NBC Universal, Inc. and CNBC, Inc. have been sued by font foundry The Font Bureau, Inc. (“Font Bureau”) in a “classic case of trademark and copyright infringement” for allegedly not securing the proper usage license. The typefaces at issue, Bureau Grotesque, Interstate and Antenna are registered trademarks of Font Bureau. According to the complaint, found [...]

EMI, who controls more than 20 percent of all songs licensed in North America, has agreed to a licensing deal in lieu of protracted litigation with music service Grooveshark. According to the site, owned by Escape Media Group, it was negotiating a deal with EMI when the suit was filed. However, Grooveshark was having difficulty [...]

Just a week after the September 25th opening arguments, the $2.58 million suit by Eight Mile Style LLC against Apple, Inc. has been quietly settled. Filed in 2004, the suit alleged that Apple, “distributed, publicly performed, [and] made available” various Eminem recordings which amounted to copyright infringement and false endorsement under the Lanham Act. More [...]

Apparently agreeing with recent criticism of the deal, the Department of Justice  urged a federal court on Friday to reject Google’s disputed settlement with book authors and publishers. The class action settlement in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc. as proposed, could potentially lead to copyright infringements. As such, the Department, proposed [...]

A group of authors and publishers, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Samuelson clinic), filed an objection last week to the proposed Google Book Search lawsuit settlement. The coalition of [...]

A jury awarded Paris-based Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A.’s $32 million against hosting companies Akanoc Solutions Inc., Managed Solutions Group Inc., and Steven Chen, the owner of the two companies. The decision, from U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California differs from previous contributory infringement cases where a defendant intentionally and knowingly enabled another [...]

Stan Lee approves of the recent Disney-Marvel deal as a major coup. From MSNBC. YouTube seeks to license major movies for streaming video rental via internet: From AP. The history of corporate art collections and their role in future exhibitions. From The New York Times.

In  written testimony given last week, United States Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters, stated her concern that the proposed Google Book settlement would, “encroach on responsibility for copyright policy that traditionally has been the domain of Congress.” In response, Peter Drummond, Google senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, defended the settlement, [...]