I don’t know about you, but whenever I see a new meme (such as the fantabulous “Karma’s a bitch“) I don’t think about how it became popular, who created it, or even if it is appropriate. My first thought is always “what are the copyright implications”? Yes, I need help. […]
Back in the 90s, copyright law was concerned about the issue of linking to content, in some quarters it was considered that linking to content required some sort of permission because it would be an act similar to that of making the work available to the public. In early cases, […]
I have just listened to the latest episode of the excellent podcast “This American Life”, which dealt with the story of a monkey that took a selfie in the jungles of Indonesia, and David Slater, the photographer who made the portrait famous around the world. The podcast recounts the story […]
So, the long-running legal saga starring a photographer, a monkey and an animal rights organisation has finally come to an end when both parties (not the monkey) have reached a settlement. While it is not common to learn the particulars of such an agreement, lawyers for PETA have said that […]
Shutterstock Andres Guadamuz, University of Sussex When a group of museums and researchers in the Netherlands unveiled a portrait entitled The Next Rembrandt, it was something of a tease to the art world. It wasn’t a long lost painting but a new artwork generated by a computer that had analysed […]
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has made a very important decision in the case of Stichting Brein v Ziggo (C‑610/15), which involves blocking access to The Pirate Bay (TPB) and the legal nature of torrent files. This case follows a CJEU decision on multimedia players containing […]
The newspaper industry in in disarray because of the Internet, old business models are no longer working, and media empires need to contest with a changed environment. There are two ways of addressing the challenges ahead, to change business models, or to hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers to […]
There is an interesting copyright case brewing online. Cyriak Harris is a British freelance video animator, famous for creating surreal videos involving cute animals that are then transformed in often nightmarish ways (my favourite is Kitty City). In 2010 he produced a video of dancing cows that went viral (as […]
The BBC has announced that it will drop its online website for recipes in an effort to generate savings. This has raised quite a few eyebrows, with the hashtag #bbcrecipes currently the top UK trending topic on Twitter. This has prompted a very interesting legal discussion, can recipes be subject […]
A very interesting case has been developing this week to highlight several issues surrounding the DMCA take-down procedure, and the protection of copyright story elements such as plot, story and dialogue. The case involves the YouTube channel of Spanish geek vlogger Frikidoctor, which seems to specialise in Game of Thrones […]