Showing posts with label lack of attribution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lack of attribution. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

The Seizure of Jewish Intellectual Property Ahead of World War II; Library of Congress, April 28, 2022

, Library of Congress; The Seizure of Jewish Intellectual Property Ahead of World War II

"The following is a guest post by Marilyn Creswell, information resources assistant at the University of Michigan Law School. She served as Librarian-in-Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office from July 2020 to April 2021.

As the United States enters the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, we remember the many hardships Jewish people have overcome. In this blog we specifically explore the lesser-known area of intellectual property (IP) leading up to and during World War II. Beginning in 1933, the Nazi German state began pressuring Jewish business owners to sell their businesses far below market value. By 1938, a majority of Jewish-owned businesses were already sold or out of business when this process, called Aryanization, became compulsory after Kristallnacht.1 As part of the seizure of businesses and personal property, the ability of Jewish people to benefit from their intellectual property was also severely restricted. A 1939 executive order required all Jewish men to add “Israel” as a second name and women to add “Sara.”2 This made it easier for Nazi officials to deny intellectual property registrations and renewals to Jewish applicants, cutting them off from the IP system.3 While the loss of IP rights pales in comparison to the horrific death tolls during World War II, its loss is another indignity the Jewish people suffered and source of wealth extracted at the hands of the Nazis.

In some instances, works by Jewish authors were nearly completely reproduced and distributed by others without their consent. One example of an Aryanized work is Alice Urbach’s So kocht man in Wien!, a Viennese cookbook. Urbach was forced to transfer the rights to her book, which was then republished with new authorial credit to “Rudolf Rösch.” The new work kept most of the original texts and photographs of her cooking demonstrations but removed elements celebrating Vienna’s diversity.4 In the field of medicine, Dr. Josef Löbel’s Knaurs Gesundheitslexikon was a health encyclopedia that, after the Otto Liebmann publishing house was taken over by a Nazi publisher, was republished by the author Herbert Volkmann under the pseudonym “Peter Hiron.” Volkmann even added new sections on race, homosexuality, and prison psychology. He similarly usurped authorship for Dr. Walter Guttman’s Medizinische Terminologie and its ongoing publications.5

Public domain works were revised to remove references to Jewish people and culture. For example, Fritz Stein presented a new version of Handel’s Occasional Oratorio (Gelegenheits Oratorium) in 1935 that added state-promoting verses and removed references to Jacob, Jehovah, and the full aria “When Israel, like the bounteous Nile.” In 1941, Handel’s Jephtha was renamed Das Opfer and changed so its Jewish history was reframed as a broader narrative about nationalism. The text of his Judas Maccabeus was not only rewritten to omit Jewish references, but it went so far as to make it into a “patriotic fold oratorio” and eventually transplanted Judas with a Field Marshall, a powerful military dictator analogous to the Führer.6 Also in 1941, all theatrical productions required permission from the Reich Dramaturgy, which banned Shakespeare’s historical plays but encouraged the broadcast and production of the anti-Semitic Merchant of Venice.7"

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Copyright infringement lawsuits make Indy skyline photo worth a lot more than 1,000 words; IndyStar, May 8, 2018

Mark Alesia, IndyStar; Copyright infringement lawsuits make Indy skyline photo worth a lot more than 1,000 words

"There have been about 200 infringement cases, including two judgments of $150,000 apiece in Bell's favor. Usually, companies or their liability insurance settle the claim. Those who don't settle or don't respond will become part of his steady stream of copyright infringement lawsuits in federal court in Indianapolis. 

Just in higher education, Bell has gone after Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Indianapolis and Marian University. Even the University of Washington.

"It happened to be a professor on the University of Washington staff that used it," Bell said. "He was promoting a conference he was having in Indianapolis.""

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Cupcake wars: Blogger sues Food Network over snow globe recipe video; Washington Post, June 5, 2017

Derek Hawkins, Washington Post; Cupcake wars: Blogger sues Food Network over snow globe recipe video

"Elizabeth LaBau’s holiday cupcake recipe was so popular it crashed her food blog.

It was clever, after all. LaBau, who runs SugarHero.com, had figured out a way to make edible snow globe cupcakes by coating small balloons in sheets of gelatin and letting them harden into translucent domes.

About three weeks after she published her tutorial, LaBau alleges, Food Network produced a how-to video on snow globe cupcakes that was so similar that it constituted copyright infringement."

