Fair Use Fridays: Kutiman Mashes Jerusalem - Beautifully

More beautiful music and images here

http://www.dunnington.com/rdowd_bio.html
 Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Fair Use Fridays: You Are Listening To New York - Ambient Music and Live Police Radio Feed

Mixture of police radio and ambient music here, beautiful .... thanks to BoingBoing's post here.

 http://www.dunnington.com/rdowd_bio.html
 Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Fair Use Fridays: Girl Talk Goes Cinematic

Girl Walk // All Day from jacob krupnick on Vimeo.

Derivative works from derivative works: music and choreography and film from the remix culture. Saw this video on Techdirt who fears copyright infringement claims and comments here.

Beautiful music and dance video, great shots of the Staten Island Ferry and Lower Manhattan.

Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Fair Use Fridays: RJD2 Confesses To Ripping KFC Beats From Television

Remix RJD2 confesses to ripping KFC lyrics, HT to Mashable.

 Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Jimi Hendrix - Dead Celebrity Rights of Publicity Not Resurrected By Washington State Law

In Experience Hendrix, LLC v. Hendrixlicensing.com, (W.D.Wa. Feb. 8, 2011 (Zilly, J.), a federal judge in the Western District of Washington struck down as unconstitutional a Washington State law that attempted to grant dead celebrities, including Jimi Hendrix, a posthumous right of publicity.

I have previously discussed rights of publicity (also known as rights of privacy) here and here and here.
Jimi Hendrix died in New York. New York does not grant a posthumous right of publicity. That has created major litigation in the past over, for example, Marilyn Monroe's image and name. Hendrix was not a Washington State domiciliary, so granting his estate a right of publicity would effectively have created a right that conflicted with New York law.

The court engaged in a careful choice of law (conflicts of law) analyis. It used the principle of "depecage" (I don't have a circonflexe on this blog).  "Depecage" means parsing out the law of each juridisction that may govern an issue in a case.  Courts rarely go this deeply and thoughtfully into choice of law analyses, so the opinion is noteworthy in that aspect.

The decision is also noteworthy in that it carefully unbundles the various rights that may be caught up in licensing someone else's name and image including trademark and copyright.

For example, if you have a photograph of Jimi Hendrix, it may be "nominative fair use" to use Hendrix's name to identify the photograph, even if someone else owns the Hendrix trademark.

The estate of Elvis, who died in Tennessee, has the right to exploit his name and image under Tennessee law.

Be careful before paying a lot of money for a license to ensure that the rights really exist.   Similarly, when accused of infringement, take a careful look at the underlying intellectual property claims.
Jim Hendrix and Rights of Publicity for Dead Celebrities: Experience Hendrix v Hendrixlicensing.com


 Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Fair Use Fridays: Peanuts Hey Ya

Note the credits: "used without permission - please don't sue us".   This is a genius video and if Outkast is letting it survive (note the "buy this song" ad from Amazon), more credit to them.

Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook from West here

Fair Use Fridays - Girl Talk - Overtime

Music and video sampling - pushing the limits of fair use?

SDNY: MobiTV Victory Over ASCAP for Delivery of Video To Cellphones

Find Mobitv here.

In re Application of Mobitv, Inc., 2010 WL 1875706, 1 (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 2010)

It is hard to overstate the importance of music in most of our lives. Every concert we attend, every song we listen to, virtually every entertainment we enjoy reinforces that lesson. The task at hand is to determine the fair market value of a blanket license for the public performance of music. The challenges of that task include discerning a rate that will give composers an economic incentive to keep enriching our lives with music, that avoids compensating composers for contributions made by others either to the creative work or to the delivery of that work to the public, and that does not create distorting incentives in the marketplace that will improperly affect the choices made by composers, inventors, investors, consumers and other economic players.

Judge Cote has written a very thoughtful opinion explaining the history of blanket licenses for musical compositions and how they relate to new digital media.  The opinion really explains how the industry works, the economics involved, and is a nice explanation of the history of the technology involved.

Mobitv scored a big victory, which is a good thing for this fledgling technology.   The issue at hand was how much Mobitv had to pay ASCAP and the court's job was to set a reasonable rate.  Since Mobitv had demanded a license from ASCAP, no copyright infringement was found.

