Archive for the ‘public perofmance’ category

Cablevision: How It and Its Doctrines Have Fared Around the World

April 8th, 2013

The annual Fordham IP law conference is, in my view, second to none. This year”s Fordham’s 21st Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law and Policy was sensational. Great program and fabulous international faculty. IPkat reported on some of the sessions.

On Friday, I was on a panel Performance Rights in Copyright: Public, Private or “Digital”? The speakers and panelists with me were Profs. Tyler Ochoa (Santa Clara U. School of Law) and Jane Ginsburg (Columbia), David Ellen (GC Cablevision), Dr. Silke von Lewinski (Max Planck Institute for IP) and Janet Cullum (Cooley). It was a very timely panel, especially given the recent release of the opinion in WNET, Thirteen v. Aereo, Inc 2013 WL 1285591 (2nd.Cir.Apr, 1, 2013). Judge Chin who delivered the powerful dissent in the Aereo case was in the audience.

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, public perofmance

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Aereo legal for now in New York

April 2nd, 2013

The Second Circuit released an important opinion yesterday ruling that Aereo’s New York based Internet streaming service does not infringe the US public performance right. In WNET, Thirteen v. Aereo, Inc 2013 WL 1285591 (2nd.Cir.Apr, 1, 2013), by a two to one majority, the Court ruled that the technical architecture of the service which is based on “renting” mini-antennas and transcoders to members of the public that are used to stream over the air live broadcasts renders the service non-infringing.

Central to the Court’s ruling was it prior decision in the Cablevision case which according to the Court established the following: .

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, public perofmance

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ivi copyright injunction in the public interest says US Appeals Court

August 28th, 2012

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in the WPIX, INC., v ivi INC. 2012 WL 3645304, (2nd.Cir.Aug. 27, 2012) case yesterday. It dismissed ivi’s appeal from a preliminary injunction prohibiting Ivi from continuing to stream television programming over the Internet.

ivi’s defense was that it was a cable system entitled to a compulsory license under § 111 of the US Copyright Act. The US Second Circuit reviewed the statute’s legislative history, development, and purpose which indicated that Congress did not intend for § 111 licenses to extend to Internet retransmissions. This was consistent with the view of US Copyright Office’s interpretation of § 111 that Internet retransmission services do not constitute cable systems under § 111. The Court accordingly concluded that “the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case.”

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, infringment, public perofmance

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Understanding Flava Works v myVidster: does inline linking infringe copyright?

August 8th, 2012

Last week, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals released its opinion in the  Flava Works, Inc, v Gunter dba myVidster 2012 WL 3124826 (7th.Cir. Aug 2, 2012) case. The central issue was whether Flava Works, the owner of copyrights in videos, was entitled to a preliminary injunction against the social video bookmarking service myVidster. The injunction which had been granted by the District Court was vacated.

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Posted in communication to the public, contributory infringement, Copyright, hosting liability, hyperlinking liability, infringment, ISP Liability, making available right, public perofmance, WIPO Treaties

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Supreme Court decisions to affect future Copyright Board cases

July 23rd, 2012

The five copyright decisions released by the Supreme Court of Canada just over a week ago are bound to influence copyright cases for a long time. Nowhere is this more likely than in future proceedings before the Copyright Board which was the source of all of the appeals in the first instance.

The Supreme Court decisions will clearly be relevant in follow on tariffs to those that were the subject of the appeals such as SOCAN Tariff 22.A (online music services) and Tariff 22G (game sites) and the Access Copyright Educational Institutions tariff.

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, public perofmance

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The Supreme Court rules on copyright

July 12th, 2012

Earlier today, the Supreme Court released reasons in the five copyright appeals heard back to back on December 6 and 7, 2011 in the following cases:[i]

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, Fair Dealing, infringment, ISP Liability, making available right, public perofmance

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Redefining copyright in the digital era

January 29th, 2012

Here is a copy of the article with the above title published in the January  20, 2012 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

In early December, copyright lawyers from across the country descended on the Supreme Court to participate in a cluster of cases that may redefine the scope of copyright in the digital era.

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, Fair Dealing, infringment, intellectual property, public perofmance

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ASCAP case highlights differences in Canadian and US copyright law (updated)

October 4th, 2011

The influential US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in ASCAP v RealNetworks that a download of a musical work is not a public performance under the US Copyright Act. According to the Court downloads of musical works are not musical performances that are contemporaneously perceived by the listener.

“They are simply transfers of electronic files containing digital copies from an on-line server to a local hard drive. The downloaded songs are not performed in any perceptible manner during the transfers; the user must take some further action to play the songs after they are downloaded. Because the electronic download itself involves no recitation, rendering, or playing of the musical work encoded in the digital transmission, we hold that such a download is not a performance of that work, as defined by § 101.”

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Posted in communication to the public, Copyright, public perofmance

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UK copyright caselaw update: the Lucasfilm, BT, ITV and Meltwater cases

August 1st, 2011

Is a stormtrooper’s helmet a sculpture protected by copyright? Can a defendant living in the UK be sued for infringing the US Copyright Act in the UK? Can an ISP be forced to block a foreign website whose services are being used to download infringing TV programmes and movies? Does Internet streaming of television programming without permission infringe the communication to the public right? Does temporary buffering to deliver streams of film and TV programming infringe the reproduction right? Does offering an online news clipping service which involves copying headlines and short extracts of articles infringe copyright? Can such a service rely on a fair dealing defense?

This is a preview of UK copyright caselaw update: the Lucasfilm, BT, ITV and Meltwater cases. Read full post.

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Posted in authorization, communication to the public, Copyright, copyright reform, Fair Dealing, ISP Liability, Piracy, public perofmance

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Google’s search service exonerated from copyright liability by a French court

January 31st, 2011

When Google searches the web and indexes and caches and makes thumbnail copies of visual works available to the public, is it liable for copyright infringement?  Also, which country’s copyright laws apply to determining Google’s liability? Is it US law where much of the indexing and caching take place and from where Google transmits thumbnails and links to original works of art to the public? Or is it the place where the thumbnails are viewed (or communicated to)?

These issues were considered by the Paris Court of Appeal in the La société Des Auteurs des Arts Visuels et de L’image Fixe Visual Auteurs (SAIF) v Google France  S.A.R.L. and Google Inc case decided last week.

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Posted in Articles, Copyright, public perofmance, Reproduction

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