of whom were once on major labels (Universal and Columbia), and The Panic Division were on The Militia Group (a well-respected indie label) for the first half of their career. Interesting how both have eschewed the benefits of having any label involved in their recent work. They must be drunk off the toxic fumes of the new model.
They just synthesize the positions. It's legally a "license" for the purposes of the actual end-user transaction (since it doesn't make sense to place exhaustion rights on a file that can be infinitely replicated), but contractually a "sale" for the purposes of calculating an artist's royalty (since it resembles a phonorecord sale more than, say, a traditional "license" for use in a movie). There's no real conflict between the two if the artist's contract is properly drafted to reflect the latter notion. Eminem's wasn't.
Pretty much. It makes more sense to treat digital transactions as licenses rather than sales because while the files they send you are discrete (resembling the sale of a phonorecord for purposes of a market transaction), they're not subject to the exhaustion that underpins the utility of the first sale doctrine. The Eminem case was more a contractual quirk than anything, a case where language had yet to catch up to market realities.
Up until about a month ago, I'd have agreed -- what would legacy media companies have to gain by engaging the opposition when they already have lobbyists to carry out their agenda? But then the SOPA/PIPA protests happened. The public woke up. And all that lobbying effort was for nothing. Now that the public has been galvanized, the IP industries have to start making strides in the court of public opinion. And to do that, they -will- have to engage. And that's something I welcome with open arms. I don't want them to think I'm leading them into a lion's den. But I also don't want them to think they can just curtly accuse everyone who opposed them of spreading misinformation and not have to walk us through that charge. If they want to win minds, they'll have to start engaging minds.
I'm actually reaching out to Paramount et al to send representatives to my law school later this year for a symposium on international efforts to combat infringement. I want them to identify the scope of the problem (and have reliable data to back up its seriousness), explain the methods being used to address it (justified procedurally and substantively), and prove their efficacy (in light of the SSRC report). I'd love to have Mike there to be on the anti-SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/TPP side, actually. The goal isn't to browbeat one side or the other, but have a serious dialogue about what the data actually says about these issues. Hopefully they're willing to participate.
[Liebowitz has] been making the same claims for years, and I've yet to see a single other economist agree with him. So I have no idea where this "most" comes from. Most of the economic evidence I've seen suggests otherwise.
Have you read Peter Tschmuck's The Economics of Music File Sharing – A Literature Overview? I ask not to challenge your conclusion, but because I know Terry Hart at Copyhype was brandishing it as vindicating Liebowitz. It apparently looks at 22 studies and finds that 14 conclude unauthorized downloads have a “negative or even highly negative impact” on recorded music sales. And according to a comment in the relevant Copyhype post, only two are from Liebowitz. I haven't had time to read the overview or underlying studies myself, but if you have any information/opinions on it, it'd be very helpful to the underlying debate occurring here.
No matter how you want to frame it, the anti-SOPA protests end up being pro-piracy.
Just because you fight for due process doesn't mean you fight for all those who will receive it.
Nobody showed up and said "here is how you fight piracy without X or Y that we don't like", you just all fought the idea from end to end.
Nobody marshaled reliable evidence to demonstrate piracy is a problem that required new tools to fight.
You have to remember that when you push for something, you push for all that comes with it. Going against SOPA means you were pushing on the same side as the pirates.
About as a dumb a sentiment as the Bush-era classic, "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists."
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Re: Re: Big Bullying Small
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Re:
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Re:
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re: Big Bullying Small
On the post: Decades-Old UK Pub 'The Hobbit' Threatened With Legal Action For Infringing On Hobbit IP
Re:
On the post: Whatever Copyrights Righthaven Might Actually Have Owned Now Transferred To Receiver For Auction
Re:
On the post: Whatever Copyrights Righthaven Might Actually Have Owned Now Transferred To Receiver For Auction
On the post: State Appeals Court Says Stubhub Isn't Responsible For Actions Of Its Users
On the other hand, I despise StubHub.
Too often in my life do I miss out on the sale of concert tickets by five minutes, only to find them being immediately scalped on StubHub for at least three times their face value. I know that if it weren't on StubHub, it would be somewhere else, but goddammit, still makes my blood boil.
(I wish more acts would have integrity and go paperless. Then I could watch StubHub burn and have Section 230 remain unperverted.)
On the post: EU Court Ruling Saying Sports Schedules May Not Covered By Copyright Pushes Back On Dangerous Database Copyrights
On the post: RIAA Insists That, Really, The Music Industry Is Collapsing; Reality Shows It's Just The RIAA That's Collapsing
Vinyl sales dropping? How reality-challenged are you?
Wait, what? Vinyl sales been RISING over the last few years. The BBC just reported a six-year high. Last year, Rolling Stone was all over the vinyl revival and noted that "[t]hough overall album sales dropped 13 percent in 2010, sales of vinyl increased by 14 percent over the previous year, with around 2.8 million units sold" -- a new record for vinyl sales since 1991, when the format basically dropped off the face of the earth.
So, no. Vinyl sales have not been steadily decreasing for a decade. Quite the opposite.
On the post: If You're Going To Compare The Old Music Biz Model With The New Music Biz Model, At Least Make Some Sense
My mind has been opened.
On the post: If You're Going To Compare The Old Music Biz Model With The New Music Biz Model, At Least Make Some Sense
I took him up on his offer and grabbed the two most recent CDs I've purchased; States' "Room to Run" (2011) and The Panic Division's "Eternalism" (2012). And looking at the back of each CD case, the copyright on the record is... to the bands. States is composed of members from Copeland and Lydia, both of whom were once on major labels (Universal and Columbia), and The Panic Division were on The Militia Group (a well-respected indie label) for the first half of their career. Interesting how both have eschewed the benefits of having any label involved in their recent work. They must be drunk off the toxic fumes of the new model.
On the post: Schrödinger's Download: Whether Or Not An iTunes Music Sale Is A 'Sale' Depends On Who's Suing
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Schrödinger's Download: Whether Or Not An iTunes Music Sale Is A 'Sale' Depends On Who's Suing
Re:
On the post: More Details About Paramount's Offer To Law Schools To Teach Them About The Evils Of 'Content Theft'
Re:
On the post: More Details About Paramount's Offer To Law Schools To Teach Them About The Evils Of 'Content Theft'
Re: Why not?
On the post: NY Times: RIAA & MPAA Exaggerate Piracy Impact Stats... But We're Going To Assume They're True Anyway
Have you read Peter Tschmuck's The Economics of Music File Sharing – A Literature Overview? I ask not to challenge your conclusion, but because I know Terry Hart at Copyhype was brandishing it as vindicating Liebowitz. It apparently looks at 22 studies and finds that 14 conclude unauthorized downloads have a “negative or even highly negative impact” on recorded music sales. And according to a comment in the relevant Copyhype post, only two are from Liebowitz. I haven't had time to read the overview or underlying studies myself, but if you have any information/opinions on it, it'd be very helpful to the underlying debate occurring here.
On the post: The SOPA/PIPA Protests Were Not Pro-Piracy... They Were Anti-Crony Capitalism
Let's break this down real quick.