Pokemon Case Settled
I was reading recent news update from earlier this month and saw that Pokemon has settled its lawsuit against an alleged copycat mobile game maker Pocket Monster: Remake. In September, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court ruled in favour of The Pokémon Company, ordering the defendants to pay ¥107m ($15m) for unfair competition. This is still […]
HOW ITALY (AND EUROPE) ATTEMPTED TO TRADEMARK ITS FOOD

Food is sacred to Italians: they do not eat to live, they live to eat. That is why Italian food is so special. Apart from ontological considerations, the Italian cuisine market was estimated to be valued at 353 billion Canadian Dollars[1]. Out of this massive number, only 123 billion Canadian Dollars are represented by internal market production or […]
Week 12 Spring 2025 – Draft Slides

‘Ghiblifying’ and Copyright

If like me, you’ve been spending a little too much time on social media in the past week, you’ve probably come across the new trend of using ChatGPT to ‘Ghiblify’ a photo. Since OpenAI’s new image-generation tools were launched last week, users have been prompting ChatGPT to recreate their photos in ‘Studio Ghibli style’. Studio […]
Copyright Law in Las Vegas?

This past weekend, I was in Las Vegas for a short trip, and while I should have been focused on not losing all my money to the slot machines, I found myself fixated on something else entirely: did Paris Las Vegas or New York New York have to pay licensing fees to create those massive […]
Amazon Prime Video uses AI to bring epic scenes to life in “House of David”

I stumbled upon this article and video over the weekend and thought it was interesting and relevant to our discussions in class. In the video, creator and co-show runner of Amazon Prime Video’s House of David, Jon Erwin, discusses how the studio used AI technology in 73 VFX shots (out of 850 total!) for the […]
Week 11 Spring 2025 – Video & Slides

Murals, Graffiti, and the Law: Art on the Edge

Introduction Street art contributes significantly to the cultural and visual identity of urban landscapes. It encompasses a wide range of works. This paper will focus on two types of street art: murals and graffiti. While the first is typically commissioned or created with the permission of the property owner, city, or organization, the latter is often unauthorized and done without permission, making it a […]
Week 10 Spring 2025 – Video & Slides

Week 9 Spring 2025 – Video & Slides

Wait…They Trademarked What?

Since we’ll be diving into trademarks soon, I thought this article would be a fun way to get everyone in the right mindset! From trademarked colours to sounds to even smells, people have tried to claim ownership over some strange things. Here is a list of the weirdest trademarks out there: https://bestlifeonline.com/surprising-copyright Let me know […]
News of the Weeks – Spring 2025 Vol. 2

Week 8 Spring 2025 – Video & Slides

Activating Learning Mode

Activating Learning Mode With all the discussion around AI and the ability to copyright, I found this a very interesting clip. As we have learned, AI doesn’t really have the ability to learn at this point. It scrubs the internet for information that is already posted and then compiles it and joins it in a […]
Week 7 Spring 2025 – Video & Slides