Fair Use Friday: How To Create A Music Mashup - Girl Talk

How NOT To Challenge a YouTube Takedown

This is a really funny, foul language rant by a guy who is furious that he bought a CD, he gave credit in his video, but someone named WMG still keeps taking down the music he BOUGHT and PAID FOR!  Synch rights are the issue.

Better analysis in the previous video posted here.

How To Save a Hitler Downfall Video: Challenge a YouTube Take Down with Fair Use - EFF PSA

Some practical advice for those making fun of Hitler and exploring the boundaries of fair use and the First Amendment.  Note: this is not legal advice.

Free Copyright Society Event on Licensing in the Digital Age - May 18 2010

The Copyright Society of the U.S.A. is pleased to invite you to a program on


Tuesday, May 18, 2010, entitled:

LICENSING IN THE DIGITAL AGE:
DEALS, RISKS, AND CHALLENGES IN PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL MEDIA

Licensing is a powerful tool generating billions in revenue. However, the risks and complexities of licensing have multiplied in recent years as new technologies have created new marketing platforms in the physical and virtual worlds. To help you understand, navigate and succeed in this new marketplace, the Copyright
Society of the U.S.A. has assembled a distinguished panel of licensing
practitioners that will provide you the practical guidance you need.

Location and Date of the Program:
May 18, 2010 at Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP
1375 Broadway, New York City, 23rd Floor (located at 37th and Broadway).

Time:

6:00 p.m. -- 6:30 p.m. Registration, networking and light refreshments
6:30 p.m. -- 8:00 p.m. Program

There is no charge to attend this program.
To Register, Please use the attached form.

Registration deadline is Wednesday May 12, 2010.

Panelists:

Mary Beth Roberts will discuss the dramatic changes in music licensing and how music publishers are attempting to capitalize on them. She will talk about how copyright owners, faced with a decline in traditional royalties caused partially by music piracy, have gained new sources of revenue from third parties who increasingly use music to enhance and exploit their brands.

Mary Beth Roberts founded High Standards Unlimited, a consulting business for
international and domestic music licensing. She was formerly VP of Catalogue Development at Sony/ATV and Famous Music Publishing. For over 20 years, she led concept development, copyright placement, marketing, negotiations and licensing of music used in synchronization, consumer products, new media, wireless entertainment and internet marketing.

Joseph Salvo will talk about licensing in the consumer products/entertainment area from a business and legal perspective. He will discuss the negotiating techniques licensors and licensees use to maximize their leverage. Joe will also discuss the legal strategies licensors may wish to use to protect and enhance their company’s intellectual property rights.

Joseph Salvo is Senior Vice President and Global General Counsel at HIT Entertainment, an international entertainment company that owns such preeminent pre-school brands as Barney, Thomas the Tank, Bob the Builder and Angelina Ballerina. He is involved in all forms of production and licensing, including television, film, audio, home video and consumer products.

Jonathan Wells will talk about the licensing of photographs and videos in the rapidly evolving physical, digital and virtual markets. Jonathan will also focus on the special concerns that arise when clients license internationally.

Jonathan Wells is the bureau chief of the New York office of Paris-based SIPA Press and oversees its licensing activities and production activities here. SIPA Press covers world news with a staff of photographers, a network of correspondents and distribution agreements with the Associated Press and other agencies around the globe.

Commentator:

Marc Federbush, CPA, is partner-in-charge of Anchin’s Apparel, Textile, Diamond and Jewelry Services Group. He will comment on the strategies that owners and licensees may use to protect themselves from unwanted disputes and costly litigation.

Andrew Berger will moderate the program. He is a copyright/trademark lawyer at the New York firm of Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt. He is also a frequent speaker on intellectual property topics and writes a blog on IP issues at www.ipinbrief.com.

The Copyright Society of the U.S.A. is a center of the U.S. copyright community for business people, lawyers in private practice and in-house, law professors and law students who share a common interest in copyright and related intellectual property rights. A not-for-profit corporation founded
in 1953, the Society works to advance the study and understanding of
copyright law and related rights, the scope of rights in literature, music,
art, theater, motion picture, television, computer software, architecture,
and other works of authorship, and their distribution via both traditional
and new media.

The Copyright Society of the USA
352 Seventh Avenue Suite 739
New York NY 10001
P: 212 354-6401
F: 212-354-2847
W: www.csusa.org
E: amy@csusa.org