The public domain keeps culture vibrant. Why is it shrinking?; Vox, February 7, 2025

Jorge Just , Vox; The public domain keeps culture vibrant. Why is it shrinking?

"Copyrights keep getting longer. What does that mean for art?"

Whose “It’s a Wonderful Life” Is It Anyway?; The Nation, December 25, 2023

 RAY NOWOSIELSKI and DAVID CASSIDY, The Nation; Whose “It’s a Wonderful Life” Is It Anyway?

"The broad outlines of the Wonderful Life copyright story have been known for decades, though the details have remained murky until now. It goes something like this: The movie underperformed at the box office in 1947 and was largely forgotten—until a copyright renewal “whoops” in 1974 saw the movie seemingly fall into the public domain. Local television stations began playing the free content, only to discover a strangely receptive audience among Americans of the early 1980s—when the film become a cultural behemoth. Then, somehow, Republic Pictures found a way to reclaim the rights and make a TV deal with NBC, where it has aired ever since...

The ironic parallels to the story in the movie are hard to ignore. All-time American movie villain Henry F. Potter’s great vice is not being a banker or a business man or a capitalist—it’s his urge towards monopoly.

“He’s already got charge of the bank,” explains George Bailey to his community during the famous “bank run” scene. “He’s got the bus line. He’s got the department stores. And now he’s after us. Why? Well, it’s very simple. Because we’re cutting in on his business, that’s why. And because he wants to keep you living in his slums and paying the kind of rent he decides.”

The full story of Wonderful Life’s journey is detailed in our new podcast George Bailey Was Never Born. Merry Christmas!"

What 70% of Americans Don’t Understand About Intellectual Property; Stites & Harbison, October 26, 2023

Mandy Wilson Decker, Stites & Harbison; What 70% of Americans Don’t Understand About Intellectual Property

"The United States Intellectual Property Alliance (USIPA) recently published the results of its US Intellectual Property Awareness & Attitudes Survey. Among its findings, the survey results revealed that 70% of Americans are unable to distinguish between mechanisms – patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets – for protecting Intellectual Property (IP).

Given these results, it's worth exploring the principal mechanisms for protecting IP, which each possess some distinctive features."

Aretha Franklin’s Estate: Why Copyrights Require Estate Planning.; Forbes, July 13, 2023

Matthew Erskine, Forbes; Aretha Franklin’s Estate: Why Copyrights Require Estate Planning.

"The news of the recent resolution of the Aretha Franklin estate is a high profile, and expensive, lesson in how not to manage copyrights in an estate. At least there was what the Court found to be her will, unlike the six yearlong court fight that resolved last year in the Prince estate. You may think that this is only an issue for celebrities, but, with the ease of producing, generating, and creating materials, such as blog posts, YouTube videos, music, art, photographs or eBooks, more and more people are now owners of copyrights. These copyrights should be considered assets and an integral part of the client’s estate. Such planning includes the management and distribution of copyright assets after the copyright owner passes away. Proper estate planning can ensure the protection and transfer of copyright ownership, as well as provide for the financial well-being of heirs and beneficiaries.

Here are some important considerations for estate planning related to copyrights:"

Generative AI’s Intellectual Property Problem Heats Up AIs producing art or inventions have to navigate a hostile legal landscape, and a consensus is far away; IEEE Spectrum, June 13, 2023

RAHUL RAO, IEEE Spectrum; 

Generative AI’s Intellectual Property Problem Heats Up  AIs producing art or inventions have to navigate a hostile legal landscape, and a consensus is far away

"Walsh and Alexandra George, a patent law scholar at the University of New South Wales, suggested future-proofing the patent system by sorting AI-generated inventions into a category they named “AI-IP.” Patents under AI-IP would last for less time than traditional patents and possibly give a share to AI model developers or training data owners.

But, especially in a future where AI becomes ubiqutious, any categorization method likely runs against a question, one with no consensus answer: What, if anything, separates a human creation from an AI creation?"