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Marvel Artist Complains After 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Giveaway Uses His Work; Hollywood Reporter,

Graeme McMillan, Hollywood Reporter; Marvel Artist Complains After 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Giveaway Uses His Work:
"Bill Sienkiewicz, known for work on such Marvel titles as X-Men spin-off New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin, took to Facebook to complain after discovering that Fox was giving away limited edition promotional replicas of an album cover used as a prop in the movie, using artwork he had created three decades earlier. Previously unaware of the promo item, he discovered its existence at Comic-Con itself when fans asked him to sign them, he explained.
"I've been doing this comic-book thing for years. I'm aware most everything is Work-Made-for-Hire," Sienkiewicz wrote on his post. "Still, I received no prior notification (a common courtesy), no thank you (ditto), no written credit in any form whatsoever either on the piece or in connection with the premium, absolutely no compensation and no comp copies of the album. It's like two losing trifectas wrapped in an altogether indifferent f--- you."
The artist, who originally created the image as part of a cover for Marvel's Dazzler No. 29 in 1983, in collaboration with Marvel's in-house designer Eliot R. Brown, went on to say that he had to be physically restrained by colleagues from "making a scene" at the Fox booth during the show about the giveaway.
"Am I over-reacting here?" he continued. "Do I have the right — at least on behalf of fellow creators — to, at the very least expect decent treatment and some kind of minuscule, even boilerplate, acknowledgment?"

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Update Our Culture, Not Just Copyright Laws; New York Times, 3/17/15

M.K. Asante, New York Times; Update Our Culture, Not Just Copyright Laws:
"A much-needed change in copyright laws will certainly usher in a ton of new cases. Cases even more egregious and blatant than “Blurred Lines.” Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) reminds us in his song “Rock N Roll”:
You may dig on the Rolling Stones
But they ain't come up with that ... on they own
He was speaking about the dark history of copyright infringement, and often downright theft, from black musicians. The Rolling Stones biographer Stanley Booth described their music as “the songs of old black men too poor to put glass in their windows.""

Sunday, September 1, 2013

For a Classic Motown Song About Money, Credit Is What He Wants; New York Times, 8/31/13

Larry Rohter, New York Times; For a Classic Motown Song About Money, Credit Is What He Wants: "Unbeknown to Mr. Strong, who also helped write many other Motown hits, his name was removed from the copyright registration for “Money” three years after the song was written, restored in 1987 when the copyright was renewed, then removed again the next year — his name literally crossed out. Documents at the copyright office show that all of these moves came at the direction of Motown executives, who dispute Mr. Strong’s claim of authorship. Berry Gordy Jr., Motown’s founder, declined requests for an interview, but his lawyers contend that the original registration resulted from a clerical error, and that Mr. Strong passed up numerous opportunities to assert his claim. Mr. Strong said he learned of the alterations only late in 2010 and has been struggling ever since to have his authorship officially reinstated. At stake: his ability to share in the lucrative royalties from the song’s use. But his efforts have been blocked by a provision of copyright law that says he relinquished his rights by failing to act in a timely fashion to contest Motown’s action. Mr. Strong’s predicament illustrates a little-known oddity in the American copyright system, one that record and music publishing companies have not hesitated to exploit. The United States Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, does not notify authors of changes in registrations, and until recently the only way to check on any alterations was to go to Washington and visit the archives personally."

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Gay Couple Eyes Lawsuit After Finding Pic on 'Hate Group' Mailer; Good Morning America via Yahoo News, 7/12/12

Susan Donaldson James, Good Morning America via Yahoo News; Gay Couple Eyes Lawsuit After Finding Pic on 'Hate Group' Mailer:

"[Southern Poverty Law Center lawyer Christine Sun] said Public Advocate has 10 days to respond to her letter and then SPLC will make legal copyright claims for Hill and state law privacy claims and infliction of emotion distress on behalf of Edwards and Tom Privitere.

"Beyond a lawsuit ... we decided to get involved because these actions are truly reprehensible -- to take a personal photo of the happiest day in a couple's life and use it in a homophobic attack ad," said Sun. "It's demonizing, unfair and unjustifiable."

The couple learned the photo had been taken without authorization from a friend who saw it in a mailer from Sen. White and called them in June."

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

All's Fair Under Fair Use?; Forbes.com, 5/13/09

Via Forbes.com; All's Fair Under Fair Use?: A nebulous legal doctrine collides with collapsing ad revenues and explosive growth in digital news:

"On a late May morning, Srinandan R. Kasi, general counsel for the Associated Press, eyes four clusters of blue dots scattered across his computer screen as if they were a crime scene. Each dot represents a unique URL hosting content carrying a digital fingerprint of an AP-produced story.

Most dots, says Kasi, are infringers--sites who carry AP work without permission, or don't link material back to the AP...

The issue at hand: abuse of "fair use," a nebulous legal doctrine that allows use of copyrighted material without permission from the creators. The AP has been wrangling with Google and other aggregators over its definition for three years.

Now, with a collapsing ad pie and explosive growth in digital news platforms, defining fair use is suddenly critical for media companies from The New York Times and The Washington Post to conglomerates like News Corp. and Time Warner.

Yet for all its importance, it remains a tricky concept courts determine on an agonizing case-by-case basis--making it difficult to determine whether the Next Big Thing on the Web is providing a valuable public service or violating copyright law on a wholesale basis."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/12/copyright-fair-use-business-media-fair-use.html