For sports fans, photographs taken during competition can become iconic. Muhammad Ali standing over Joe Frazier, the United States Hockey Team celebrating the “Miracle On Ice,” and Tiger Woods at the Masters are a few examples. Sports photos are highly marketable, but who owns and has the rights to use these photos?
Continue reading “Sports, Photography, and Copyright: Who Has the Rights?”
If I played “Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss II, you would probably recognize the song immediately. In fact, there are dozens of classical pieces that many of us are probably familiar with, even if we don’t listen to classical music regularly. Copyright for classical music can sometimes cause issues for YouTubers and other internet content creators. For example, a YouTuber might think that they are free to play a song because the composer has been dead for centuries. However, the recording they choose to play in their videos might be protected by copyright law and result in the video being taken down! Two content creators named Ludwig Ahgren and “JSchlatt” took it upon themselves to solve some of their copyright problems once and for all. To understand what they did and how they did it, we should talk about copyright law first. Specifically, let’s look at the distinction between copyright protection over a musical composition versus a sound recording. Continue reading “Classic Copyright Issues”
When I was in high school, the annual musical was always a big deal. They would do renditions of famous productions such as Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, and even Disney’s High School Musical. Although I had long since graduated from high school by the time my favorite musical Hamilton became popular, I noticed that there weren’t really productions of it outside of Broadway sponsored productions. Perhaps a recent controversy regarding the threat of a copyright lawsuit and an unauthorized Hamilton production at a Texas church helps explain why…
Continue reading ““Scamilton” – Copyright Troubles in “Way-Off” Broadway Productions”
During my junior year of undergrad, I was ecstatic when I received an offer to join the Legal Department of Fox Entertainment Group (now, 20th Century Studios) as a Content Protection Intern. The idea of working on a major studio lot was more than exciting to someone who had grown up an hour away from Hollywood. Continue reading “From the Studio Lot to Law School”
Which of the following acts violates copyright? Choose all that apply.
Recently, the concept of NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, have taken over the internet as the new, hot investment. Unfortunately, so too have people’s misconceptions about what owning an NFT actually is. Many investors think that owning an NFT of a digital image means owning the underlying copyright to the image. Spoiler alert – it doesn’t.
Continue reading “Jodorowsky’s Dune – How Understanding Copyright Can Save You $3 Million”
Every kid in the world at some point in their lives has probably dreamt of inventing something or creating a brand–and making millions off their creative genius. I know I have. While I regret to inform you that I am neither a millionaire nor the next Steve Jobs (yet!), I’ve dabbled in many areas of intellectual property, which ultimately led me down the path to IP law. Continue reading “My Creative Journey Towards IP Law”
Coming into law school at Loyola, I was really interested in learning about intellectual property (IP) law and possibly even making a career out of it. During my fall 2L semester, I had the chance to take my first IP course: the Intellectual Property Survey course. I was so excited to finally be able to study IP, and was eagerly anticipating the class.
I remember the conversation that sent me to law school vividly. I was working in marketing for an arts organization, discussing an upcoming art exhibit with the artist. Of course, the topic of online marketing arose. The conversation went like this:
Continue reading “Legal Literacy in the Arts: My Journey with IP in the Misinformation Age”
Before coming to law school, I only had a vague understanding of what the public domain was. Mostly, it seemed like a phrase people would throw around when describing music that was insanely old. However, a few of my friends make music in their spare time and seeing how they used music they found within the public domain” helped me understand its importance and how it functions.
Using the internet, my friend would find songs that were in the public domain. He would slice and dice particular sections from them. He would then add the sounds into his own sound mix, often changing the pitch and adding effects as he went along. The final product would sound unrecognizable, and usually really cool. (If you want an example of how musicians do this, this link offers some excellent examples of how to use public domain music. It also has a sound example that shows the unique sound a sample creates).
Continue reading “Demystifying the Public Domain: How Expired IP Promotes Creativity”
