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Category: Fair use

Originality remains the sine qua non of copyright, no author may copyright his ideas or the facts he narrates

The musical Jersey Boys depicts the history of a popular musical quartet, the Four Seasons (“the Band”), from its origins in Belleville, New Jersey, in the 1950s, to the Band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In the late 1980s, Band member Tommy DeVito partnered with Rex Woodard to write a book telling “the whole story” of The Four Seasons. The result of this partnership was an autobiography of DeVito (“the Work”), ghostwritten by Woodard and completed before the Play was developed.

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The paparazzi images are further from the core of copyright protections than creative or fictional works would be

Rebecca Fay Walsh is a Brooklyn-based professional photographer who licenses her photographs to online and print media for a fee. Townsquare Media is a Delaware-incorporated business that owns and operates an online website called XXL Mag (“XXL”).

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The more transformative the new work, the less significance of other factors, like commercialism

Tamita Brown, Glen S. Chapman, and Jason T. Chapman (“Plaintiffs”) are musicians who created the song Fish Sticks n’ Tater Tots (the “Song). In 2017, a documentary film titled Burlesque: Heart of the Glitter Tribe (the “Film”) depicts a group of burlesque dancers in Portland, Oregon, one of whom incorporated the Song in a performance.

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The copyright in tattoo is over when the last becomes the part of likeness?

Solid Oak has brought copyright infringement lawsuit against 2K Games and Take-Two. Take-Two is a major developer, publisher, and marketer of interactive entertainment and video games that develops and publishes products through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, 2K and Rockstar Games. Defendants annually release an updated basketball simulation video game that depicts basketball with realistic renderings of different NBA teams, including lifelike depictions of NBA players and their tattoos.

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SWD IA on EU copyright modernisation – options to address preservation of cultural heritage

Baseline

No policy intervention. Reproduction of works for preservation purposes by CHIs would continue to take place only as permitted under the different conditions and the varying space provided by the national implementation of the existing EU exception for ‘specific acts of reproduction’, or after the reproduction right has been cleared with rightholders if CHIs consider that the transaction costs involved is for them worth and possible to incur. In voluntary legal deposit contexts and for parts of scientific publications that libraries have access to remotely, preservation could continue to take place within broader agreement-based systems.

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Technical aspects of text and data mining research in copyright directive

A new very useful research, requested by policy department for citizens’ rights and constitutional affairs, has been published. The author of research, Eleonora Rosati, has briefly but informative and understandable way outlined the main issues with text and data mining exception to copyright. The entire research available here, below some technical points of exception – its three steps.

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Fair use of books in institutes of higher education

In this case plaintiffs, consisting of individuals and associational organizations, assert claims for copyright infringement for the alleged unauthorized reproduction and distribution of books owned by the Universities. Defendants have entered into agreements with Google, Inc. (“Google”), that allow Google to create digital copies of works in the Universities’ libraries in exchange for which Google provides digital copies to defendants (the “Mass Digitization Project” or “MDP”).

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