The Copyright Act defines a derivative work as “a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgement, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.” The statute also states that “a work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ‘derivative work.’”
Comments closedMonth: December 2017
Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) in which libraries, publishers, authors, and their collecting societies have agreed to a set of Key Principles that are intended to give European libraries and similar cultural institutions the possibility to digitise and make available on line out-of-commerce books and learned journals which are part of their collections. This non-legislative initiative is complementary to the Commission’s adopted legislative proposal on orphan works.
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Elmo Shropshire, who also goes by a stage name of “Dr. Elmo,” is known for his performance of the song “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” (“Grandma song”). The copyright to the underlying musical composition of the song is co-owned by d/b/a Elmo Publishing and by Patricia Trigg, d/b/a Kris Publishing. Elmo Shropshire, plaintiff, alleges that in or about December 2007, Aubrey Canning posted a video on YouTube, which combined Christmas-related pictures with audio of a Canadian musical group, “The Irish Rovers”, singing the Grandma song.
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Liberty Media Holdings (“Liberty Media”) is the registered owner of the copyright to numerous adult films. It alleged that thirty-eight entities (collectively “Does 1- 38” ), identified only by their IP addresses, infringed upon its copyrighted motion picture, “Corbin Fisher Amateur College Men Down on the Farm” (the “Motion Picture”), by reproducing and widely distributing the Motion Picture over the Internet.
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Newspaper Licensing Agency (“NLA”) is a company formed to manage the intellectual property rights of its members by licensing, and collecting the licensing fees for, making copies of newspaper content and for these purposes has promulgated various licensing schemes. NLA was formed in 1995, primarily with a view to licensing press cuttings agencies to make copies of newspaper articles to send to their clients and to license the clients to make their own copies.
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CJSC “Roust Inc.” is the proprietor of a number of trade mark registrations for marks comprising or including the word mark RUSSIAN STANDARD. The registrations cover a wide variety of goods and services including vodka. Russian Standard, Inc. uses some domain names, such as russian-standard.com, russian-standard.net, russianstandart.com and russianstandart.net, to offer its services.
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The six well-know studios (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios Productions LLLP, Warner Bros. Entertainment INC., Paramount Pictures Corporation, Disney Enterprises, INC., Columbia Pictures Industries, INC.) sued Newzbin Limited for infringement of copyright arising from the operation of a website called Newzbin on a world wide internet discussion system called Usenet.
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One Russian famous writer, the author of Prostokvashino, Eduard Uspensky has published an open letter to Russian president. The letter is some kind of “the cry of writer’s soul” because his copyright is not respected from his point of view. Actually the letter titles “I don’t have the right to receive remuneration for t-shirt with Cheburashka (books character)”. The reason of this letter is production of new series of Prostokvashino by Russian Souzmultfilm, but without participation of Uspensky.
Comments closedMember States are required to enable the competent judicial authorities to order the infringer who knowingly, or with reasonable grounds to know, engaged in an infringing activity to pay the rightholder damages appropriate to the actual prejudice suffered by him as a result of the infringement. Where the infringer acted not knowingly, or without reasonable grounds to know, Member States have the possibility to enable the judicial authorities to order the recovery of profits or the payment of damages, which may be pre-established.
Comments closedOption 1 could facilitate the clearance of rights and reduce transaction costs for cross-border online transmissions only on the basis of voluntary agreements concluded between rightholders, CMOs and broadcasters. The effectiveness of such agreements would depend on the sectors’ willingness to license rights collectively (which may be limited in the case of AV works).
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