Your Privacy Protection is YOUR Responsibility. I went to buy something at a store today and gave a credit card. As is often the case, the cashier asked for my phone number. I said, “Sure, do you have a pen and a piece of paper, so I can write it down.” He said, “Just tell it to me.” [...]
Johnny Manziel, also known as “Johnny Football” took the college football world by storm In 2012. The Texas A&M quarterback was the first ever redshirt freshman to win the coveted Heisman Trophy award for the most outstanding player in collegiate football. He is projected to be a first-round draft pick when he decides to [...]
The copyright holder is the one who creates the content, unless it is a work for hire. The purchaser is just one of many, who bought the book, rented the movie, or licensed the images from the copyright holder or the 3rd party licensee. Because you bought a book, does not mean you can make copies of that book.
Social media has become such an all-encompassing phenomena that it’s not surprising that it has come to the forefront of some high profile criminal cases. One such case is the recent Steubenville rape trial of two Ohio high school football players who were accused of raping a 16 year-old drunk girl.
How often have you seen an advertisement on TV or attended a conference, boot camp, workshop, or seminar and you were enticed into purchasing what seemed like a really cheap product, only to discover there were strings attached? Or you signed up for a product thinking it was a onetime only purchase and before you know it, every single month you were being charged for that item. Or a company offers you an introductory package of free books, CDs, magazines, or movies. Then once you sign up for that onetime package of books/movies/CDs, you are enrolled in a club or a subscription program that sends you more products and bills you, or automatically renews you, until you cancel.
The FTC has a wide range of general information for consumers on credit reporting issues, including Free Credit Reports, Disputing Errors on Credit Reports, and Your Source for a Truly Free Credit Report? AnnualCreditReport.com, as well as a new consumer blog posted titled It Pays to Check Your Credit Report.
As you see, copyright law isn’t always so cut-and-dried. So, whether you are creating a video or you have copyrighted material that you want to protect it is always a good idea to be informed of your rights and obligations under the law by consulting with an attorney.
Does a work have to be published before it can receive copyright protection? The answer is not anymore, but prior to 1978 copyright protection was established, either by publishing the work and affixing the copyright notice symbol, or through registration.
So how do we define publication for the purpose of copyright protection?
So what exactly is a copyright and what does it protect?
As has been expected, more and more federal courts are ruling on issues related to social media and content use. In a case that every copyright lawyer has been anticipating, recently, Judge Alison Nathan from the District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the Agence France-Presse and The Washington Post improperly used images that photojournalist Daniel Morel posted to his Twitter page.
With the explosive growth of Social Media, ownership of content has become an all-important issue. Once you post a story or photo to a social media site, is anyone allowed to use your content without permission? This is the question that everyone has been waiting for the courts to answer.
