Monthly Archives: March 2013

A Far Cry from the Same Injury: Judge Rebuffs Class Action Against Copyright “Settlement Fraud”

Ever since the entertainment industry figured out how to use IP addresses to bring copyright infringement lawsuits against illegal downloaders, defendants and critics have been calling these plaintiffs “trolls”.  But name-calling wasn’t enough  for Dmitriy Shirokov.  He wanted payback, and brought a class action lawsuit against his persecutors.  However, according to an order issued earlier this week by Judge George O’Toole of the Federal District Court for Massachusetts,… More

Copyright Owners Left Legally Jet Lagged? – The Supreme Court Embraces the International Exhaustion Doctrine

A multi-year legal drama over the proper scope of certain sections of the U.S. Copyright Act, as applied to goods made and first sold outside the United States, has finally come to an end.  In a 6-3 decision issued yesterday, with dissents from Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Scalia (strange bedfellows in many regards, judicially speaking), the Supreme Court, in the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons,… More

Dot Com Disclosures 2.0: FTC Updates Online Disclosure Guidelines to Address Changes in Digital Advertising

Nearly thirteen years after issuing guidelines governing online advertising, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently updated its so-called Dot Com Disclosures to take account of the many changes to the online world that have occurred over those intervening years.  Whereas most digital advertising thirteen years ago was popping up or scrolling across our computer screens, today’s digital advertising is far more integrated into our online culture—whether as email offers to invitation-only flash sales (“50% off;… More

Superheroes of Copyright: When Do Fictional Characters Enjoy Copyright Protection?

Several recent cases have highlighted the interesting issue of whether and when fictional characters – as distinct from the works they inhabit – are subject to copyright protection.  Over the years, courts have developed two main tests for determining whether characters are worthy of copyright protection.  First, as Judge Hand pointed out in the 1930 case Nichols v. Universal, stock characters are free for anyone to use,… More