Imagine that you are the landlord of an elderly, reclusive tenant who has been with you for decades. Right before the tenant dies, he is moved to a nursing home and tells you he does not need anything from his apartment. It is all “yours.” He certainly does not give...
Some may know British singer Rick Astley from his performance of 1987 hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Or from the song’s internet phenomenon resurgence in 2007, rising to one billion views on YouTube by 2021. However, in January of this year, Astley and the famed...
Musical artists have always had to deal with questions of copyright. In recent years, however, many have felt a shiver up their spine from copyright issues that deal with the basic building blocks of music. That encompasses fundamentals like chord progressions,...
As we have discussed, a central theme of U.S. Copyright law is the stimulation of creative ideas, their free exchange, and commercial profitability from them. This is why copyright enforcement is not black-and-white/all-or-nothing – not all infringement is considered...
On March 16, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office published policy guidance on the registration of works containing materials generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The Copyright Office has been receiving copyright applications for AI technology, as author and...
If you have ever opened a wedding invitation from Zazzle, you have likely crossed paths with the Blooming Elegant font, a curly typeface in the “handwritten” family. Well, until recently. Its disappearance from the website last summer at the behest of its designer...
When you hear a song on the radio, what sorts of intellectual property law does that evoke? And if a radio station plays a song without obtaining the proper permission, what kind of trouble can that spell for the station? We are currently seeing this play out in a...
If an artist’s message revolves around anti-commercialist values, is it hypocritical for them to employ copyright law to protect their own work? A swirl of questions like this surrounds a recent copyright infringement case involving Banksy and Guess. The mysterious,...