Duration and Renewal
Under the present copyright act, the typical duration of a copyright is the life of the author, plus 70 years (works for hire and anonymous works endure for 120 years from creation or 95 years from publication, whichever is shorter). Section 302(a), (c). Unfortunately, it gets a little more complicated for works fixed [...]
Contributory and Vicarious Liability
The Supreme Court has addressed the problem of second party liability in a series of cases that go back to the 1980’s with Sony. In that case, the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether a neutral technology such as the VCR, with substantial non-infringing uses, could survive a copyright infringement lawsuit, and [...]
Service of Process
If you are litigating in Maryland, the Maryland Rules will govern how you are required to effect service of process for your initial pleadings. Service of Process is a jurisdictional matter; failure to achieve effective service of process will divest the court of jurisdiction to hear your case. The Maryland Rules for service [...]
Work for Hire
Section 101 provides a definition for work for hire: “(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as [...]
Intel Mac and Parallels
The Intel Macs released by Apple in 2006 support the operation of a Windows XP SP2 or Vista workstation running virtually, or as an alternate boot-up operating system through Boot Camp (which now ships with OSX 10.5). Parallels and VMWare Fusion are two virtualization software packages that are designed for OSX and are generally [...]
Authorship
An “author” is not defined by the Act. However, the implication of the Act is that an author is a human that is able to bring about a creative work that can be protected by the Act. This definition also implies that a non-human author, for example, a computer program, could not create [...]
Fixation Issues
When is a thing “fixed” for purposes of the copyright act? Section 101 provides a definition of “fixed:” when a work is embodied in an embodiment that is “sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.”
Within the context [...]
Copyright Basics
17 U.S.C. et. seq. is the statutory scheme the implements the constitutional protection of intellectual property in Article I section 8 clause 8: “[t]o 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.” Copyright creates exclusive ownership [...]
Shemer Bar Prep
Shemer Bar prep for Baltimore starts May 28 for the July 2008 bar exam. Materials are available for pickup at the law school on May 14 in the afternoon in the student break area on the second floor of the law school. July’s exam is just around the corner!