Copyright law can be a bit convoluted, but occasionally, the legislature does things that actually simplify life. One thing they did was to make all the copyrights expire on December 31 rather than throughout the year. The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act gave works published or registered before 1978 a 95-year term, expiring on January … Read more
Today’s post revisits something discussed several years ago on this blog: fair use. If you are looking for background or further reading, check out Erin’s posts here, here, and here, as well as Collin’s post here. As a quick TL;DR to those previous posts, fair use is a defense to copyright infringement claims for a … Read more
Christmas and all of its “Christmas magic” is so ingrained in American culture, it can tempting to assume that the holiday is immune from IP considerations. For those who have been reading our blog for a while, you know that this is not the case (shameless plug for my post from last year on a … Read more
Are you a musical artist looking to protect your work? If you’ve ever sought copyright protection of your songs before 2021, you may remember feeling the burn of paying to register each song individually. However, there was news early last year from the Copyright Office which can help ease the financial burden of protecting your … Read more
Below is an actual question that I have seen on Reddit, received on Facebook, and chosen not to answer on forums. But now is the time to unravel some copyright questions. I found a crochet pattern, and I hate it. I had to re write it in different terms to understand it. How much would … Read more
For creative people, copyright is a powerful concept. US law gives authors of fixed works with some element of creativity rights over their own creations, be they literary works, works of visual art, etc. This right allows the authors of these works to decide who is allowed to copy their work, and how, amongst … Read more
Last week I talked about how clients say they don’t know the difference between trademarks and copyrights. Then I didn’t explain what it was. I am here to solve that issue. A trademark is something that customers use to help with things like: “Hey, I bought that thingy before, and I liked it. I want … Read more
At the first meeting with a potential client, they often (somewhat shamefacedly) say, “I’m not really sure if I need a trademark or copyright or something else. I guess that I don’t know the difference.” They say it like of course, they should know the difference. Why wouldn’t they know? I mean everyone but them … Read more
Welcome back to the world of Secured Transactions and IP! A quick refresher from last week (link last week’s post?): lenders engage in “secured transactions” with a borrower who has put up collateral against that loan which has become enforceable. The lender can possess and sell that collateral if the borrower defaults should that lender … Read more
Working for a firm that does a high volume of work with intellectual property allows for deeper dives into IP-related issues. One example involves situations where a lender has loaned money to a person with collateral for that loan being an item of intellectual property, such as an interest in a trademark. Whoa! Can a … Read more