10 things to know about copyright and software; Lexology, June 20, 2023

Gowling WLG - Matt Hervey , Lexology; 10 things to know about copyright and software

"8. Other people can copy what your software does …

You can enforce your copyright against someone copying your code, not copying what your software does. Copyright protection only applies to "expression" not ideas and principles. Under UK and EU law, if someone has lawful access to your software (e.g. someone you have licensed to use it) they are entitled to study and test the way it functions to figure out (and copy) the ideas and principles underlying the software. In fact, any contractual provision to the contrary is null and void.

9. … so consider patent protection

Unlike copyright, patents grant you a 20-year monopoly over what your software does: you can stop other people doing the same thing and it does not matter whether they copied you or came up with the same idea independently. Getting patents for software is not straightforward and needs specialist advice on what is possible. You may also want to check if other people have patents covering what you want to do. Our Patents team can advise you on any challenges you face in a number of jurisdictions.

10. … and trade secrets 

Where patent protection is not possible or desirable, keeping the code and workings of your software secret may be the best option. Restrict access to source code (and AI-related assets such as training data, hyperparameters, models and outputs) with password protection, firewalls, access logs, etc. Use APIs to restrict third-party access to source or compiled code and considering restricting the throughput of access to your API (the performance of AI models can be partially reverse engineered quickly given unrestricted access to inputs and outputs).

Put in place training, policies and contractual terms with employees, contractors and collaborators for the protection, use and potential disclosure of trade secrets. Bake this into you IP strategy and procedures to benefit from the enforcement options for trade secrets and confidential information. Having good procedures helps to protect both your own secrets and third-party secrets entrusted to you … and to stop employees and contractors bringing unwanted third-party secrets into your business."

Tolkien Estate Suing Author for LOTR Rip-Off; Kirkus, June 5, 2023

MICHAEL SCHAUB, Kirkus; Tolkien Estate Suing Author for LOTR Rip-Off

"J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate is suing an author who it claims ripped off the author’s Lord of the Ringsbooks, Bloomberg Law reports.

The Tolkien Trust filed suit against an author named Demetrious Polychron, who wrote a sequel to the author’s famous series called The Fellowship of the King. The title references The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King, respectively the first and third installments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy."

IP Challenges and Risks Unique to AI – Part I; National Law Review, May 14, 2023

David W. Leibovitch, The National Law Review; IP Challenges and Risks Unique to AI – Part I

"Patents must also sufficiently describe the invention so as to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to carry out the invention. This is uniquely challenging for AI inventions, due to the “black box” nature of some AI engines. There is potential for near-term evolution in this area of patent law. How can businesses ensure that patent applications filed today will meet future standards? Companies should be aware of these potential shifts and adapt their IP strategies accordingly.

Copyrighting AI-generated content is also topical. Presently, whether AI-generated subject matter is copyrightable may bear on the level of human contribution. Moreover, determining who owns the copyright may depend on contractual provisions (e.g., website terms of service)."

Music Creators Want Consent in the AI Age, But Developers Find Safe Havens Abroad; Billboard, April 20, 2023

KRISTIN ROBINSON, Billboard; Music Creators Want Consent in the AI Age, But Developers Find Safe Havens Abroad

"Machine-learning is exponentially faster, though; it’s usually achieved by feeding millions, even billions of so-called “inputs” into an AI model to build its musical vocabulary. Due to the sheer scale of data needed to train current systems that almost always includes the work of professionals, and to many copyright owners’ dismay, almost no one asks their permission to use it.

Countries around the world have various ways of regulating what’s allowed when it comes to what’s called the text and data mining of copyrighted material for AI training. And some territories are concluding that fewer rules will lead to more business.

China, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are among the countries that have largely positioned themselves as safe havens for AI companies in terms of industry-friendly regulation. In January, Israel’s Ministry of Justice defined its stance on the issue, saying that “lifting the copyright uncertainties that surround this issue [of training AI generators] can spur innovation and maximize the competitiveness of Israeli-based enterprises in both [machine-learning] and content creation.”"

