Month: September 2018

The ‘Cobbler’ was a dud. But it has stitched up an appellate ruling on IP addresses, preventing copyright owners from acting like heels.

The ‘Cobbler’ was a dud. But it has stitched up an appellate ruling on IP addresses, preventing copyright owners from acting like heels.

Posted by | Sep 27, 2018 | , , , , |

This guest post was written by Crystal R. Nobregas, a Southwestern Law School fourth-year evening program student who is taking the Entertainment Law and the Emerging Web class. For any internet users who may be saddled with naughty kids, n’er do well drop-in nephews, or neighbors who employ sneaky tech to “borrow” their wi-fi without permission or paying for it, federal appellate judges in California have sent a small but key message recently: Got your back, man. That’s one way to look at the decision this fall by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which delivered...

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Ask not what a bot does to thee: Sony and Facebook back down after taking down part of British pianist’s posted J.S. Bach performance video

Ask not what a bot does to thee: Sony and Facebook back down after taking down part of British pianist’s posted J.S. Bach performance video

Posted by | Sep 24, 2018 | , , , , , , |

Johann Sebastian Bach may have died 268 years ago, but does legal discord still prevail over the ownership of his musical works? It may, particularly if computers play a part. Earlier this month, James Rhodes— a British classical pianist who has attracted increasing public attention, not just for his virtuosity but also his harrowing personal story of childhood sexual abuse — posted a video on Facebook of his performance of Bach’s Partita No. 1 for keyboard, published in 1726. But shortly after the social media post went up on its site, Facebook silenced 47 seconds of it because Sony Music Entertainment...

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Not your average ROM com: No love lost as video game ’emulators’ get legal blast from Nintendo

Not your average ROM com: No love lost as video game ’emulators’ get legal blast from Nintendo

Posted by | Sep 23, 2018 | , , , , |

This guest article is a courtesy cross-post from the social media of the Wolk & Levine law firm. It is by associate attorney Adam Gertz, with contributions from law clerk Diana Aramyan and managing partner Sarah R. Wolk. If you’re a fan of classic video games, you have probably heard of ROMs (read only memory). A ROM also is a digital image of a video game or other software that a player can display and manipulate via other software known as “emulators.” For example, a player can download emulator software onto her device and then download a ROM of the Super Nintendo...

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After fans ripped ‘Michael’ for ‘fake’ songs, Sony and King of Pop’s estate won free-speech protection for product answers, judges find

Posted by | Sep 7, 2018 | , , , , , |

The King of Pop may have died a decade ago but his legacy of litigation lives on, as a California appeals court has just reminded. And while the state appellate judges may have put a curious coda on free speech protections of the works of Michael Jackson from beyond the grave, they didn’t try to answer fans’ questions about a disputed album’s performance or compositional authenticity in their late August ruling. It came even as the death of another popular music icon — the irreplaceable Aretha Franklin — underscored why, for Entertainment Law practitioners, artists’ posthumous legal state may...

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The Biederman Blog is now ranked NUMBER ONE on Feedspot's Top 20 Entertainment Law blogs (May 2018). It is very exciting to top this list. We are extra proud of number six - Entertainment Law Offices of Gordon P. Firemark. Mr. Firemark graduated from Southwestern in 1992, and is a top entertainment blogger and webinar presenter in addition to being a world class entertainment attorney!

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