Copyright Law
Ronald W. Staudt
Class 8
February 16, 2009
Schwarzman: Too Cheap to Pay for a FT
Subscription! City File NY http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/4171
from Olta Andoni
Financial Times… filed a lawsuit against [the]
Blackstone Group …for sharing an FT username and
password instead of setting up separate accounts for
its employees. Yes, an unknown "senior employee"
at the colossal private equity firm "authorized the
initiation and repeated renewal of an individual,
personal subscription to FT.com" and then
distributed the login details to company employees
so they could all join in on the fun
Officials at the FT became a bit suspicious when they
realized a very industrious Blackstone employee was
accessing thousands of articles a day
Video Site's Investors Not, On Role Alone,
Liable For Alleged Infringements
BNA’s Electronic Commerce & Law Report
2/12/2009
[A] federal court in California has ruled that
investors who appear to have done little more
than serve on the board of directors for an
online video-sharing service cannot be held
liable for the service's alleged copyright
infringement. The court said that a leadership
role in a video-sharing corporation was not itself
enough to substantiate claims of contributory or
vicarious copyright infringement.
Authors to Google Book Search:
Pay up! by Elinor Mills Cnet News February 11, 2009
 Under a $125 million settlement Google reached in October with
book authors and publishers who sued over the company's bookscanning project, the search giant is required to provide notice to
authors, publishers, and their heirs and successors that they may
be eligible for payment. …
Authors and others are submitting claims on a special Web site
that went live January 5, attorney Michael Boni said in an interview.
Under the settlement terms, copyright holders will receive $60 per
scanned book and 63 percent of ad revenue. …
Google is digitizing the works from many major libraries, including
the New York Public Library and the libraries at Stanford and
Harvard universities, and is making those texts searchable on pages
with advertisements
Legal ruckus over Kindle 2's textto-speech feature C. Null 2/12/2009
from Julia Byerson
It was hardly the most interesting or earth-shaking part of
Jeff Bezos's introduction of the Kindle 2 on Monday, but
one small, experimental feature in the device is already
causing a minor uproar. Specifically: The Kindle 2's textto-speech function, which will use a computerized voice
to read aloud anything displayed on the device's screen.
The problem? The Authors Guild says that that's against
the law.
The challenge revolves around audiobooks, which are
treated separately from printed material from a
copyright standpoint. A retailer can't record a copy of a
book on a CD and sell it or bundle it along with a novel
without paying a separate fee, just as buying a copy of
an audiobook doesn't entitle you to a free copy of the
printed version
Compilations
§ 101. Definitions
***
A "compilation" is a work formed by the
collection and assembling of preexisting
materials or of data that are selected,
coordinated, or arranged in such a way
that the resulting work as a whole
constitutes an original work of authorship.
The term "compilation" includes collective
works.
Compilations and derivative works
§ 103. Subject matter of copyright:
Compilations and derivative works
(a) The subject matter of copyright as specified by section
102 includes compilations and derivative works, but
protection for a work employing preexisting material in
which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the
work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work
extends only to the material contributed by the author of
such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material
employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive
right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such
work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the
scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any
copyright protection in the preexisting material.
Compilations–
In
 Wainwright
 Roth – (total concept & feel)
 Atari- Breakout
 Furniture arrangement
 CCC Red Book
Out
 Rural’s white pages
 Sem-Torq sign set
(132)
 Boston T shirts(134-35)
 West cases & page
numbers
 ATC and Southco
part numbers
 Bell South Yellow pages
Assessment Technologies v.
WIREdata
Why is J. Posner appalled?
Towns hire
Assessors
who gather
tax data
Assessors
input data
into Market
Drive
Defendant WIREdata demands data from the towns.
Three towns say no because it would violate their
MarketDrive software license. Everybody sues.
Market Drive
database34 categories
456 fields
Assessment Technologies v.
WIREdata
Does AT have a valid copyright?
What does that copyright protect?
Directive 96/9/EC and the sui generis right?
Sporaco v. Lawler
Facts
Who is Sporaco?
Who owns his plans?
What is in the plans?
What is Sporaco’s claim?
What happened in the District Court?
Are maps copyrightable?
If so what is protected?