To Ingrain AI Ethics, We Should Get Creative About Copyrights; Undark Magazine, April 13, 2023

 CASON SCHMIT & JENNIFER WAGNER, Undark Magazine; To Ingrain AI Ethics, We Should Get Creative About Copyrights

"What’s clear, however, is that the risk of doing nothing is tremendous. AI is rapidly evolving and disrupting existing systems and structures in unpredictable ways. We need disruptive innovation in AI policy perhaps even more than we need disruption in the technology itself — and AI creators and users must be willing participants in this endeavor. Efforts to grapple with the ethical, legal, social, and policy issues around AI must be viewed not as a luxury but as a necessity, and as an integral part of AI design. Otherwise, we run the risk of letting industry set the terms of AI’s future, and we leave individuals, groups, and even our very democracy vulnerable to its whims."

NFTs are creating trademark problems. For these Minnesota lawyers, expertise is a commodity; Star Tribune, March 8, 2023

 Nick Williams, Star Tribune; NFTs are creating trademark problems. For these Minnesota lawyers, expertise is a commodity

"For NFT creators, knowing what they can register for trademark or patent protection is not clear-cut, either. That's a significant piece of the NFT-law equation, considering the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has received more than 10,000 trademark applications for NFT-related goods and services over the last few years, said Kathi Vidal, undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, during a recent online panel.

"And we expect that number to grow," she said.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and U.S. Copyright Office are working on a study with input from industry experts to determine how the nation should proceed with NFT laws. The study, a response to a request from the U.S. Senate subcommittee on intellectual property, will help officials determine what policies are to be supported, and what position the U.S. takes on the matter, Vidal said."

The AI boom is here, and so are the lawsuits; Vox, February 1, 2023

 Peter Kafka, Vox; The AI boom is here, and so are the lawsuits

What can Napster tell us about the future?

"Briefly: “File-sharing” services blew up the music industry almost overnight because they gave anyone with a broadband connection the ability to download any music they wanted, for free, instead of paying $15 for a CD. The music industry responded by suing the owners of services like Napster, as well as ordinary users like a 66-year-old grandmother. Over time, the labels won their battles against Napster and its ilk, and, in some cases, their investors. They also generated tons of opprobrium from music listeners, who continued to not buy much music, and the value of music labels plummeted. 

But after a decade of trying to will CD sales to come back, the music labels eventually made peace with the likes of Spotify, which offered users the ability to subscribe to all-you-can-listen-to service for a monthly fee. Those fees ended up eclipsing what the average listener would spend a year on CDs, and now music rights and the people who own them are worth a lot of money.

So you can imagine one outcome here: Eventually, groups of people who put things on the internet will collectively bargain with tech entities over the value of their data, and everyone wins. Of course, that scenario could also mean that individuals who put things on the internet discover that their individual photo or tweet or sketch means very little to an AI engine that uses billions of inputs for training."

Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day; The Guardian, January 1, 2023

John Naughton, The Guardian; Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day

"The issue highlighted by Public Domain Day is not that intellectual property is evil but that aspects of it – especially copyright – have been monopolised and weaponised by corporate interests and that legislators have been supine in the face of their lobbying. Authors and inventors need protection against being ripped off. It’s obviously important that clever people are rewarded for their creativity and the patent system does that quite well. But if a patent only lasts for 20 years, why on earth should copyright last for life plus 70 years for a novel? You only have to ask the question to realise that the founders of the American republic at least got that one right. Happy new year."

Protecting and Enforcing IP Rights in the Metaverse; The National Law Review, April 22, 2022

Anthony V. Lupo, James Williams, Dan Jason, ArentFox Schiff LLP, The National Law Review; Protecting and Enforcing IP Rights in the Metaverse

"Many brands have taken steps to proactively protect their intellectual property rights for use in connection with metaverse-related goods and services. This may include filing new trademark registrations or purchasing blockchain domains. But enforcing those rights poses a significant challenge. In this alert, we discuss ways to identify and combat trademark and copyright infringement in the metaverse.

What is The Metaverse?

The metaverse is a persistent, digital environment that will allow individuals to seamlessly transition between their physical and virtual worlds."

Trademark and copyright considerations for NFTs; Reuters, May 2, 2022

Sharon Urias, Reuters ; Trademark and copyright considerations for NFTs

"NFTs are mostly used to verify ownership of digital goods. An easy way to understand NFTs is to think of them as unalterable certificates of authenticity for digital goods. For example, if someone purchases a piece of digital art, the NFT acts to validate and verify ownership and authenticity of the artwork. In the "real world," the closest analogy is an autographed original painting that is authenticated by the artist's signature or a certificate of authenticity issued by a reputable source...

