On Saturday, April 3, 2010, the Arts, Communications, Entertainment & Sports (“ACES”) Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan is co-hosting with the Right to Write Fund, in association with the Stanford Fair Use Project and Grand Valley State University, a lecture on copyright law basics for writers followed by a panel discussion on the recent fair use case Rowling v. RDR Books.  Joining the panel discussion will be Rodger Rapport, owner of RDR Books, and Julie Ahrens, Assistant Director of the Stanford Fair Use Project.  The program will run from approximately 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the DeVos Center, 401 West Fulton, Lecture Hall GV, Grand Rapids, MI 49504.

The Seminar will provide information and …read more

It has become a matter of course that any commercial publication is going to have a copyright notice slapped on it by the publisher regardless of the actual copyrightability of the material.  I first noticed this when perusing a book store several years ago and came across a published copy of Congress’s 9/11 Commission Report.  The Report is non-copyrightable as a government work.  In this case, a publisher republished the Report in its entirety in book form, without adding any additional material, but nevertheless placed a copyright notice on the book in the publisher’s name.  Over the years, I’ve notice copyright notices on all manner of materials otherwise devoid of copyrightable content, including some deposition transcripts.

The Exclusive Rights …read more

NPR had a radio story the other day on the Google Books settlement and the privacy concerns raised by authors and publishers.  It’s short but does a great job of covering the the issue.

For those that don’t know, Google has been working on a project to scan millions of library books and put them online.  Essentially, doing for books what Google has already done for the Internet; making them searchable and accessible.  The project is the subject of a copyright lawsuit filed by authors and publishers and a tentative settlement is waiting approval from the judge (which is likely to come this fall).  The problem for some authors and publishers, however, is that the settlement covers the copyright …read more

On Wednesday, August 12, 2009, I’ll be presenting a copyright law lecture for musician and composers through VSA Arts of Michigan at the Russell St. Bazaar in Detroit (7500 Chrysler, Detroit, MI 48211) from 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.  The lecture will cover copyright law basics with a focus on protecting and exploiting musical works.  The fee is $10 (scholarships are available for artists with disabilities).  A more detailed description of the program can be found here.  For more information about this program contact the VSAMI office at 313-832-3303 or email at info@vsami.org.

–Matt

Last weekend, I participated in a discussion on the top ten legal mistakes of filmmakers (and how to avoid them) at CBS Radio’s Michigan Makes Movies Expo.  The event, and the lecture, were both well attended.

One mistake that made our top ten list had to do with misconceptions about the Fair Use Doctrine in copyright law.  Here’s some of what was discussed:

Background.  Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law, incorporated in Section 107 of the Copyright Act, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the copyright owner, such as use for scholarship or review or criticism or parody or news reporting (to name a few).  In determining whether …read more