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You’ve been named a defendant in a lawsuit. You’ve received a piece of paper entitled “Complaint.” As you read through the numbered paragraphs setting forth legal jargon and other information, you ultimately recognize that you have been sued for copyright infringement. The question becomes what to do next.
You have created a copyright protectable work and affixed it in a tangible form, and as such, you have presumably acquired protectable common law copyright rights. One step further, you decide to file for registration with the United States Copyright Office in order to receive all the benefits that are inherent to such a registration. You even use the copyright registration symbol © on your work to notify others that you claim ownership of the copyright. However, as a copyright owner, what else are you doing, or should you be doing, with your copyright?
As ironic as it may sound, a trial lawyer versed in copyright law may be the exact representation needed in order to avoid copyright litigation. The fact of the matter is that if you are looking to enforce your copyright, there may be alternatives to doing so short of litigation. Inherent in these opportunities are benefits that may include cost savings, avoidance of risk, and other perks. Likewise, should you be threatened with a lawsuit, a copyright lawyer may be able to identify the defenses necessary early on to avoid copyright litigation. Moreover, if you have already been named a defendant in a copyright lawsuit, a trial attorney with particular knowledge of copyright law may be able to shorten the litigation, identify possible exit strategies, or ultimately provide the ability to resolve the litigation in your favor.
Because of the Internet, copyright infringement is rampant. Authors of original works – whether they are artist, authors or musicians – fight a nearly endless battle to protect their copyright protected works online.
Our copyright lawyers understand, from both a practical and technical point of view, how to protect works protected by registered copyright from online copyright infringement. For more information, contact one of our copyright attorneys at 866-936-7447 (toll free).
The last thing you need is to find yourself on the receiving end of a copyright infringement threat letter or, worse, a copyright infringement lawsuit.
The primary defense to copyright infringement is “fair use” – a doctrine under copyright law which allows you to republish someone else’s copyright protected work without permission. Typically, your use of the copyright protected work must be “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research.” Fair use applies to all copyright works including books, articles, art work, music, web pages and other copyright forms.
A recent New York Supreme Court ruling has required Google to reveal the IP address and email address of an anonymous blogger charged with Internet defamation. The case involved anonymous Blogger.com postings about New York resident Liskula Cohen, a Canadian-born model who has appeared in popular fashion magazines. Cohen’s attorney alleges that the postings constitute online defamation and he requested that any information in the hands of Google identifying the anonymous blogger be turned over to the Plaintiff’s counsel.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an Act which contains provisions that affords internet service providers a safe haven from liability for contributory copyright infringement from user-generated content on web sites. In order to take advantage of this safe harbor from liability, an internet service provider must adopt a copyright infringement policy and register with the copyright office to accept a notice of alleged copyright infringements and to expeditiously remove the identified copyrighted material from its web site servers.
The family of Jerry Siegel has won an important victory in their battle for past-due royalties for Siegel’s contribution to the Superman comic book series. Siegel, who with co-creator Joe Shuster created the Superman character in 1938, lost a 1974 court decision, which held that Siegel had signed his rights to the character away to DC Comics’ predecessor Detective Comics.
The United States Copyright Office has published an interim rule that allows for the elevation of applications that have been pending for six months or more to “special handling” status. Since the switch to eCO, the electronic Copyright Office filing system, the Copyright Office has been backlogged and notoriously slow in evaluating copyright registration applications. Due to this delay, many copyright holders have had to wait long periods of time to receive their registration certificates, which is a prerequisite to the filing of a copyright infringement suit in many jurisdictions.
Mary Roach has a great post at CircleID on an area that we have talked about extensively, namely, copyright takedowns under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mary’s post covers the more specific strategy of sending takedown notices to search engine providers, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, to effectively reduce access to stolen creative materials.
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