Copyright insights on ownership structure, registration, licensing, enforcement, and recurring risk issues.
Artificial intelligence is producing text, images, music, code, and video at an unprecedented scale, and copyright law has not caught up. Two foundational questions are in active litigation across the federal courts. First, can a work generated by AI be copyrighted, and if so, who is the author?
Read MoreCopyright is a bundle of exclusive rights. Reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, and the right to create derivative works are all separate sticks in the bundle, and each can be transferred, licensed, or retained independently.
Read MoreCopyright expires. Every copyrighted work eventually enters the public domain, where anyone can use it without permission, without a license, and without paying royalties. But "eventually" can mean very different things depending on when the work was created, whether it was published, who created it, and whether the copyright owner followed the formalities that older law required.
Read MoreA copyright owner who never licenses the work owns an asset that produces no revenue. A copyright owner who licenses without proper documentation may discover that the licensee claims broader rights than the owner intended to grant, or that the license is unenforceable, or that the owner inadvertently transferred ownership instead of granting permission.
Read MoreCopyright belongs to the person who creates the work. 17 U.S.C. § 201(a). That default rule governs every photograph, every line of code, every design, and every written document produced by anyone, anywhere, unless an exception applies. For businesses, the most important exception is the work-for-hire doctrine, which vests copyright in the employer or commissioning party rather than in the individual who created the work.
Read MoreArchitects, owners and developers can benefit from understanding the role that intellectual property law plays in protecting architectural plans and building designs. Copyright law lends itself more to the types of protections that architects would tend to seek, while trademark law is generally more applicable to building or business owners.
Read MoreCopyright exists the moment an original work is fixed in a tangible medium. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is voluntary. But the remedies available in an infringement suit depend almost entirely on whether the owner registered, and when.
Read MoreAn author who assigns a copyright or grants an exclusive license often does so early in the work's life, before the work's value is known. A songwriter signs a publishing deal for a modest advance. A novelist assigns all rights to a publisher for a royalty that seems reasonable at the time.
Read MoreA DMCA takedown notice is the most commonly used copyright enforcement tool on the Internet. Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright owner who finds infringing material on a website or platform can send a written notice to the service provider's designated agent, and the provider must expeditiously remove or disable access to the material.
Read MoreFair use is the most commonly invoked and most commonly misunderstood defense in copyright law. Under 17 U.S.C. § 107, the fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research is not infringement.
Read MoreEvery recorded song involves two separate copyrights. One protects the musical composition, the notes, melody, harmony, rhythm, and lyrics. Another protects the sound recording, the specific recorded performance of that composition. Different people typically own each copyright, and different rules govern how each can be used, licensed, and enforced.
Read MoreA copyright infringement claim requires proof of two things. First, the plaintiff must own a valid copyright in the work. Second, the defendant must have copied protectable elements of that work. Both elements must be established before a court reaches the question of remedies, and both involve layers of analysis that determine whether a claim survives a motion to dismiss, survives summary judgment, and ultimately prevails at trial.
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