Up until this past August, two California music companies were enforcing the copyright of the song “Happy Birthday” and requiring television shows and movies to pay royalties to use the song. But a class action lawsuit brought against the two music companies resulted in a settlement stating that the copyright to the lyrics would [...]
Neither EMI nor MP3tunes may exist anymore, but the EMI v MP3tunes legal battle continues, and in doing so puts the spotlight on the obligations of technology companies which benefit from the so called safe harbours contained within American copyright law. As you may have noticed, safe harbours have been something of a talking [...]
The Russian intellectual property industry is on the verge of a new scandal. Following the recent arrest of Sergey Fedotov, head of the Russian Authors’ Society (RAS), Russia’s leading public association for the protection of intellectual property rights, on the charge of multi-million ruble thefts, the Russian police has announced the initiation of criminal [...]
Free public Wi-Fi is not a rarity, especially among shops that try to draw the attention of potential customers to their goods and services. However, what happens when a user commits a copyright infringement while using that Wi-Fi network? Would the person who runs the shop be held liable for the crime? This is [...]
Burberry has filed suit against an Atlanta-based rapper/producer in New York federal court, alleging that he is infringing its trademarks by calling himself Burberry Perry and using its federally registered check pattern and equestrian trademark in connection with his album and social media pages. According to Burberry Perry Moise – aka Burberry Perry – is [...]
In 2008, a Singaporean Company had applied for registration at the EU trademark office for the word ‘MacCoffee’ for its foods and beverages line. McDonald’s opposed this registration stating that 13 of its registered trademarks already contained the words ‘Mac’ and ‘Mc’. It also opposed the registration by arguing that, the registration of the [...]
