Happy Birthday, You’ve Been Sued I’ve found that it often comes as a surprise that somebody owns the rights to the “Happy Birthday” song (its complete name is “Happy Birthday To You.”) The fact that a part of our common cultural heritage – and an element of countless fond memories – is a piece of intellectual property that is under the control of a multinational corporation, Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm of the Warner Music Group, can seem like one of the more absurd twists of IP law. Nonetheless, Warner claims to own the rights, and it generates annual licensing fees…
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Archives: Entertainment Law
Internet Meme Copyright & Trademark Battle
May 16, 2013
Internet Meme Copyright & Trademark Battle The owners of two popular Internet memes, Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat, have sued Warner Brothers (“WB”) and 5th Cell Media (“5th”) for unauthorized use of their memes in WB and 5th’s video game series known as Scribblenauts. Memes are all over the internet – I’ll bet there are some on your Facebook timeline right now – so why are they suing over this particular use? Who can and can’t use a meme, and who needs permission to do so?
Buffy the Zombie Trademark Slayer
April 9, 2013
Buffy the Zombie Trademark Slayer I recently finished an extremely important project: rewatching all 144 glorious episodes of the acclaimed late 90s/early 2000s TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” This got me thinking about how a company protects its trademarks when the main product (in this case, a TV show) is no longer being produced, and the related – and somewhat appropriate – topic of “zombie” trademarks. If you read the whole post, I’ll even tell you my three favorite episodes.
The Supreme Court’s Landmark First User Copyright Decision
March 27, 2013
The Supreme Court’s Landmark First User Copyright Decision Last week the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark copyright ruling in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley (link goes to a PDF of the full decision). The case concerned the “First Sale” Doctrine, which holds that once a consumer lawfully purchases a copyrighted good, the distribution rights embodied in the copyright are exhausted, and the owner of the product has the right to sell or otherwise dispose of that individual good as he or she pleases. To put it another way, if I buy a copy of Baseball Prospectus 2013 from Amazon, read…
