Parody: What can I get away with? Thanks to the Fair Use Doctrine, parody is actually considered to be one hundred percent legal as dictated by the first amendment to the United States constitution. (...)

Global Copyrighting Infringement If you lived in Turkey around the time George Lucas released the first “Star Wars” films, you may remember a movie called “Turkish Star Wars”. You may also have seen some clips from this movie if you have ever visited youtube,...

Should I Keep my Publishing Rights? Just to have an example to go with: Let’s say you’ve created a hilarious comic strip. It’s funny, the characters are endearing, and you’re pretty good at drawing in such a way to capture the eye and provoke, at least, a few...

What can I do with Open Content? Open content includes any content released into a format which explicitly declares itself to be free for use. Open content does not, usually, include selling rights, but usually will include just about every other right. (...)

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...