David Bowie – TopPop 1974, AVRO – Beeld En Geluid – Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0.

With David Bowie’s passing, the world lost a rock icon beyond compare. A musical innovator and stage and screen pioneer, Bowie challenged and expanded our sensibilities, standards and appreciation for his art. Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke and The Man Who Fell to Earth left an indelible influence of originality and creativity on all those who followed and who are still to come.

Over a decade ago, though, this musical entrepreneur gave an interview to the New York Times in which he boldly foretold of the impending death of copyright in the face of progress, innovation and the changing of how music, in particular, is created and distributed:

I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.

Continue reading “Copyright Is Not Dead” »

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (sitting in San Francisco) has opened the door to college athletes’ challenges to the use of their images in popular sports video games. Former college football quarterback Sam Keller scored a victory in his claim against Electronic Arts, Inc., maker of the popular Madden NFL and NCAA Football video games, over the use of his jersey number and general appearance on one of its game avatars.  The appellate court held that the video game manufacturer was not protected by the First Amendment against the athlete’s right-of-publicity claim absent a transformation of the avatar beyond a mere celebrity likeness or imitation of Keller, which it did not do.  Allowing Keller’s suit to go forward, the court found that the video game did not qualify for protection as a “transformative use” because it “literally recreates Keller in the very setting in which he has achieved renown,” rather than creating some protectable new art of its own.  The court found that Keller was represented as “what he was: the starting quarterback for Arizona State” and Nebraska and that “the game’s setting is identical to where the public found [Keller] during his collegiate career: on the football field.”  As such, any expressive elements of the game were subordinated to the overall goal of portraying an actual celebrity likeness of Keller, thereby commercially exploiting his popularity and fame.

Continue reading “College Quarterback Breaks Through Game Maker’s First Amendment Defense” »

This week Twitter released its “Transparency Report,” which provides a snapshot of government requests for information and content removal – i.e., the Big Brother Report – as well as copyright takedown notices issued to the social media giant pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).   Although government practices that may or may not be deemed to intrude into individual rights, freedoms and privacy may well pique the interest of some, we’ll sidestep that foray into debate-laden and politically charged waters and look at the relatively safe harbor (pun intended, see below) of copyright takedown notices and results reported.

Continue reading “To (And What To) Tweet and Retweet” »

Who among us hasn’t experienced that recurring moment of frustration when signing onto a new online service and that dreaded little window opens, allowing you to read the numerous pages of terms and conditions of use at a generous clip of only 4 to 5 lines at a time? And who among us hasn’t started to read them, only to scan and scroll progressively faster until reaching the bottom, as if the really egregious terms might appear in bold red type that you easily will spot while speeding by? How about that palpable recipe of consternation, doubt and despair that sets in as you hover over the “I Agree” button that unlocks the door to an exciting new online world to which you absolutely must have access in order to share the latest video of your cat chasing that red light up the wall?

Continue reading “When You Click “I Agree,” You Better be Sure You Do” »