Many social media sites and pages encourage people to post and share photos. This activity creates an issue where the owner of the photos has not given permission for that use, as a photographer alleged in a recent Fifth Circuit case Stross v. Redfin Corp., ___ Fed. Appx. ___ (5th Cir. Apr. 9, 2018) (2018 … Continue reading
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Pepe the Frog: A Case Study On When Copyrightable Content Takes On New Meaning
After making headlines in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Pepe the Frog is back in the news again. This time, for the copyright enforcement efforts that Pepe’s creator is pursuing against unauthorized uses of the character by certain social media personalities and social media forums.… Continue reading
The Battle for Copyright Protection in the Digital Era
The age of the Internet poses many new challenges to those individuals seeking to protect and enforce their intellectual property rights online. As the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada recently stated: “Under the cloak of anonymity on the internet, some can illegally copy, download, and distribute the intellectual property of others, such as movies, … Continue reading
Social Media, Copyright, and Blockchain
Social media has changed how people and companies interact and has provided us with some technological innovations that have raised copyright issues. In an effort to keep our readers informed of some recent developments involving social media, we wanted to provide some background relating to some headlines combining social media, copyright, and blockchain, and we … Continue reading
Will reverse class actions facilitate online IP enforcement in Canada?
While the internet has created ample opportunities for IP rights holders to exploit their intellectual property rights online, it also poses significant challenges relating to the protection of those same IP rights from would-be infringers. The internet’s global reach combined with the sophistication and anonymity of most online users has created an environment where it … Continue reading
Copyright Safe Harbor for Third-Party Content
Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a safe harbor for online service providers that allow users to self-post content. For companies with Web 2.0 enabled sites, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c) limits liability “for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user.” But this safe harbor … Continue reading
YouTube Class Action
On May 15, 2013, a federal district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class action certification in a case involving YouTube. The Football Ass’n Premier League Ltd et al v. YouTube Inc., No. 1:07-cv-03582 (S.D.N.Y. May 15, 2013). We had previously covered the case involving Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube, where the same district court ruled, on … Continue reading
Agence France Presse v. Morel & The Scope of Twitter’s Copyright License
Despite the variety of legal recourse available to copyright owners, exclusive rights to creative content posted in the Twittersphere can sometimes be difficult to enforce and defend. Complications due to social media websites’ frequently-changing terms of service and viral gossip such as Facebook’s recent “copyright hoax” can leave the copyright owner doubting the strength of … Continue reading
Twitter Amends DMCA Policy Due to Copyright Complaints
In an “effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user posted content,” social media company Twitter recently announced changes to the site’s Copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) policy. Instead of merely removing the potentially infringing tweets without explanation, Twitter will now clearly mark Tweets and … Continue reading
The rise of videogame streaming in a global pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large effect on our entertainment consumption. Some entertainment industries have taken significant hits, while others have been more fortunate in their rise. Videogame streaming is one such industry on the rise. During the pandemic, the global viewership of popular streaming platforms Twitch and YouTube Gaming increased by 10% and … Continue reading