The "WE" logo also is a meme, even though it is only two letters inside the outline of a shield. Of course, WE employs an army of lawyers who use trademark and copyright law to zealously protect its intellectual property, including its logo.

• Random House Dictionary: meme: a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.
• Merriam-Webster: meme: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
• Answers.com: meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
• Collins English Dictionary: meme: an idea or element of social behaviour passed on through generations in a culture, esp by imitation
• Wikipedia: meme: A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena

Plaintiffs, however, mistakenly demand statutory damages and an enhancement of damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504, and mistakenly believe that they are entitled to attorneys’ fees and costs of suit under 17 U.S.C. § 505. Defendants are accused of infringing both copyrights in their initial 2009 release of the video games and neither copyright was registered until 2010. Thus, neither Plaintiff is entitled to statutory damages or attorney’s fees, a prerequisite of which – per 17 U.S.C. § 412 – is either registration before commencement of any infringement or within three months after the first publication of the copyrighted work. Further, both the Keyboard Cat video and the Nyan Cat video were published over five years before the application to register the copyrights were filed, thus they are not entitled to a presumption of validity afforded by 17 U.S.C. § 410(c).

...your product was removed due to an infringement claim by Warner Bros. Studios. While the artwork as you claim is original, the characters from the Wizard of Oz are currently property of Warner Bros. As a guideline, designs from the Wizard of Oz that are currently prohibited for sale on Zazzle’s Marketplace are:

• All inspired artwork and character renderings from the Wizard of Oz
• Quotes from the Wizard of Oz Franchise
• All tags and descriptions that reference the Wizard of Oz

- Zazzle

As such, I respectfully request that my material and corresponding artwork be returned to circulation for purchase immediately.

Failure to do so would be an infringement on my copyright of my created artwork which, as verified by the testimony above, does NOT infringe upon Warner Bros. Entertainment’s copyright on the 1939 film or the specific celluloid representations of the characters made in said film. If my copyright continues to be infringed upon I will seek legal action against both Zazzle and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

In addition to the Warner instance mentioned above, the RIAA asked Google to delist a review of the album Own The Night published on The Guardian. The artist behind the album is Lady Antebellum, signed to RIAA-member Capitol Records.

Even more worrying, the RIAA asked Google to delist Last.fm’s entire Electro Pop section because they thought it carried a pirate copy of All About Tonight by Pixie Lott.

Warner also reappeared later on, asking Google to delist a page on news site NME which lists information on the latest movies, which at the time included information on the movie Hall Pass. The same page on NME was targeted on several other occasions, including by anti-piracy company DtecNet on behalf of Lionsgate, who had info on The Hunger Games delisted.

Hollywood Reporter didn’t fare much better either. Sony Pictures asked Google to swing the banhammer against the popular news site after it published an article called “Trent Reznor Releases Six Free Tracks From ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Soundtrack” and Sony mistook it for a DVDRIP.

But as soon as Sony’s piracy fears on the first ‘Dragon Tattoo’ movie had subsided they were back as strong as ever with the sequel. This time the sinner was Wikipedia who dared to put up an information page on the movie The Girl Who Played With Fire. Luckily Sony were on hand to ask Google to delist the page.

Now, at long last, there are signs of life. On May 7th, Sony Records is set to release remastered versions of MBV's two full albums and several EPs [exclamation points!]. Not only that, but MBV co-founder Kevin Shields is strongly hinting at an actual new My Bloody Valentine album [more exclamation points, tempered with a "we've heard this before over the last 20 years, but still..."!].

While the new remasters will be appreciated, it's a project that's been in the works since 2004. Most of those familiar with Kevin Shields' perfectionism (the obsessiveness that saw the band go through 19 recording studios and nearly as many producers while recording Loveless, nearly bankrupting Creation Records in the process) probably chalked up this extra-long delay to excessive amounts of knob twiddling. But in an interview with Pitchfork, Shields points out that this time it wasn't him:

The [remastering] process actually started in 2001, when we managed to come to an agreement with Sony, who inherited us from Creation. Part of the Sony deal was that I wanted all of the EPs made into one package because, back in 2001, you could get the albums pretty easily but not the EPs. So it was basically a compilation of all the EPs, and that was it.

