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A TikTok Ban? How Dancing Became a Danger To National Security
DanceByte, the company that brought us TikTok is currently under fire for (1) hosting government officials and (2) being in China. Literally two things outside of DanceByte’s control. This is what our dysfunctional world has come to. The completely unconstitutional ban that couldn’t happen under Trump, seems to be gaining “bipartisan” traction in the US all of a sudden, which means Canada will follow. Big sigh! So, let’s brace for a ban in Canada. As many users put it, the world will be a very strange place on the day we wake up without TikTok. Indeed, there is an anti-trust element in this ban that cannot be overseen in a…
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Web 3.0: Decentralized Social Media Is The Next Big Trend
As social media fatigue is setting on, we can note major layoffs in centralized platforms. Indeed, centralized platforms are riddled with privacy issues, predatory marketing, and algorithmic discrimination, such as unfair shadow-banning, that deprive users of a meaningful experience and defeat the point of being on social media. In that respect, the former Twitter administration went so far into algorithmic persecution that it sparked a tsunami of change in social media habits such as, alternative platforms, encryption, and digital identity fragmentation. Hundreds of brand-new social media platforms tailored to user needs gained in popularity during the pandemic. It is impossible to be on all of them and it is not…
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Joan Mitchel Foundation And Luis Vuitton, Potential Lawsuit,
Unauthorised use of the American abstract painter’s work in a Louis Vuitton advertising campaign prompts legal action. According to the New York Times , the Joan Mitchel Foundation was approached twice by the fashion brand to use the paintings as a backdrop to sell a range of handbags. On the second occasion a representative for the company emphasized it was a personal request from Bernard Arnault, owner of LVMH, the parent company. The foundation refused on the grounds that it never licenses use of the work for anything other than educational purposes. Educational purposes are interestingly considered a fair use practice under both Canadian and US copyright, and are an…
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Jury Sides With Hermès in MetaBirkins NFT Lawsuit
One of the most heard of NFT-related trademark lawsuits in the US resulted in a triumph for luxury brand Hermès against artist Mason Rothschild, whose “MetaBirkins” NFT project sought to dilute the luxury brand’s trademark. In the Southern District Court of New York, a jury sided with Hermès and found that Rothschild’s NFTs failed a test that would allow them to be considered art, therefore selling “MetaBirkins” non-fungible tokens violates the trademark of luxury brand Hermès. Bloomberg Law reported this morning on the outcome of the trial, a potentially landmark decision in the confusing world of NFT intellectual property. The jury awarded Hermès $133,000 and determined that the tokens aren’t…
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The new IP landscape in Russia
Among the devastating and far-reaching consequences of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February last year, IP in the region has been affected. In particular, the sanctions imposed on Russia and the counteractions of Russia against “unfriendly” countries have raised uncertainty and concern among IP rights holders. The protection of intellectual property rights has not been defined as a sanctionable activity. At first, the exclusive rights related to IP became a means of politicking and pressure, but now the situation is much calmer. From a purely legislative point of view, the situation is not that alarming. Protection of and respect for intellectual property rights in Russia has historically been high. The…
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AI Generated Art: Kelly McKerman v. Stable Diffusion and Midjourney
A trio of artists — Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz — filed a lawsuit against AI art generators Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and artist portfolio platform DeviantArt, which recently created its own AI art generator, DreamUp, alleging that these organizations have infringed the rights of “millions of artists” by training their AI tools on five billion images scraped from the web “without the consent of the original artists.” The lawsuit has been filed by lawyer and typographer Matthew Butterick along with the Joseph Saveri Law Firm, which specializes in antitrust and class action cases. Butterick and Saveri are currently suing Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI in a similar case involving the…
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Jack Daniels And – Heightened 1st Amendment Protection For
The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari to Jack Daniel’s distillery in its appeal of a Ninth Circuit decision holding that a dog toy manufacturer’s use of the Jack Daniel’s trademarks and label design is expression protected by the First Amendment. The noted whisky manufacturer, undaunted by the Supreme Court’s denial of cert in January 2021, took a rare second shot earlier this year when it filed a second Petition for Certiorari, which has proven to be successful. The Supreme Court’s change of heart means it will now hear Jack Daniel’s appeal of a controversial Ninth Circuit ruling that a dog toy, even though sold as a for-profit commercial…
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Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, More Fair Use Before SCOTUS
All eyes were on SCOTUS yesterday as the court heard arguments in the Warhol Prince case. I always look forward to copyright judgments from this court. This is another case on the application of the fair use doctrine or what I endearingly call, the “whatever-you-can-get-away-with doctrine”. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. v. Goldsmith is a copyright dispute over a photograph of the musician Prince. The issue before the court is to decide whether a work of art is “transformative” when it conveys a different meaning or message from its source material (as the Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and other courts of…
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Facebook Hit With $175M Patent Infringement Verdict In Instagram Live
The $175M verdict awarded yesterday by an Austin, TX jury in favor of walkie-talkie company Voxer is the latest in the IP infringement portfolio of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, this time for using communications technology patented by Voxer in its Facebook Live and Instagram Live features. Voxer first filed its lawsuit against Facebook in 2020. In its initial 2020 complaint Voxer alleged that its founder, an army veteran named Tom Katis, began developing communications tech in 2006 after witnessing shortcomings in walkie-talkie technology during his service in Afghanistan. The complaint further laid out that the Voxer app was launched in 2011 and that Facebook representatives got in touch with…
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Galaxy Report On NFT Rights; What About Web3 to Web2 User Generated Content
For some reason, many people still believe that buying an NFT gives them ownership over intellectual property in original works. The Galaxy Report may have found the culprit of this widespread misconception: intentional misrepresentation. As if you didn’t know that buying an mp3 doesn’t give you IP rights to the song encoded in it. You know it full well, because when you post the song on Twitch, someone will come and take it down, even though you bought the game that included the song. Right! Why would an NFT be any different? Because it is more expensive? Since when buying an expensive painting gives you the right to reproduce that…
