Monthly Archives: August 2017

A Copyright Fable: Debunking The “Seven-Second Rule”

If you are a television news producer or documentary filmmaker, you have almost certainly faced this issue: You are putting together a story about a past event, and you want to make the point that this past event was once the subject of media coverage.  The easiest way to do that is to show some of that media coverage, for example, by including a short clip from the evening news or by panning across a newspaper article headline.… More

Defamation Claim Over “Slavery Wasn’t So Bad” Comment Revived by Fifth Circuit

What if people thought you said that “slavery wasn’t so bad?”  Would it harm your reputation?  Would it matter if the statement was contextualized with various caveats? According to the Fifth Circuit’s August 15, 2017 opinion in Block v. Tanenhaus, context is everything. The plaintiff, Walter Block, admits that he uttered the words: “slavery wasn’t so bad” while discussing the concept of “free association,” but argues that the New York Times took these words so badly out of context as to libel him.… More

A Recipe For Sanctions: “No reasonable copyright attorney … would have filed this complaint.”

If you are going to file a copyright infringement complaint based on a cookbook, beware. Copyrights in cookbooks are considered “thinner” than copyrights in many other types of literary works. There are several reasons for this, including:

  • Ingredients are considered facts, and therefore lists of ingredients are not copyrightable because facts are not “original works of authorship” under 17 U.S.C. § 102(a);…
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Who Owns The Copyright In The Photograph That Launched A Thousand Pleadings?

Over a decade ago, a lawyer snapped a photograph of the Indianapolis skyline, thus opening the gates to perhaps the most prolific flood of copyright litigation in the history of Indiana. Over the last five years or so, this image has been the basis for dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits against scads of defendants. However, on July 18, 2017, Southern District of Indiana Judge Richard Young cast doubt on whether the plaintiff in all those copyright cases actually ever owned the copyright in the first place.… More