Copyright: Frequently Asked Questions

511 common questions about copyright law, answered in plain English. Each answer links to the full guide or case analysis it comes from. Browse the Copyright case-law archive for the underlying decisions. Educational only, not legal advice.

What should I do first if I'm accused of copyright or trademark infringement?: Don't ignore it and don't respond in anger. Read the letter carefully, calendar every deadline it mentions, preserve everything related to the accused material (including the material itself — don't delete it), and figure out who is actually claiming what rights. Then assess whether the claim is a genuine dispute or a mass-mailed form letter. For anything beyond a routine platform takedown, a consultation with an IP attorney early is far cheaper than fixing a mistake later. Read more: Accused of IP Infringement: What to Do (and Not Do) First ›
Should I ignore a copyright infringement letter?: Almost never. Some mass-mailed demand letters do fizzle if ignored, but ignoring is a strategy you should choose deliberately after assessing the sender, not a default. Ignoring an actual lawsuit leads to default judgment, ignoring a Copyright Claims Board notice without opting out can lead to an enforceable default award, and ignoring marketplace complaints can get your Amazon or Etsy account suspended. At minimum, read it, calendar the deadlines, and evaluate how real the threat is. Read more: Accused of IP Infringement: What to Do (and Not Do) First ›
Will admitting I used the image or name make the case go away faster?: No — written admissions are the single most damaging thing accused parties volunteer. Saying 'I didn't know' or 'I already took it down' feels cooperative, but it confirms use, can undercut defenses like independent creation or fair use, and gives the claimant leverage. Removing the material is often smart as a practical matter, but do it without a written confession of liability. Let any acknowledgment come later, in a negotiated settlement with a release. Read more: Accused of IP Infringement: What to Do (and Not Do) First ›
Do most IP infringement claims actually go to trial?: No. The overwhelming majority of IP disputes settle or resolve without trial — demand letters settle for a fraction of the opening number, platform disputes end at the takedown/counter-notice stage, and even filed federal lawsuits settle far more often than they're tried. That's why your early moves matter: preserving evidence, avoiding admissions, and understanding your realistic exposure determine your negotiating position, and the negotiation is usually the whole game. Read more: Accused of IP Infringement: What to Do (and Not Do) First ›
Can you copyright something made by AI?: It depends on how much a human shaped the expression. The U.S. Copyright Office and the courts say purely AI-generated material, with no meaningful human authorship, is not copyrightable. In Thaler v. Perlmutter the D.C. Circuit affirmed in 2025 that a work authored entirely by a machine cannot be registered, and the Supreme Court declined to review that ruling in 2026. When a person contributes enough original, creative expression, those human parts can be protected, but the Office will not register the purely machine-made portions. Talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction about a specific work. Read more: AI and Intellectual Property: A 2026 Guide ›
Who owns the images or text an AI tool creates for me?: Two separate questions are involved. First, can it be owned at all under copyright? Often the purely AI-generated portion cannot. Second, as between you and the AI company, the tool's terms of service usually decide who may use the output and for what. Many consumer tools assign output rights to the user and allow commercial use, sometimes only on paid tiers, but the terms vary widely and can change. Read the specific terms for the tool you use and keep a copy. Read more: AI and Intellectual Property: A 2026 Guide ›
Is it legal to train AI on copyrighted work?: This is unsettled and being fought out in court right now. Some 2025 rulings (Bartz v. Anthropic, Kadrey v. Meta) found that training large language models on lawfully obtained books was a transformative fair use on the records before them, while Thomson Reuters v. Ross rejected fair use for a competing research tool. Courts have also drawn a hard line against using pirated copies. There is no settled nationwide rule yet, and several cases, including The New York Times v. OpenAI, are still in progress. Read more: AI and Intellectual Property: A 2026 Guide ›
Are AI deepfakes of a person's face or voice illegal?: Using a realistic AI replica of someone's face or voice for commercial gain can violate the right of publicity, and many states now have laws aimed specifically at unauthorized digital replicas. A federal bill, the NO FAKES Act, has been introduced and revised in Congress but, as of June 2026, has not become law. The rules differ a lot by state, so consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction about a specific situation. Read more: AI and Intellectual Property: A 2026 Guide ›
What are AI clauses in contracts?: AI clauses are contract terms that address how artificial intelligence is used in a deal. They typically cover whether a party may use AI at all, who must disclose that use, who owns AI-assisted output, who pays if that output infringes someone's rights, and whether a vendor may use your data to train its models. They allocate ownership and risk that older contract templates simply do not contemplate. Read more: AI Clauses Every Business Contract Should Address ›
