The 4th Circuit recently held that a housing developer cannot make its own modifications to, and then use, an architect's drawings where the party's contract expressly acknowledged the architect's copyright in the plans and specified the architect's fees for modifying them.
Although the recent court decision in Viacom v. YouTube represents a victory for website owners who seek DMCA protection, many website owners fail to comply with the strict requirements necessary to shield themselves from liability for 3rd party copyright infringement. Without taking the specific steps outlined below, website owners and operators could still be held liable for copyright infringement by their users, even if they had no idea that the content was infringing.
你不必成为美国居民也能够使用美国的著作权法。美国的著作权法提供世界上最完整的著作权保护。 拥有著作权的非美国公民(包括媒体或软件公司、作家、博客、艺术家、摄影师、设计师、以及所有从事创新 的职业)能够利用美国法律上的强制方法来保护著作权。这些著作甚至不用在美国注册著作权。
Sie müssen nicht in den USA leben um die vielen Vorteile der
Kopierschutzgesetze in den USA zu geniessen. Diese Gesetze zählen zu
den stärksten der Welt, und Inhaber dieser Rechte, wie etwa Medien-
und Softwarekonzerne, Autoren, Blogger, Künstler, Fotografen, Designer
und andere kreative Profis können ihre Rechte gesetzlich durchsetzen
ohne ihre Werke in den USA zu registrieren.
A new super-fast book scanner is being called "scary" by some, but it really raises no questions that society hasn't faced before.
Last year I wrote an article about Gaylord v. U.S., a case involving a U.S. postal stamp that incorporated a photograph of a sculpture from the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C. The sculptor (Frank Gaylord) sued for copyright infringement and initially lost with the trial court ruling that the stamp's depiction of the sculpture constituted transformative fair use and was therefore allowed under copyright law. Today a federal appeals court majority held that the stamp was not a fair use of the sculpture and remanded the case to the trial court for an assessment of damages. Records show that the government grossed over $17 Million on sales of the stamp, so damages could be substantial.
I've long advised clients about the importance of including proper notice on their works. As a practical matter, you should do everything in your power to make it easy for someone to get in touch with you for permission (and payment) to use your copyrighted material. As a matter of law, however, proper notice—especially when you also embed it in your metadata—gives you some important legal tools. Yesterday the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that elaborates on one of those tools: the ability to foreclose "innocent infringement" claims by unauthorized users of your work.
You don’t have to be a resident of the United States to take advantage of the many benefits of U.S. copyright laws. These laws offer some of the strongest protections of any country and non-U.S. copyright holders—including media and software companies, writers, bloggers, artists, photographers, designers, and any other creative professionals—can use legal enforcement methods available here even without registering your work in this country.