Communications LawTop Commented
Lionel Ritchie sells homes?
With thoughts of copyright swimming in my head, I drove home from school somewhat bleary-eyed from the long day. Imagine my surprise when I saw this realty sign! Now to you, this might mean nothing, but these lyrics are instantly recognizable to a certain generation of listeners-80s music lovers! Have a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHONNcZbwDY Or is it? […]
Spider-Man 2 features a New York that is slightly inaccurate due to Copyright Law
Hi everyone, If anyone is interested in the world of superheroes and/or video games, I came across a unique example of copyright law in action with the release of the new Spider-Man 2 game for PS5. To give players the most accurate version of New York City possible, Insomniac Games included 47 special landmarks in […]
AI wins state fair art contest, annoys humans (and bureaucrats too!)
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/us-rejects-ai-copyright-for-famous-state-fair-winning-midjourney-art/ Why bother?! Was that not the first question that came to you after reading the piece? Why was the artist trying to obtain copyright registration in the first place? For possible monetary gains? To cause an outrage? To see if he can get away with it, thus gaining notoriety? Despite appearances, most of us […]
Possible AI Copyright Precedent for Music Lyrics?
I found this a cool read after discussing AI and copyrighted lyrics in class last week. These upcoming cases will lay the groundwork for how AI will be governed. Interestingly the parties involved here are no small players so it will be particularly interesting to see how the fair use argument plays out in court. […]
Microsoft’s Copilot Copyright Commitment
To encourage customers continue buying and using their Generative AI-based products, Microsoft is offering legal protection for AI copyright infringement challenges: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/09/07/copilot-copyright-commitment-ai-legal-concerns/ Microsoft says “if a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer and pay the amount of any […]
Righting Copywrongs & The Psychedelic Visions of George Clinton
I heard a wonderful interview on the drive home today. Tom Power of CBC was interviewing the legendary George Clinton. For those of you unfamiliar (which I hope isn’t many), George Clinton is the brilliant mind behind Parliament (go listen to Give Up the Funk), Funkadelic (go listen to Maggot Brain), and of course, Parliament-Funkadelic. […]
Perverse Incentives
Hi all, I wanted to share a podcast episode I listened to recently. The podcast, “The Daily” by the New York Times, discussed how Gilead (a pharmaceutical company) delayed the release of a new version of a drug to maximize its profits from existing patents. Gilead initially developed a drug for H.I.V. treatment which had […]
A Copyright of a Copyright
Hello! I found this interesting article regarding a copy copywriting another copy! Humans of Bombay – one of the many unauthorized spin-offs of Humans of New York – is suing People of India for copyright infringement. Humans of Bombay is claiming that their photo format (posting a photo of an individual with an excerpt of […]
Google & AI
Hi everyone, I stumbled upon this update about Google’s use of generative AI and thought a deeper dive into some of their new uses of AI would be interesting. As seen in this news article, Google has joined Microsoft, Adobe, and others in pledging to protect consumers who use their generative AI products from IP […]
Copyrightable Titles?
Looking at Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Corp Ltd [Francis] made me think of a few artists who could possibly challenge the general rule that there is no separate copyright in the title of the work, or rather, satisfy the exception. The quote regarding the exception to the rule: …provided that [the title] […]