Pokémon Go’s Virtual Trespass Suit Reaches Settlement Agreement
Can a video game company be held liable for placing virtual items on private property? The answer is – maybe. On February 14, 2019, the developer of the mobile game…
Copyright Strikes as a Tool for Censorship, Bullying, Extortion
With the advent and then explosion of consumer internet access in the 1990s, a concomitant threat of massive, anonymous, and difficult-to-trace copyright infringement also arose. Congress faced significant pressure from…
Why Public Figures Should Receive Heightened Defamation Law Protection
At common law, defamation actions were meant to compensate individuals for any harm to reputation they suffered as a result of any defamatory communications made by speakers to third parties.…
Kessler v. Duffer: A Conspiracy Theory and the Origin of Stranger Things
The success and mass cultural appeal of Netflix’s Stranger Things is in part due to the way in which it incorporates familiar story tropes and cinematic techniques to create a…
What Does EU’s New Copyright Law Mean for Online Service Providers?
A new copyright directive approved by the European Union on February 13 might fundamentally change the landscape for online service providers (OSPs). While the bill still awaits confirmation from European…
Post-Sale Confusion
Traditionally, the main purposes of trademark law are consequentialist by nature. They are to reduce consumer search costs and to create incentives for producers to invest in product quality. If…
Oracle v. Google and the Brain Teaser of API Copyright Protection
Since the beginning of the digital revolution, copyright law has had to adapt to the advent of new technologies and their impact on the world of creation. Software protection, mainly,…
1970s Musicians v. UMG & Sony: A Second Chance or Works For Hire?
On February 5, 2019, UMG Recordings (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (Sony) were sued by a group of musicians in a class action separately in Southern District of New York…
JIPEL Vol. 8, No. 1 – Fall 2018
Legal journals are sometimes criticized as disconnected from the real world or labeled sounding chambers for academics. Like many of our favorite publications, our fall issue stands in stark contrast…
Is the Copyright Act Inconsistent with the Law of Employee Invention Assignment Contracts?
There is a latent conflict between the law of employee invention assignment contracts and the Copyright Act’s work for hire doctrine. Countless employees sign contracts specifying that, in most cases,…