The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently posted an article questioning whether the Burning Man copyright and trademark policies are overly restrictive. We do empathize with BMO’s desire to preserve the festival’s noncommercial character and to protect the privacy interests of ticket-holders. But by granting itself ownership of your creative works and forbidding fair uses of its [...]

After an order to remove it from US servers downed the site for hours, the Pirate Bay has found itself a new offshore residence. From the site’s recent blog post on the matter, Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the [...]

Pasquale Iannetti Art Galleries Inc., a San Francisco art dealer, was indicted Thursday on charges of wire and mail fraud for shipping fake Joan Miró prints. Iannetti is accused of knowingly selling seven fake Miró prints in amounts ranging from $3,600 to $17,902 from 2005 to 2008. But federal prosecutors said the alleged scheme may [...]

What started as a preemptive suit has blossomed into a full-fledged Copyright infringement case. On May 18, 2009 Cosmic Debris, Etc. Inc, filed a suit in a California Northern District Court seeking a declaratory judgment that Emily the Strange lacks originality and is a “unique variation on a concept.” Less than a month later, “Nate the [...]

It was revealed here that Firas Alkhateeba, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, Photoshopped a now infamous image of President Obama as the Joker out of apparent “boredom.” Interesting that the image has been removed from Flickr due to “copyright-infringement concerns.”

Last year, Woody Allen sued American Apparel, seeking $10 Million in damages for the company’s unauthorized use of his image in an Advertising Campaign. Allen claimed that two billboards, featuring a still frame from the movie Annie Hall stating “the High Rabbi” in Yiddish, “calculatingly took my name, my likeness, and image and used them [...]

Just 2 months after filing her complaint, Farrah Fawcett has moved to dismiss her suit against Ohio’s Bio-Graphics, Inc. for “unauthorized, commercial use of [her] name, image likeness and celebrity identity.”  The complaint, found here, contains 2 causes of action. The first; Declaratory Judgment for ownership of the copyright of the famed “Farrah” poster, and [...]

I came across an interesting article at Neatorama cataloging the evolution of tech company logos. It made me wonder about the official trademark registration and scope of protection of the Apple Inc. corporate logo. The original Apple logo began as a complex drawing of Isaac Newton seated beneath a tree with a glowing apple overhead. [...]