In PG’s experience, most authors in the U.S. aren’t familiar with moral rights. In part, this is because the federal government did not do much about moral rights until 1989. When the country joined the Berne Convention in 1989, it amended its Copyright Act to include moral rights. However, while the moral rights set out … Read more
From The United States Copyright Office: The U.S. Copyright Office has completed its comprehensive study of attribution and integrity rights in the United States. The report presents an extensive review of the U.S. moral rights regime, exploring the current state of attribution and integrity interests—particularly with respect to legal and technological changes since the United … Read more
From The 1709 Blog: [D]irector Alfonso Cuaron, who was recently awarded three Oscar for his movie “Roma”, a black-and-white production in Spanish and Mixtec, distributed worldwide thanks to Netflix. Interestingly, in all of his interviews, the director expressly acknowledged the merits of such a singular choice, declaring that the diffusion of his film worldwide would … Read more
From The 1709 Blog: To what extent can an architectural project be modified without the express consent of the architect without such modifications being an infringement of their moral right of integrity? . . . . In late 2000s well-known architect Stefano Boeri was commissioned to realize an architectural project – then become ‘Casa Bosco’ – for … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: I know many of you have asked me to write about Findaway’s giant rights grab this week. I just finished a short post on it. I’m no longer doing the regular business blog. Instead, I post about business things on my Patreon page. I made this post wide, so everyone can … Read more
From The Walrus: THEY KILL THE WOMEN and the children first. This is the most cost-effective decision. The captain knows by heart the commodity value of a child, knows the women will be worth less than the men at the auction block. So he picks the obvious choices: he orders the crew to push them, the … Read more
From Writer Beware®: Over the past year, I’ve gotten a flood of questions and complaints from writers who’ve been approached by reading/writing platforms or apps based in Hong Kong or Singapore. There’s a growing number of these platforms, and they are aggressively soliciting for content, including on established platforms like Wattpad. While most of the … Read more
From Artnet News: In a sweeping 32-page decision eviscerating the legal arguments of a disgruntled Queens real estate developer, a US Appeals Court affirmed the rights and monetary damages awarded to a group of graffiti artists whose works were destroyed without warning or consent in 2013. The artists sued the developer, Gerald Wolkoff, in 2013 for … Read more
From Paris Musées: From 8 January 2020, Paris Musées is offering as Open Content (i.e. making available without charge and without restrictions) 150,000 digital reproductions in High Definition of works in the City’s museums. The launch of Open Content will mark a new stage in Paris Musées’ digitisation policy. It will contribute to enhancing and … Read more
From The Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice: In Western culture, one of the earliest myths dealing with what would subsequently become a literary topos is the one concerning Narcissus. Narcissus was known for both his great beauty and the disdain he showed to those who loved him. In the version of the myth as told … Read more
From Publishers Weekly: If the decision to issue a preliminary injunction against Audible’s “Captions” program comes down to fair use, Audible may be in trouble. Over the course of a 90-minute hearing on Wednesday, federal judge Valerie Caproni appeared thoroughly unmoved by Audible’s defense of its Captions program, and highly skeptical that Audible’s plan to scroll … Read more
From IPKat: As has been recently widely reported (BBC, Financial Times and The Times), a number of patent applications have been filed designating a machine learning (ML) algorithm as an inventor. The aim of the applications appears to kickstart a conversation on how patent law could be changed to take account of AI inventorship. . … Read more
CASE = Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act From Medium: I got an email from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose work I admire and mostly support. In the email the EFF asked its supporters to call their representatives and tell them not to support the CASE act. Roughly, the CASE act would lay out a … Read more
From ArtForum: Following backlash from community groups, Brooklyn artist Beau Stanton has offered to make changes to the mural of American actress Ava Gardner he painted on the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex two years ago. The work, which features a profile of Gardner’s bust overlaid with palm trees and set against a blue-and-orange … Read more
From Rothman’s Roadmap to The Right of Publicity: In a report issued on April 23rd by the Register of Copyrights, the U.S. Copyright Office suggests that the lack of uniformity in state right of publicity laws may require Congressional intervention. The call for Congress to consider such a right arose in the course of a 107-page report … Read more
From Art Law Journal: When a buyer or collector purchases an original work of art, they would likely assume that, as the new owner, they have the right to do anything they want with it. They can destroy it, throw it in the garbage, rip it apart and use the pieces to create a unique … Read more
From IPKat: A few days ago the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) released the full text of its recent judgment concerning protection of digitized versions of public domain images. The IPKat is delighted to host, in two posts, the analysis provided by Tobias Lutzi (Research Fellow at the University of Cologne), and John Weitzmann(General Counsel at Wikimedia Deutschland e. … Read more
From The 1709 Blog: The French civil Supreme Court held on October 10, 2018 that the right to first publish a work belongs only to the author or his heirs, and that, therefore, a painting given in 1970 to famous musician Eric Clapton, and subsequently used on the cover of one of his most famous albums had … Read more
From OUPblog: Graffiti used to be thought of primarily as vandalism—as a furtive, illegal activity that defaced public property. It was seen as both a reflection of and contributor to urban decay. However, several recent high-profile lawsuits involving what is now called “exterior aerosol art” reveal just how far graffiti has advanced in cultural esteem … Read more
From Plagiarism Today: When graffiti artist Jason Williams, better known as REVOK, noticed some of his work appearing in an ad campaign for H&M, he did what many artists would do: He sent a cease and desist letter. H&M, rather than ceasing and desisting, responded by filing a lawsuit against Williamssaying that his work can not … Read more
From Plagiarism Today: [C]opyright is a legal regime that deals with unauthorized copying and sharing of a work while plagiarism is an ethical regime that covers attribution and how appropriately use the work of others. But, while the ethical vs. legal dichotomy is an important distinction, copyright stills ends up being the most common legal … Read more
From IPKat: Earlier this week the Florence Court of First Instance (Tribunale di Firenze) issued an important and interesting decision [not yet available], which has been widely reported by newspapers in Italy. . . . . The Avvocatura dello Stato, this being the body responsible for advising and representing the Italian state (including in legal proceedings), sued … Read more
From No Shelf Required: The Barnes Foundation . . . has recently made available for free download in the public domain nearly 1500 items in high resolution, including paintings by impressionist, post-impressionist, and early modern masters like Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Rousseau, Vincent Van Gogh, and Auguste Renoir. Currently, digital images of more than 2,000 works of art … Read more