Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Lola is hoping you were able to enjoy the sunshine this holiday weekend as much as she did.
Welcome to the Multiverse: Derivative Works
Copyright ownership is often referred to as a “bundle of rights.” In other words, when you own the copyright on a particular artistic work, you not only own the right to copy and sell the work, but also the right to create derivative works (modifications or new expressions, based on the original), perform the work … Read more
Welcome to the World, Lily!
We are so pleased to congratulate our Attorney, Sam and his wife, Meredith on welcoming the newest member of the OG + S Family. Welcome to the world Lillian Mae! Lily was born on August 9 at 3:19 AM weighing in at 7 lb 6 oz and measuring at 20 inches long. We couldn’t ask … Read more
Tiktok Creators Making Major Moves In the Copyright World
Late last month, a little clock-app and a handful of online creators made moves that are likely to permanently alter the existing copyright landscape. That’s right, Tiktok, an app with over 689 million active monthly users, and creators like Keara Wilson (the dancer who choreographed the insanely viral Savage Challenge dance to the Megan Thee … Read more
Legal Names vs. Trade Names or “Samuel J. Kavalier DBA Sam”
I called the customer service line for my utility provider the other day and had a moment of confusion when I was addressed as “Samuel J. Kavalier.” The name I heard was not “Sam,” the name by which friends and family have known me for as long as I can remember, and the name I … Read more
Cyberpunk 2077 – A Good Lesson in Copyright vs. Trademark
Cyberpunk 2077 is the 2020\2021 equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever: Protracted development timeline, multiple delays, and upon eventual release – mixed reviews. Although Cyberpunk certainly faired much better than Nukem did from a gameplay and critical reception standpoint – the legal fallout experienced by CD Projekt (developer of Cyberpunk) has been decidedly much worse. Not … Read more
Narrow Auto-Dialing Definition Broadens Text
NARROW AUTO-DIALING DEFINITION BROADENS TEXT I wrote this post last year, but the US Supreme Court has been busy since then addressing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In April of 2021, they unanimously overturned the Ninth Circuit’s broad interpretation of an autodialer in Facebook v. Duguin. The opinion states that a notification system that … Read more
Education Software Beware: Updates to Illinois SOPPA Law
On July 1st, the threshold requirements ramped up for Illinois schools and the software vendors that provide them services under the Illinois Student Online Personal Privacy Act (SOPPA). Most of the new requirements fall within the purview of the schools, such as maintaining a publicly available list of all software vendors providing software to … Read more
A Cut of What?
Royalties, the Net v. Gross Profit Distinction, and Dolly Parton. Part 3 In last week’s installment we defined both net and gross profits and established that both measurements are interconnected. Determining the gross profit is an essential steppingstone in finding the net profit. This final installment will have a startingly lack of Dolly Parton fun … Read more
A Cut of What?
Royalties, the Net v. Gross Profit Distinction, and Dolly Parton. Part 2 Welcome back to the Dolly Parton party. Last week we picked up where we left our heroes last week – struggling with the tension between artistic collaboration and the need to delineate legal ownership. This second installment deals with the potential subjectivity of … Read more