Legal minds differ on whether The Bluebook is subject to copyright protection

Feb 1, 2015 3:40 AM CST

Beastie Boys seek $2.4M from Monster Energy to cover legal fees in copyright case

Lawyers for the hip-hop group Beastie Boys have asked a federal judge to make Monster Energy Company drink pay millions in legal fees in a copyright case, saying the defendant’s tactics before, during and after trial unnecessarily ran their legal fees beyond the $1.7 million jury award, the Associated Press…

Jan 20, 2015 12:47 PM CST

Suit challenges Rightscorp’s ticketing method of policing infringers; are ISPs liable?

A company that uses crawler technology to monitor file-sharing networks and identify illegal downloaders is facing a lawsuit claiming its agents are using illegal debt collection methods to collect from copyright infringers. The would-be class action suit against Rightscorp Inc. claims its agents use illegal robocalling and misleading notices to…

Dec 1, 2014 10:47 AM CST

Rightscorp fights Internet piracy by ‘ticketing’ copyright infringers

Dec 1, 2014 1:50 AM CST

Federal judge says lawyer must pay $87K for filing ‘objectively baseless’ suit over Web news posts

A California lawyer has been ordered to pay $87,000 in attorney fees for his litigation opponents because he pursued an “objectively baseless” copyright claim in a federal lawsuit over articles about him that were posted by an Internet news aggregator. Dionne Choyce should have realized, after his initial lawsuit against…

Nov 5, 2014 1:05 PM CST

Does lights out loom for Aereo? Federal judge nixes cable license, leaves door open on DVR service

Down but not yet out following an adverse U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, Aereo is still trying to find a way to provide free TV shows to viewers over the Internet without violating federal copyright law. The nation’s top court in June nixed free real-time Internet streaming of…

Oct 24, 2014 1:00 PM CDT

Google threatened with $100M suit over hacked celebrity photos

A demand letter has been sent to Google accusing the company of failing to remove from its index photos taken from celebrities’ hacked iCloud accounts. The letter, sent on Wednesday by lawyer Martin D. Singer, threatens a $100 million lawsuit, according to Hollywood Esq. Singer writes that since the photos…

Oct 2, 2014 2:14 PM CDT

Satellite radio services dealt a blow when judge rules for Turtles members in copyright dispute

A federal judge in California has ruled for two founding members of the Turtles music group in a copyright battle with the satellite radio service Sirius XM Radio. U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez of Los Angeles has ruled that Sirius infringed the band members’ copyrights under California law when it…

Sep 24, 2014 10:10 AM CDT

How Patrice Perkins creatively serves her creative clients

Photo of Patrice Perkins by Wayne Slezak. Some lawyers might shy away from associating themselves with the word hustle. Patrice Perkins is not one of them. Her Chicago solo practice focuses on contracts and intellectual property work for creative entrepreneurs. With a firm called Creative Genius Law and a clientele…

Sep 4, 2014 8:30 AM CDT

Monkey selfies do not qualify for copyright protection, US regulators say

Ape rights will have to wait until the day they take over the Earth, like in Planet of the Apes. The Telegraph reported Thursday that the U.S. Copyright Office announced that it will not issue copyrights to any picture taken by a nonhuman. The Copyright Office issued updated rules and…

Aug 22, 2014 8:12 PM CDT

Gadfly buys website in DA’s name after he lets registration expire

A Louisiana district attorney set up a website in his name when he was campaigning for election, then let the registration expire after he won a second term in office. Now an unidentified gadfly has purchased the domain name formerly used by District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla and is using it…

Aug 12, 2014 4:55 PM CDT

Who owns the copyright to monkey’s selfie? Wikimedia denies photographer’s takedown request

A photographer does not own the copyright to selfies taken by a macaque monkey that picked up the photographer’s unattended camera and began snapping pictures, Wikimedia asserts in its first ever transparency report. British nature photographer David Slater contends he owns the copyright to the photos taken during his three-day…

Aug 7, 2014 2:22 PM CDT

Northwestern sues ex-employee, says author took book she was paid to write on infamous murder case

A former part-time employee and published author has been sued by Northwestern University for copyright infringement. Northwestern contends in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that Nina Barrett was paid, while working on a library fellowship, to write about a notorious 1924 murder by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and…

Jul 24, 2014 8:25 PM CDT

YouTube restores video of protest at eviction lawyer’s seminar

A California lawyer known for his work for landlords seeking to cash in on San Francisco’s hot real estate market was interrupted by protesters at a 2014 seminar on eviction law. After a two-minute video of the incident was posted on YouTube, Daniel Bornstein made a takedown demand under the…

Jul 22, 2014 9:50 PM CDT

Imprisoned ex-dictator Manuel Noriega sues over use of his persona in ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops II’

Activision Blizzard Inc. may have thought imprisoned former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was libel-proof. But that doesn’t mean the California-based company gets to profit from using his persona as “a kidnapper, murderer and enemy of the state” in its popular “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” video game without his…

Jul 16, 2014 5:05 PM CDT