Should my contract require disclosure when a vendor uses AI?: Often yes. Because AI-generated material can raise human-authorship and infringement questions, many businesses now require contractors and vendors to disclose whether and how they used AI on a deliverable, and to confirm a human reviewed it. Disclosure lets you assess ownership and risk before you rely on the work. An attorney licensed in your jurisdiction can tailor the right level of disclosure for your situation. Read more: AI Clauses Every Business Contract Should Address ›
Can I stop a vendor from training AI on my data?: You can try to, through a contract term. A common provision states that the provider may not use your content, prompts, outputs, or usage data to train, fine-tune, or improve any AI model without your specific written consent. These no-training and confidentiality terms are heavily negotiated, and the protection you actually get depends on the exact wording, so have a lawyer review it. Read more: AI Clauses Every Business Contract Should Address ›
Can I stop AI companies from training on my content?: There is no guaranteed legal switch, but you can send machine-readable signals that an increasing number of AI crawlers respect. The most common are a robots.txt file that disallows known AI bots, the W3C TDM Reservation Protocol (a 'TDM-Reservation: 1' signal), Cloudflare's Content Signals vocabulary, the proposed ai.txt standard, and 'Do Not Train' metadata or registries like Spawning's. On platforms (Adobe, DeviantArt, Tumblr, social networks), check your account settings for an AI opt-out toggle. None of these is foolproof, and compliance is largely voluntary in the US, but they create a documented record that you reserved your rights. Read more: Is It Legal to Train AI on Your Work? (And Can You Stop It?) ›
Does a robots.txt or 'Do Not Train' tag actually have legal force?: In the United States it mostly does not — robots.txt is a voluntary convention, not a statute, and most US courts have not held that ignoring it is itself illegal. In the EU it is different: the EU AI Act and Copyright Directive recognize machine-readable rights reservations, and a December 2025 German court ruling found that a plain-language opt-out buried in terms of use was not enough — the reservation had to be machine-readable. So these signals carry the most weight for AI providers operating in or selling to the EU. They are still worth using everywhere because they document your intent. Confirm how this applies to you with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Is It Legal to Train AI on Your Work? (And Can You Stop It?) ›
Are reaction videos legal on YouTube?: Reaction videos are legal when they qualify as fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107, which usually means the reactor adds genuine commentary, criticism, or analysis and uses no more of the original than needed. A reaction that plays someone else’s full video with occasional nods or laughter adds little and is much closer to infringement. There is no blanket rule either way — courts decide each video on its own facts, weighing purpose, amount used, and market harm. Read more: Are Reaction Videos Fair Use? The Honest Answer ›
What did the H3H3 (Hosseinzadeh v. Klein) case actually decide?: In Hosseinzadeh v. Klein (S.D.N.Y. 2017), a federal court held that Ethan and Hila Klein’s video mocking a Matt Hosseinzadeh skit was fair use because they used short clips interspersed with substantial critical commentary — the video was a critique, not a substitute for the original. The judge explicitly warned that the ruling did not bless the whole genre, noting that reaction videos which use someone else’s content with little or no commentary are ‘more akin to a group viewing session’ and raise a very different fair-use question. Read more: Are Reaction Videos Fair Use? The Honest Answer ›
Can I get a copyright strike for a reaction video even if it's fair use?: Yes. Fair use is a defense you assert after a claim, not a shield that prevents one. YouTube’s Content ID matches your video automatically and doesn’t evaluate fair use at all, so a fully lawful reaction can still be claimed, demonetized, or blocked. A rightsholder can also send a manual takedown that produces a strike; your remedies are the dispute process and, ultimately, a DMCA counter-notice — which can escalate to an actual lawsuit. Read more: Are Reaction Videos Fair Use? The Honest Answer ›
How much of a video can I show in a reaction?: There’s no fixed percentage or second count. The legal test is whether the amount you use is reasonable in relation to your commentary’s purpose — courts ask whether each clip serves a point you’re actually making. Showing an entire video start-to-finish is the riskiest pattern because your upload can substitute for watching the original, which strikes at the fourth fair-use factor. Pausing frequently, cutting what you don’t discuss, and skipping sections signals that your video is commentary, not a rebroadcast. Read more: Are Reaction Videos Fair Use? The Honest Answer ›
Can you actually make money selling open-source software?: Yes, but rarely from the license itself, because anyone can copy and run open-source code for free. Companies monetize the surrounding value: a hosted or managed cloud service, an open-core product where advanced features are proprietary, paid support and services, or dual licensing where a commercial license lets customers avoid copyleft obligations. The code is the funnel; the business is what you sell alongside it. Read more: Can You Build a Company on Open Source? ›
