New York SBDC Research Network

From the Library of Congress : The following is a guest post by Brad Greenberg, counsel in the U.S. Copyright Office, Office of Policy and International Affairs. Copyright law and new technologies have a long history, arguably dating back to the Gutenberg Press in the 15th century—more than 200 years before passage of the matriarch of copyright statutes, Britain’s Statute of Anne. New technologies provide new tools for creative expression and new vehicles for sharing those works. But sometimes they also disrupt existing copyright regimes—as seen with player pianos (late 1800s), radio (1920s and 1930s), cable television (1960s and 1970s), photocopying (1970s), home video cassette recorders (1970s and 1980s), and, of course, digital downloading and streaming technology (today). Emerging technologies continue to raise novel questions for copyright, particularly with a copyright system built around a law now more than forty years old. Is a poem written by a computer entitled to copyr...

From Hotel News Now : In the digital age, music is omnipresent and access is immediate. Hotel operators, eager to improve the guest experience and elevate their brands, are assessing and enhancing the presentation of music at their properties. But along with the rise of online streaming, satellite radio and curated playlists comes the risk of copyright infringement. The hospitality industry is an easy target for such claims. A hospitality establishment generally must have a license to legally play music to the public, regardless of the method of play, which may include hosting a live band in an on-site club or bar, streaming a playlist from an internet music service, or even playing music that you purchased and stored on your own iPod. This license requirement is both administered and enforced by performing rights organizations. There are three such organizations in the United States: Broadcast Music; The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; and The Society...

What is intellectual property and how do you protect your ideas? This course gives an overview of intellectual properties and explains how to protect them. Learn why you should protect your intellectual property. Explore the differences between patents, trademarks and copyrights and discover the process for filing for a patent or trademark and registering for a copyright. Text-based version of course Intellectual property worsheet for a small business

From petapixel : While browsing through my image search results on PIXSY (a new service that finds and invoices image theft for you), I was surprised to see my picture for sale on Etsy (above). My immediate reaction: 1. What an ugly mousepad. I’d never print my photo like this. 2. The seller seems to be stealing thousands of photos. How could Etsy let this happen? 3. Who had the nerve to think they could do this? So my picture was the party and I wasn't invited. I decided to see what I could do to notify the seller and contact Etsy about the problem. What did I find out? Etsy is selling thousands of stolen photos and doesn’t seem to care. Their system lets sellers hide their contact information, and Etsy will not disclose the identities of sellers stealing work even after being presented with clear evidence.

We all make mistakes. So let me refer you to number seven of the Dali Lama of Tibet’s “Eighteen Rules of Living,” where he gives us the following advice, “When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. And do not let your pride get in the way of taking those steps.” The main idea is that trying to hide a mistake, once you have become aware of it, by pretending it didn’t happen only perpetuates the goof up and inevitably leads to sinking deeper and deep into the quicksand of oops. There has to be a more than a million zillion possible copyright related snags and unintentional misunderstandings that lurk within the professional shadows just waiting to trip up even the most seasoned of freelancers. This article seeks to aid freelancers in avoiding a nasty stumble by illuminating the wiles of three of the more common snares that imperil the footsteps of the unwary. More from the ASBDC .

Intellectual Property and 3D printing don't get talked about often, mainly because 3D printing is still growing into a mainstream activity. But with 3D printing starting to become more accessible to businesses and homes, what kind of Intellectual Property issues might develop that your business will need to protect or analyze? Any blueprint of a 3D design can be protected through copyright. And if your business is a creative one where people are creating original 3D files, this is going to be a necessary step as an interesting direction in creating new media works. However, many existing blueprints already exist for specific 3D objects. If your business happens to print one of those designs that you didn't create yourself, you could face copyright infringement if you plan to profit off the objects. More from the ASBDC .

