In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the Supreme Court clarified the test for awarding attorney’s fees when applying the Copyright Act’s discretionary fee-shifting provision, 17 U.S.C. § 505. The Court held that the...more
6/22/2016
/ Attorney's Fees ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Fee-Shifting ,
First Sale Doctrine ,
Judicial Discretion ,
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons ,
Objective Unreasonableness Standard ,
Prevailing Party ,
SCOTUS ,
The Copyright Act
Last month, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., the long-running copyright case involving Google’s Google Books project. The high court’s refusal to hear the case leaves in place the Second...more
5/4/2016
/ Appeals ,
Authors ,
Authors Guild ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Digital Media ,
e-Books ,
Fair Use ,
Google ,
Google Books ,
Popular ,
SCOTUS ,
Transformative Use
In a squabble between two psychologists over rights to books about “explosive” children, the First Circuit weighed in this summer with an opinion holding that a work of authorship under the Copyright Act can be simultaneously...more
As regular readers of this blog will know, comic book superheroes frequently find themselves at the center of legal disputes over copyright in fictional characters. In many cases, both sides agree that the characters in...more
Earlier this week, the Second Circuit issued its ruling in the HathiTrust case, a potential precursor to the long-awaited resolution of the more prominent, and related, Google Books case. The decision upholds the district...more
As we have previously observed, superheroes often take starring roles in disputes relating to copyright protection for fictional characters. This makes sense, as they frequently appear in long-lived series of works in...more