Category: Copyright

Not really Copyright law and not really Patent law, but somewhere in between: this is where the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (“SCPA”) stands in US intellectual property law. In 1992 a case came before the Federal Circuit Court that resulted in a detailed explanation of the SCPA and a look at what Congress really intended.Brooktree […]

The world of intellectual property law primarily focuses on protecting assets. And the law provides different forms of protection depending on the asset. In general, these protections are found in copyrights, trademarks, and patents. These …

It took Michelangelo over four years to complete the Sistine Chapel—it might take you four seconds to download a high-resolution picture of it from Google. In 2016, Michelangelo may have been a starving artist. Fortunately for Michelangelo, and many other great Renaissance artists, the church and rich merchants were able to pay so much money […]

Virtual reality is a fast growing technology with major implications in the legal realm. While it is not necessarily a new technology, its increased use is bringing up more legal questions than ever before. How are copyrights and trademarks…

Fathers and Daughters Nevada has filed suit in the Eastern District of Michigan (Fathers and Daughters Nevada, LLC v Does 1-15, Case No. 2:16-cv-10372) against fifteen John Doe defendants (Does 1-15) who they believe have illegally copied and distributed its copyrighted work, the movie “Fathers and Daughters,” via bit torrent sites. The defendants, who haven’t […]

Semiconductor chips are found in almost any type of electronic these days, fulfilling a huge area of uses to the designer and consumer alike. Considering how widely used these products are today, one might reasonably assume that anybody can make them a…

China has a strong system in place for ensuring the protection of copyrighted material, often resulting in almost immediate action. The Chinese copyright takedown policies are designed to protect the right of “communication through an information network.” This focuses on a right to make sound and audiovisual recordings available to the public over the Internet.

As soon as an individual expresses an idea, phrase, or some other form of creativity in a tangible medium of expression, it has copyright protection. The United States government makes all works protected, whether registered or not, in order to promote creativity and allow for all original thoughts to be owned by the creators. While […]

Games have evolved from the simplicity of Pong to the complex, 18 quintillion planet universe of No Man’s Sky. Along with this massive expansion, development teams have evolved, too. While the original idea of any app or game is usually attributed to a stroke of genius from one person, it is understood that a team […]

Katherine Craig, a Detroit artist, is suing the Bloomfield-Hills based Princeton Enterprises because the developer wants to tear down a building in Detroit. While opposition to the destruction of buildings is not uncommon—particularly for older, historic buildings—Craig’s reason is quite different: she wants to preserve the 100-by-125-foot mural painted on the side of the building. Why? Because she painted it.