From BoingBoing : You'll remember Derek Khanna as the Republican House staffer who got fired for writing a paper that used careful objective research to argue for scaling back copyright. Now, Khanna is a fellow at R Street, where he's expanded on his early work with a paper called Guarding Against Abuse: Restoring Constitutional Copyright [PDF] , which tackles the question of copyright terms from a market-economics approach, citing everyone from Hayek to Posner to the American Conservative Union... Khanna recommends new copyright policy based on a House Republican Study Committee proposal in 2012. Under this proposal, there would be a free 12-year copyright term for all new works. Following that, there could be an elective 12-year renewal, at a cost of 1 percent of all U.S. revenue from the first 12 years. There would then be two elective 6-year renewals, at a cost of 3 percent and 5 percent of revenue, respectively. There is one final elective 10-year renewal period at a ...

If you operate a small business that provides internet access to your employees and customers, you may find a warning popping up on your monitors, alerting you to the fact that someone your system has illegally downloaded copyright-protected material. That warning is part of the newly implemented Copyright Alert System (CAS). The CAS, commonly referred to as the "six strikes program," is a joint undertaking between major content creators and Internet service providers, designed to reduce illegal downloading of digital material from peer-to-peer sites. Since the advent of peer-to-peer computing, companies that create digital content--movies, television shows, music--have faced challenges to both copyright and revenue. More HERE .

In addition to the US Copyright Office and the US Patent and Trademark Office , check out: Intellectual Property Infringement and Other Unfair Acts . Section 337 investigations conducted by the U.S. International Trade Commission most often involve claims regarding intellectual property rights, including allegations of patent infringement and trademark infringement by imported goods A list of Who’s Who in the U.S. Gov’t involved in IP Copyright: Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright (for students and teachers) The Copyright Society of the USA The Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States [Chart] Crash Course in Copyright from the University of Texas Copyright Navigator by Lionel S. Sobel

From Lesley Ellen Harris at copyrightlaws.com When it comes to copyright law, there is much misinformation. Take the test below to determine what you think is a copyright truth or myth (false). Truth or Myth (False)? T F 1. Only registered works are protected by copyright. T F 2. Online content is in the public domain unless it has a copyright notice. T F 3. In at least 164 countries that belong to the Berne [Copyright] Convention, copyright protection is automatic upon creation of the work. T F 4. In all countries, the duration of copyright is seventy years after the death of the author. T F 5. Fair use is intentionally ambiguous. T F 6. You can copy 3 percent of a work without obtaining copyright permission. T F 7. If a work does not have a copyright notice, ©, then you may freely use the work without obtaining permission. T F 8. All U.S. government works are in the public domain. T F 9. Fair use never applies in a for profit situation. T F 10. There is no such thing as an...

Here is Copyright Clearance Center’s new animated video concerning academic copyright . The video educates people, specifically faculty, about copyright laws when distributing materials to students, via course packs or readings uploaded online.

Copyright law has been long a fascination with me. And I spent over nine years selling comic books. So the news that Jack Kirby’s four children filed notices of copyright termination for 45 Marvel Comics characters fascinated me. Wait, you ask, who is Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994)? He was only the co-creator of such characters as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk in the 1960s for Marvel Comics, plus many more before and after that period for a variety of publishers. I even got to interview him once. But didn't Kirby sign a standard "work for hire" contract? That's a bit murky, but so was the "work for hire" provision before its 1976 revision . The LA Times has details . This is the same legal maneuver that the Siegel family employed to get back their half of the Superman copyright . Notices were sent to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, suggesting that the...

While there are a few obvious rules regarding the application of copyright law, reasonable people may disagree about some situations. I tend to take a more liberal approach, so I am recommending these more rigidly positioned entities. Copyright Clearance Center deals with different licensing packages. Ask Before You Act is hot on getting permission for copyrighted material, even things others might consider fair use. The site's put together by the Software & Information Industry Association , the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry, who run a vigorous anti-piracy campaign. Also, Deciding What Information Is Fair to Use .

Intellectual property, as defined by Wikipedia, is "a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights." Often times our clients who have created an original product or idea become confused when they want to protect their creation over whether they need to apply for a copyright, trademark, or patent. Below are explanations on the three types of protection and what is protected by each. Copyright is for original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. Copyrights are registered with the United States Copyright Office and have an expiration date. The length of the copyright depends on when the work was first created. Trademark covers words, names, symbols, and devices used to identify goods or services in commerce. Federal regulations are available through the United Stat...