What is the difference between open source and source-available?: Open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative, guarantees anyone can use, modify, and redistribute the code for any purpose, including competing commercially. Source-available licenses like the Business Source License (BSL) or Server Side Public License (SSPL) publish the code but add restrictions — often barring you from offering it as a competing hosted service. Source-available code is visible but not OSI-approved open source. Read more: Can You Build a Company on Open Source? ›
Why did MongoDB, Elastic, and HashiCorp change their licenses?: All three relicensed to stop cloud providers from selling their software as a managed service without contributing back. MongoDB moved to the SSPL in 2018, Elastic to a dual SSPL/Elastic License in 2021, and HashiCorp to the BSL in 2023. Each shift traded pure open-source status for the ability to protect their hosted-service revenue — and each triggered community forks. Read more: Can You Build a Company on Open Source? ›
Do I need a contributor license agreement for my open-source project?: If you plan to dual-license, relicense later, or sell the project, yes. A contributor license agreement (CLA) grants your company the rights to every outside contribution, so you can offer a commercial license or change terms without chasing down every contributor. Without one, each contributor keeps copyright in their code, which can make relicensing legally impossible. Lighter projects often use the Developer Certificate of Origin instead. Read more: Can You Build a Company on Open Source? ›
Can you copyright a clothing design?: Not the garment itself. Under U.S. copyright law, clothing is a ‘useful article,’ so the cut, fit, silhouette, and construction of a dress or jacket cannot be copyrighted — which is why fast-fashion copies of runway shapes are legal. What you can copyright are the artistic elements that can be perceived separately from the garment: fabric prints, surface patterns, embroidery, appliqués, and original graphic designs. That separability rule comes from the Supreme Court’s decision in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands (2017). Read more: Can You Copyright a Clothing Design? Fashion, Jewelry & Furniture IP ›
Why is it legal for fast fashion brands to copy runway designs?: Because U.S. copyright deliberately excludes the functional design of useful articles, and a garment’s shape, cut, and construction are treated as functional. Congress has repeatedly declined to pass fashion-specific design protection, so a competitor can lawfully reproduce a silhouette as long as it doesn’t copy protected surface art, a design-patented design, protected trade dress, or the label. The EU is different: an unregistered design right there protects new designs for three years automatically, which is one reason European fashion houses have more copying remedies at home. Read more: Can You Copyright a Clothing Design? Fashion, Jewelry & Furniture IP ›
Is jewelry protected by copyright?: Generally yes, and more easily than clothing. Jewelry is usually analyzed as a sculptural work rather than a useful article, so an original pendant, ring, or bracelet design can be registered with the Copyright Office and enforced against copiers. The limits are originality and scope: common shapes like plain bands, simple hearts, crosses, and standard solitaire settings are unprotectable or receive only thin protection, meaning only near-identical copying infringes. Read more: Can You Copyright a Clothing Design? Fashion, Jewelry & Furniture IP ›
How do fashion designers protect their designs if copyright doesn’t cover clothing?: They stack other rights. Design patents can protect a garment’s, shoe’s, or accessory’s ornamental design for 15 years if filed within 12 months of first disclosure — Crocs and major sneaker brands use them heavily. Trademarks and trade dress protect brand names, logos, and iconic looks that have acquired secondary meaning, like the red-soled shoe. Copyright still covers prints, patterns, and original lace or embroidery. Registering the brand, filing design patents on hero products, and copyrighting each season’s prints is the standard layered playbook. Read more: Can You Copyright a Clothing Design? Fashion, Jewelry & Furniture IP ›
Can you copyright a purely AI-generated image?: No. The U.S. Copyright Office will not register a work whose traditional elements of authorship were produced entirely by a machine. Under longstanding policy and the Office's 2025 guidance, copyright requires human authorship. In Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Circuit, March 2025), the court agreed, holding that the Copyright Act requires every eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being. So an image generated entirely by an AI tool — with no meaningful human creative contribution to its expressive elements — cannot be registered on its own. This is general education, not legal advice; confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Can You Copyright AI-Generated Art or Content? ›
Is typing detailed prompts enough to claim copyright?: Generally, no. The Copyright Office's position is that when a person enters prompts into a generative AI system, the system — not the user — determines how those instructions are expressed in the final output. In the Théâtre D'opéra Spatial decision, the Office refused registration even though the artist used more than 600 prompts and refined the result, concluding he had not controlled how the AI interpreted and executed the image. Prompts alone are usually treated as ideas or instructions, not the protected expression itself. Human editing, arrangement, or selection on top of the output is what can change the analysis. Read more: Can You Copyright AI-Generated Art or Content? ›
