HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

In a decision applauded by webcasters and lamented by the recording industry, the Second Circuit ruled last week that individualized radio stations–such as those offered by LAUNCHcast and Pandora–are not “interactive services” under the DMCA, freeing the webcasters from the potentially massive financial burden of having to pay licensing fees to record labels for the transmission of sound recordings as part of their services.  The decision was the first by a federal court of appeals to examine the hotly-debated issue.

The suit, originally filed in 2001 by several labels owned by Sony BMG, including Arista, Bad Boy and Zomba, alleged that LAUNCHcast, a webcasting service run by Yahoo’s Launch Media unit, which enables users to create “stations” that play songs within a particular genre or similar to a particular artist or song, violated provisions of the DMCA that required payment of licensing fees for the use of sound recordings in an “interactive” service.”  Continue Reading »

One copyright case that owners and licensors of digital content should be following closely in the coming months is the one brought against Universal Music Group by Stephanie Lenz, a Pennsylvania mom who posted a video on YouTube of her young son on a tricycle with Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” playing in the background. Universal submitted a DMCA takedown notice claiming that the video infringed its copyright in the Prince song. YouTube immediately removed Lenz’s video.  Lenz was able to get it restored seven weeks after filing a DMCA counter-notification asserting that her video constituted fair use of the song. Lenz then sued Universal for interfering with her legal right to post the video online. Continue Reading »

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act celebrated its 10^th anniversary this week.  That milestone provides us with an excuse to take a brief look at the statute and some ways it has affected the digital marketplace.

The DMCA was initially intended as the US implementation of two treaties adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1996 to establish rules for two evolving forms of digital media: music and computer software and databases.  However, as the legislation was introduced in Congress, additional provisions were added in response to lobbying efforts by two distinct constituencies.  

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We recently had an opportunity to explore and write about the current trends and challenges in Latin America’s expanding digital marketplace.  The article below appeared in Volume 7, Issue 8 of LATINLAWYER magazine, www.LATINLAWYER.com. 

    Winning the Digital Race

Apparently the AP is taking issue with the use of its content (including both text and photos) by bloggers who are relying on the U.S. Copyright law doctrine of “Fair Use” (which allows the use/reproduction of copyrighted material for the purposes of critiquing such content without the permission of the copyright holder) as a shield from liability for copyright infringement claims. In recent months the AP has issues multiple DMCA-takedown notices to social discussion/blog websites, including seven notices to the news discussion site “Drudge Retort” (http://www.drudge.com/cadenhead.htm), written by Rogers Cadenhead, and a notice to the blog site known as “Snapped Shot” (http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/06/fair-use-and-th.html), which features and critiques certain news photos. The AP is claiming that such sites are misappropriating its content and that such sites’ claims of “fair use” in connection therewith are invalid. Continue Reading »