What are the Rules of Fair Use? Fair use is a term you may have heard thrown around in discussions regarding copyright and intellectual property. From the term alone “fair use”, you might think of like, “fair game”, as in you can take a work that falls under...

Intellectual Property, the Law, and Morality Intellectual property can refer to one of two things: The first being the legal field which concerns “creations of the mind”, including music, art, literature, etcetera. The second being those works themselves. (...)

Limewire and Copyright Infringement Limewire is a peer to peer file trading program that allows millions of users to swap illegal copies of songs and videos back and forth every day. Record companies have estimated losses in the millions of dollars range thanks to...

What does a Notary Public do? If you’re researching copyrights and intellectual property law, you’ve probably heard the term “notary public”. You’ve probably guessed, correctly, that a notary public is some sort of registered agent of the US or UK...

What is Openlaw? Openlaw is a pretty interesting project, really. This project is being conducted at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard School of Law. The project is aimed at the release of case arguments under a copyleft licensing scheme, so...

What are Bootlegs? The word bootleg actually has a number of meanings. The one we’re all probably most familiar with would be counterfeit, or unauthorized merchandise. In the context of counterfeit and unauthorized merchandise, bootlegging is one hundred percent...

What is Licensing? If you grew up in the 1980’s, or if you had kids growing up around that time, you may remember that there were actually two different “Ghostbusters” cartoons. One with a gorilla and a couple of guys riding around in a flying car, and another...

The Legality of File Sharing Websites Ever since the whole Napster fiasco, there’s been a lot of debate and confusion regarding file sharing websites and peer to peer file trading services and programs. (...)

What Exactly is a Trademark for? ™ You always see those ™ trademarks all over everything from movie posters to toys to food packaging. If you ask most people, they’ll be able to tell you that the Trade Mark has “Something to do with copyright… doesn’t...

CD Ripping: Is it Legal? So, CD ripping, is it legal? The short answer? No, it is not. That’s just the short answer, though. The actual law with regards to ripping the music off of a CD and storing it on your computer or burning it to another CD is confusing at...

The Importance of Royalty Fees For clarity, we’ll quickly define the meaning of royalty fees. A royalty payment system is an agreement wherein, rather than buying the copyright to a work, or even buying the publishing rights outright, the licensee, or buyer, will...

Youtube and Copyright Law If you go on Youtube and look up any mainstream musician you can think of, you’re probably going to find hundreds of videos posted by fans, providing not only their popular, studio released music, but also, rare B-sides, live performances,...

Satire: What can I get away with? You’ve probably heard all three of these words; satire, parody, and spoof. Here we’ll get into satire, and furthermore, how it pertains to copyright law. (...)

Licensing, Merchandising, and Distribution Rights There can be some confusion regarding who exactly owns a copyrighted intellectual property sometimes. For example, if you grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, you would probably see the comic strip...