One common question asked by clients is whether, when they purchase NFTs, they also obtain the copyright associated with it. The answer is: Not necessarily. It is important to understand what is included in the smart contract that confers the purchaser's rights to the digital asset. Similar to the purchase of a physical painting in our analogy above, although the purchaser has acquired the right to display the work, and to resell it, ownership of the copyright is not automatically conveyed.

The artist owns the copyright unless the author assigns it to the purchaser...

NFTs present interesting and novel questions for trademarks as well...

One of the questions to be resolved is whether traditional trademark legal doctrines, such as the first-sale doctrine, protects a seller, such as StockX, or whether the NFTs are new, distinct products that seek to capitalize on the trademark owners' marks...

It is always challenging for the law to keep pace with the expansion and development of new technologies and innovations. It is no different with NFTs. With the increased growth of NFTs, the need for protection also grows. Although NFTs present many opportunities for businesses, it is essential that NFT sellers clearly delineate in the smart contract what is and is not permitted with respect to intellectual property rights. In that way, both NFT sellers and buyers will be able to protect themselves and best monetize these assets."

When Does Intellectual Property Expire?; Lexology, January 3, 2022

[Post #4,000, since blog began in 2008]

GHB Intellect, Lexology; When Does Intellectual Property Expire?

"Intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, and copyrights, is not a tangible thing. These assets do not all last forever, and in some cases, they need to be maintained in order to remain something that can be protected under IP. Understanding the terms of these assets is very important if you are going to protect an asset and be able to enforce that protection."

Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.; The Nation, February 8, 2021

 Dean Baker, February 8, 2021; Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.

Changes in IP have done far more than tax cuts to increase inequality—and US protection of IP could lead to a cold war with China.

"While the Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump tax cuts all gave more money to the rich, policy changes in other areas, especially intellectual property have done far more to redistribute income upward. In the past four decades, a wide array of changes—under both Democratic and Republican presidents—made patent and copyright protection both longer and stronger."

Data Privacy Law and Intellectual Property Considerations for Biometric-Based AI Innovations; Security, June 12, 2020

Ryan N. Phelan, Security; Data Privacy Law and Intellectual Property Considerations for Biometric-Based AI Innovations

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations that use biometrics data are on the rise. While the Intellectual Property (IP) potential for such innovations is vast, issues can arise with the use of biometrics data in view of newly enacted and developing data privacy laws and regulations."

The Difference Between Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents; The New York Times, April 16, 2020

Alexander Webb, The New York Times; The Difference Between Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents

Whether you’re an inventor, a writer or an artist, you need to know what these each mean — and which you need to protect your work.

"Intellectual property theft has always been a problem, but it has never affected as many people as it does today. If you’ve taken a photo, recorded a song or written a letter, you’ve likely created a copyright. If you operate a small business, you probably qualify for trademark protection, and if you invent something, you may be able to patent it. But the same tools that make it easy to distribute your work online make it easier than ever to steal.

Intellectual property, or I.P., is everywhere, but almost nobody who is not a lawyer understands how to protect their art, business or inventions. This article is no substitute for real legal advice, but it should give you an idea of what questions you need to ask next. I.P. law is vast, so this will focus on basic terms you’ve probably heard: copyrights, trademarks and patents. Let’s get started."

Why Patents and Copyrights Matter; Ayn Rand Institute, Janaury 15, 2020

[47 min. Video] Elan Journo, Ayn Rand Institute; Why Patents and Copyrights Matter

"Why do patents and copyrights matter? What do they protect? What to make of the objections against them? For instance: that no one is really hurt by violations of copyrights or patents; or that these rights are obstacles to progress and innovation; or that they’re an unfair, government-granted privilege or favor?   

To explore these issues, I talked to Professor Adam Mossoff, who teaches law at George Mason University. Mossoff is an expert on intellectual property law and policy, who has published extensively in academic journals and popular outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Politico, among many others. He has testified several times before the Senate and the House of Representatives."