If you like something that your competitor has created, should you ever tell your team to directly copy it? Based on the outcome of an infringement case involving two door-to-door storage companies, you could get into some real copyright trouble if your marketing...
Copyrights
Is a “Collection” One Work or Multiple Works? The Answer Matters for Infringement Cases
Let this be a lesson to anyone producing creative works who decides to deem them a “collection.” Examples of this might include: musicians releasing an album, writers compiling essays or short stories into a single book, and visual artists placing multiple works in a...
Famous Authors Fight Back Against AI Using Their Content for Free
Authors – and the writing world in general – have largely been up in arms over the rise of ChatGPT and other AI aggregator programs that “create” their content by crawling through existing material and stitching it together – to arguably make something new. One of the...
Can a Company Use a Social Media Video Without Licensing? Courts Say “No”
In the age of social media, video content has never been more widely available. What used to demand the planning and labor of a film crew and TV/theatrical distribution can now be spontaneously shot on someone’s phone and released on Instagram. Perhaps the casual...
The Author of LOTR Fanfiction Sued Amazon and Tolkien’s Estate – It Did Not Go Well for Him
To put it mildly, the relationship between the copyright owners of popular works of fiction and the creators of fanfiction has always been… complicated. Some copyright holders wholeheartedly support it. Others have denounced it, wanting to retain total control over...
You Cannot Register a Copyright That Never Existed: Ruling Against AI-Generated Work
AI and copyright are far from new themes in September 2023. You have likely heard about multiple cases on the nature of AI-generated work and how copyright law may (or may not) apply. A recent ruling on a completely AI-fabricated piece of artwork advanced this...
Another Bad Headline for Shein: Copyright Infringement on the Order of Racketeering
The fashion retailer Shein is known for its constant waterfall of online clothing listings. Shein enthusiasts are known to scroll the app like they would social media, gazing upon absurdly cheap outfits, shoes, and home decor. But if you are at all familiar with...
If You Embed a Photo from Instagram, Is It Copyright Infringement?
At this point, it should come as no surprise that the internet is the Wild West of intellectual property law. Between AI-generated content and complex layers of transmitting other people’s ideas, it can prove difficult to draw the lines of copyright ownership,...