Paul Rapp "is an intellectual-property lawyer with offices in Albany and Housatonic, Mass. He teaches art-and-entertainment law at Albany Law School, and regularly appears as part of the Copyright Forum on WAMC’s Vox Pop." He writes a regular column on intellectual property rights. His most recent column addresses the "Orphan Works” copyright and potential legislation regarding it. What is an orphan work? Paul cites Meredith L. Patterson's Radio Free Meredith where she uses this example about "your parent’s wedding pictures from 1955. You want to publish them? Guess what? The copyrights are probably owned by the photographer! Who was who? And is now where? You don’t know? Uh-oh." The proposed bill, H.R.5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008 , seeks to provide "limitation[s] on remedies in cases involving orphan works." Rapp wrote just before the actual legislation was introduced, but still got it right. "The legislation will...seek to rectify...

Earlier this week, I was asked by a client if they had image rights to a caricature that was purchased from a street vendor. After searching and searching for the answer, I called the U.S. Copyright Office. Their response was that the street artist owns the copyright and person who purchased the caricature has to get permission from the artist in order to use the print. Well then, how can the purchaser find the artist? Go wandering the streets of the same city in the hopes that they may run into him or her? Unlikely. Instead, they need to make a Good Faith Effort into locating the artist. The referenced link gives multiples locations to look for the original creator. Good Faith Effort does not mean that if the owner posts the caricature after trying to locate the artist and failing, they are free to use the image as wanted. For specific copyright laws, go to The United State Copyright Office . If you can't find the answer, do what I did, and call 202-707-5959.

Parody: copyright infringement or fair use? It depends. One interesting article that my colleague Amelia came across is "Who owns Barbie?; CORPORATIONS ARE SUING ARTISTS OVER POP CULTURE ICONS" by John Petrick, in the September 25, 2005 Sunday Record (Bergen, NJ) "Parody by its nature requires that you make reference to the original. So once something is determined a 'parody,' there's a lot of breathing room," says John Koegle, an attorney who represents artists. Nevertheless, some companies feel they should be able to control any depiction of their work in public life. And in some cases, they have prevailed. There was the 1978 case in which Disney sued an underground cartoonist who depicted Mickey Mouse engaged in various adult behaviors . While the artist argued it was clearly parody - or "fair use" under the law - the court didn't buy it and ruled the images were copyright infringement. In 1994, on the other hand, 2 Live Crew was sued fo...

The purpose of copyright is right in the U.S. Constitution, Section 8 of Article 1: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries Notice a few things: -the words copyright, patent or trademark are never used -the word "limited" is specified -the exclusive Right is designed to promote progress Some folks either do not understand this or choose to ignore it. An example from the workshop I attended is the Boston Globe reprinting the Declaration of Independence last year. At the end, it says (c)2005 Boston Globe. Interesting because the Declaration is not copyrightable! That's true on two fronts, actually: 1) material printed by the federal government (or what would become same) are not copyrightable - so go ahead, steal away from the Census Bureau, e.g., and 2) even if it HAD been copyrighted, the item by now would have lapsed into the public domain....

I attended a workshop last month sponsored by the Capital District Library Council, entitled "Copyright and Digitization for Libraries, Archives, and Museums" by Peter B. Hirtle, the Intellectual Property Officer at the Cornell University Library. Fascinating stuff, copyright in the digital age. One of things Mr. Hirtle always makes clear is something we librarians at the Research Network try to make clear when we address one of your copyright, patent, trademark or similar questions, which is what he calls IANAL - I Am Not A Lawyer. For many of the issues, the issues are not black and white, which leads to litigation. Librarians, as users of protected material, have a certain awareness of their obligations. One of the things I DID NOT KNOW is how digitization makes US, the librarians, the users. Whereas when someone goes to the library and uses the copier, or even uses the librarian as his or her agent, the patron is the user. So you'll be seeing some additional verbiage ...