Then we decided to do Isn't Anything and Loveless as well-- if we're gonna remaster [the EPs], we should remaster everything. In 2002, I tried to start working on it, but the studio that had the tapes, Metropolis Studios, lost them; the analog multi-tracks were all missing for a year. Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear. The true story is as yet to be determined, but we'll fight that one out in the near future.

For example, in America, Warner Bros. licensed Loveless and Isn't Anything to Plain Records, and they basically just ripped [the audio] off the CD and put it on vinyl [in 2003]. They did an awful, terrible job. It was done without my permission, and the sound quality was 100% wrong. It was a rip off to anyone who bought it. But I didn't know anything about it until they were in the shops. We actually got an injunction against it being imported into the UK at the time because it was technically a bootleg but, in America, Warners operate under their own law, so it might have been slightly legal in the United States.

The contract we did in 2001 basically gave me ownership of the tapes, and then the Sony regime that existed when that contract was signed left. And when the new regime came in, the tapes disappeared. That was relevant because even though I was the owner, it would only revert back to me if I remastered from the original tapes-- if the tapes were gone, I couldn't remaster from them and hence I couldn't ever own them.

Also, you don't get paid if you don't own it-- you know, we've never been paid one penny from the United States from any of the records we've ever made. In the record company's world, we're always in debt. But the strange part of the story is Loveless alone sold enough copies in its first year to put us out of debt. But somehow Warners have managed to create a situation where, hundreds of thousands of records down the line, we're still in debt. That's why the compilations aren't coming out on Warner Bros. They're extremely in breach of contract as well at the moment.

I'm no victim here-- this is just the way it is for everybody. It's a bit like being in the middle of a battlefield and getting shot in the arm and going, "Why me?" I mean, to put it very, very, very simply: The corporate system is fully psychopathic, and any creative people who enter into business with any of these organizations come up against a lifetime of issues. You just deal with it as you go along. It'll keep on happening until people reorganize the organizations.

Well, the organizations are [psychopathic], but probably 70% of the individuals in them are decent people. But a significant controlling minority have no empathy. They don't give a shit. If you put them in a situation where they can't make any decision but one that is in your favor, they will-- but that can take years. That's the game. Most people just give up with time and go, "I'm a victim." The only reason I've got the reputation for delays and spending a long time on things is because I just don't stop. We've had incredibly huge obstacles in our way-- no tapes, no royalties, no cooperation on any level-- and we sort it out.

The French brand says that judge's decision two weeks ago shows why it should be able to go forward with its claims against Warner Bros. for infringing and diluting its trademark by showing, for one brief moment in the movie, Zach Galifianakis telling someone who pushes his bag, “Be careful, that is … that is a Lewis Vuitton.”

...

"As Judge Castel recently ruled in Louis Vuitton v. Hyundai, Louis Vuitton's 'aggressive' enforcement of its trademark rights and prompt action against those who misuse its trademarks are necessary concomitants of its exclusive rights in the brand," the French company says in a court filing.

This is how a law gets out of hand: each bad ruling diminishes its intent a little further, until it no longer serves its original purpose. This is a big part of what happened to copyright law, and bullies like Louis Vuitton are causing a similar erosion of trademark: a shift from laws that benefit everyone to laws that grant broad powers of ownership and control to rightsholders, infringing on freedom of speech in the process. Of course, Warner Bros. has been through something similar before, when the artist behind Mike Tyson's face tattoo sued over the very same movie—though that was a copyright issue, and settled confidentially. The argument against trademark dilution is likely even stronger than the argument against copyright infringement, but it remains to be seen how Warner Bros. will respond to Louis Vuitton's latest move.

Of course, as always, one can't ignore the irony of Warner Bros.—a big proponent of stronger intellectual property laws—fighting against overly restrictive trademarks, and citing the First Amendment in the process. This hypocrisy is something media companies don't want to acknowledge: as content producers and distributors, they rely on the very freedoms and fair use exceptions that they are constantly seeking to curtail.

They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.

We are not traffic cops. We can't stand in the middle of it and stop the individual items that might be against the law. These guys are asking us to be judge, jury and executioner.

I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it. And it doesn't exist.