Sporaco v. Lawler
Existing site plan and the fact/expression
dichotomy—
Selection, coordination, arrangement &
pictorial graphical contribution.
SJ process.
Proposed site plans and idea/expression
dichotomy—
Abstractions test? Details?
Maps and ©
Sweat of the brow and the framers?
How do you advise a client to enhance
the copyrightability of a proposed map?
What about mileage tables derived from
creative copyrightable maps?
Compilations–
In
 Wainwright
 Roth – (total concept & feel)
 Atari- Breakout
 Furniture arrangement
 CCC Red Book
 All of Parker’s poems
 Sporaco’s proposed site
plan
Out
 Rural’s white pages
 Sem-Torq sign set
(132)
 Boston T shirts(134-35)
 West cases & page
numbers
 ATC and Southco
part numbers
 Bell South Yellow pages
 Assessor data in AT
 Sporaco’s existing site
plan
A “derivative work”
is a work based upon one or more preexisting
works, such as a translation, musical
arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization,
motion picture version, sound recording, art
reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any
other form in which a work may be recast,
transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of
editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or
other modifications which, as a whole, represent
an original work of authorship, is a “derivative
work”. 17 U.S.C. 101.
Derivative Works
Batlin & Son v. Snyder
facts
holding re creativity
dissent
Derivative Works
Bell (mezzotints) and Alva (Hands of God)
and Bridgeman
Durham (Mickey Mouse) and Eden Toys
(Paddington)
Sherry (towels) and Gracen (Oz) and ERG
(Doughboy)
Ets-Hokin (vodka bottle) and Schiffer
(fabric photos)
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, LTD. v. COREL CORP.
36 F. Supp. 2d 191
In this case, plaintiff by its own admission
has labored to create "slavish copies" of
public domain works of art. While it may
be assumed that this required both skill
and effort, there was no spark of
originality -- indeed, the point of the
exercise was to reproduce the
underlying works with absolute fidelity.
Copyright is not available in these
circumstances.
Schiffer Pub. V. Chronicle
Books
 Bridgeman's stated purpose was to "reproduce
precisely" the underlying works of art. Indeed, the goal
of reproducing a famous work of art is an accurate
replication that is faithful to the original artwork. There
is no ulterior creative purpose - indeed, creativity is
anathema to that goal. Plaintiffs, by contrast, did not
attempt to replicate fabric swatches as precisely as
possible. Rather, Plaintiffs' books were focused mainly
on patterns, and Plaintiffs' photographers strove to
create images that were visually interesting. In fact,
several photographers clearly stated that they never
compared the fabric swatches to their photographs,
precisely because such a comparison was unimportant
to their goals.
Derivative Works–
In
Out
 Alva – Hand of God
 Batlin – plastic Uncle Sam
 Bell – mezzotints
 Durham- Tomy’s wind up
Mickey Mouse
 Eden- Paddington bear
 Skyy Vodka photo (thin)
 Schiffer- photos of fabric
 Sherry – reworked towels
 Gracen – Dorothy
painting copied on plate
 ERG- Doughboy costume
 Bridgeman –art photos
AP alleges copyright infringement
of Obama image By HILLEL ITALIE
from Kurt Iselt & Michael Keefe & Byerson
On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere
during last year's presidential campaign: A pensive Barack
Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a
Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the
caption HOPE.
Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist,
the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of
posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that
copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands
of dollars on eBay.
The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an
Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny
Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club
in Washington.
The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and
compensation. Fairey disagrees.
The image of a president
By Hugh Howard February 16, 2009 Chicago Tribune
George Washington would have been
jealous. When painter Gilbert Stuart painted
his portrait, the general spent 15 hours
posing, hating every self-conscious
moment. In contrast, Barack Obama gave
White House photographer Pete Souza five
minutes to record his easy smile.
Shepard Fairey went Souza one better. Fairey required
none of Obama's time to produce his now ubiquitous red,
white and blue illustration. Fairey Googled The
Associated Press photograph taken by Mannie Garcia and
manipulated it to make Obama-as-hope. The resulting
image has been reproduced endlessly, on T-shirts, yard
signs and stickers and has even appeared in various
guises on the covers of Time and Esquire.