Huckabee Campaign Claims Religious Use for "Rocky" Song

According to the Hollywood Reporter, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's lawyers are making a unique argument to defeat a copyright suit over his campaign's use of the song "Eye of the Tiger" at a rally last September: that it was a religious event.

Court isn’t crazy about Prince challenge to dancing baby

The Gateway Journalism Review has published my article on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision in a case involving a YouTube video of a baby dancing to Prince's song "Let Go Crazy." The article is available here.

Copyright Law for Online Content: An Interview with Eric P. Robinson

http://repcapitalmedia.com/copyright-law-for-online-content-an-interview-with-eric-p-robinson/

Will "Hot News" Fly Away with Flyonthewall Ruling?

Almost a year after it heard arguments in the case, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Wall Street analyst's buy and sell recommendations are legitimate news, and that financial and investment firms cannot prevent dissemination of these facts by a website, Theflyonethewall.com.

My Thrill on TWiL

This morning I was among the guests on the This Week in Law webcast, during which we discussed several current issues in Internet and technology law, ranging from Tweeting from courtrooms, which I do know something about, to the implications of copyright and patent protection for various video codecs, which is pretty much beyond my expertise. 

Audio and video of the webcast is available here.

Second Circuit Abuzz About FlyontheWall Case

On Friday morning (Aug. 6), I attended oral argument before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Barclays Capital Inc. v. Theflyonthewall.com, Inc., No. 10-1372-cv (2d Cir.), an appeal of a permanent injunction and an award of $12,750 in statutory damages, plus interest and attorneys' fees, to three financial research firms against a website that charged subscribers for summaries of the firms' research reports, including recommendations to buy, sell or hold securities.

A primary topic of the argument -- which, although scheduled for 40 minutes, went on for more than twice that length of time -- was the viability of the "hot news" doctrine, which the district court applied to find that Theflyonthewall improperly undercut market for the financial firms' reports.  The district court also found that the site violated the firms' copyrights.

FTC's Provocative Discussion Paper on the Future of Media

(cross posted at the Citizen Media Law Project)
The Federal Trade Commission—which last year created guidelines to impose ethical standards on bloggers—is now taking on the ambitious task of saving the print media in the Internet era.