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

“A 12-person jury deliberated six hours over two days in January before awarding [the plaintiff] $50,000 in compensatory damages.  The verdict made him the first plaintiff awarded damages in a libel suit against a blogger….The case is one of at least 50 similar suits filed in the past several years.” — Kansas City Daily News, October 26, 2006

“Social media – always fun until someone gets sued.” — FP Legal Post, March 16, 2009

What are blogs, wikis, and online forums?

Blogs, wikis, and online forums are part of the Web 2.0 social media explosion that are changing the way we do business and work with each other. Web 2.0 represents one of the greatest opportunities of our lifetime to share ideas and …read more

You probably already knew that a software license is a contract between an owner of computer software and an end user of that computer software – sometimes called an End User License Agreement or “EULA” – that specifies the scope of the rights granted by the owner to the user.  But what you may not know is the meaning behind the many different types of software and licenses out there.  Here are just a few examples of the types of software and licenses typically used:

• “Free software” or “open source software” is software which can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction.  “Free” in this sense, however, doesn’t mean “gratis” but rather “free to do with …read more
  

If you are at all interested in tech gadgets, you have by now heard of Amazon’s Kindle, a devise for reading electronic books (or e-books).  The …read more