By Sharmil McKee on March 19, 2010
Last month, Dr. Dre (a/k/a Andre Young) sued WIDEawake Death Row Records for unpaid royalties and copyright infringement. Dr. Dre claims that WIDEawake is a holding company for Death Row Records, after Death Row Records filed bankruptcy. Dre also claims that WIDEawake began re-producing and releasing copies of his album, Chronic. According to the complaint, [...]
Posted in Intellectual Property, Understanding Contracts | Tagged breach of contract, celebrity, copyright |
By Sharmil McKee on January 10, 2010
Marvel is suing the Jack Kirby estate to keep its copyright licenses. Jack Kirby is best known for creating, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, and co-creating Spider-Man. The Kirby estate sent notices to Marvel that its rights to use Kirby’s characters terminate in 2014. Basically, in 2014, the rights to use and [...]
Posted in Headlines, Intellectual Property, Litigation | Tagged celebrity, copyright |
By Sharmil McKee on September 23, 2009
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Judge-Dismisses/7199 Thompson Reuter, Inc. (a very large software company) sued a university for copyright infringement and breach of license agreement. George Mason University, (a small innovative, entrepreneurial institution) who had a license agreement with Thompson, created a free software tool (Zotero). Thompson claimed that Zotero reversed engineered its EndNote citation software, which is a breach [...]
Posted in Asked and Answered, Intellectual Property | Tagged copyright, reverse engineering |
By Sharmil McKee on September 19, 2008
I received the following question by email: What is legality of selling high school apparel, does consent need to be obtained, or royalties need to be paid? This is my answer: Your question is tough to answer because I need more information. You are asking about copyrights and trademarks. A high school logo or mascot [...]
Posted in Asked and Answered, Intellectual Property | Tagged copyright, logo |
By Sharmil McKee on December 9, 2006
The answer depends. Is the layout design of a website protected by copyright laws? This is the question the judge in Sartor v. Walters, 2006 WL 3497856 (W.D. LA.) is facing. A few years ago, a federal court ruled that the distinctive layout of a magazine cover is entitled to copyright protection as a graphic [...]
Posted in Asked and Answered, Intellectual Property | Tagged copyright, domain name, Litigation, website |