How do I register a work that mixes my own work with AI?: You can register the parts you created, but you must tell the Copyright Office about the AI-generated material. The Office expects applicants to disclose AI-generated content that is more than de minimis and to claim only the human-authored portions — for example, your text, your selection and arrangement of elements, or your edits. In the Zarya of the Dawn matter, the Office registered the author's text and the creative selection and arrangement of the graphic novel, but not the individual AI-generated images. Describe your human contribution clearly and disclaim the AI-generated parts so your registration is accurate. Read more: Can You Copyright AI-Generated Art or Content? ›
Does mailing yourself your work copyright it?: No. The so-called poor man's copyright accomplishes nothing: your work is already automatically copyrighted the moment you fix it in tangible form, and a sealed envelope adds zero legal rights on top of that. What the envelope cannot do is what actually matters — only registration with the U.S. Copyright Office (currently $45–$65 online) lets you file an infringement suit for a U.S. work and unlocks statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work plus attorney's fees. Courts do not treat postmarked envelopes as a substitute for registration. Read more: 10 Intellectual Property Myths That Get People in Trouble ›
Is it legal to copy something if you change it 30 percent?: No — the 30 percent rule is pure folklore, and no percentage version of it (10, 20, or 50 percent) appears anywhere in copyright law. Courts ask whether the new work is substantially similar to the protected expression that was taken, not how much was changed. Copying a novel's most distinctive chapter infringes even if the other 90 percent of your book is original. Transformation matters only within the fair use analysis, which is a four-factor judgment call, never an arithmetic threshold. Read more: 10 Intellectual Property Myths That Get People in Trouble ›
Can I use any image or text that has no copyright notice?: No. Since March 1, 1989, when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, copyright protection has been automatic — no © symbol, registration, or notice is required for a work to be fully protected. Virtually every photo, article, and song you encounter online is copyrighted regardless of markings. Assume content is protected unless you confirm it is public domain or carries an actual license, such as Creative Commons, whose terms you then have to follow. Read more: 10 Intellectual Property Myths That Get People in Trouble ›
Does giving credit to the creator make it legal to use their work?: No. Attribution and permission are entirely different things: crediting the photographer whose image you used without a license just documents your infringement with a byline. Copyright gives owners the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute their work, and only a license or a legal exception like fair use overrides that. Credit can matter within Creative Commons licenses, where attribution is a condition of a real license — but there the license does the legal work, not the credit. Read more: 10 Intellectual Property Myths That Get People in Trouble ›
Does paying for work mean you own the intellectual property?: No — and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding in the freelance economy. Paying an independent contractor buys you the deliverable and, usually, an implied license to use it for the purpose both sides contemplated. It does not transfer copyright ownership, which stays with the contractor unless there is a signed written assignment or a valid work-made-for-hire agreement covering one of the nine statutory categories. Employees are the opposite: their in-scope work belongs to the employer automatically. Read more: Contractor vs. Employee: Who Owns the IP? ›
What does a client get if there's no IP contract with a contractor?: Typically a nonexclusive implied license to use the work for the purpose it was commissioned — running the website, using the logo, deploying the code. The contractor keeps ownership, which can mean the client cannot freely modify the work, sublicense it, stop the contractor from reusing components for competitors, or register the copyright. Implied licenses are defined by conduct, so their scope is exactly what parties end up fighting about, usually when the relationship sours or the company tries to sell. Read more: Contractor vs. Employee: Who Owns the IP? ›
Do work-made-for-hire rules apply to independent contractors?: Only narrowly. Under 17 U.S.C. § 101, a commissioned work from a contractor is a work made for hire only if it falls within nine specific categories (such as contributions to collective works, parts of audiovisual works, translations, and compilations) AND both parties signed a written agreement saying so. Software, logos, photographs, and most marketing content are not on the list, so labeling them 'work for hire' in a contract accomplishes nothing by itself — you need an express assignment as backup. Read more: Contractor vs. Employee: Who Owns the IP? ›
Who owns a patent on something an independent contractor invents?: The contractor-inventor, absent a written assignment. U.S. patent rights vest in the inventor personally, and there is no patent-law equivalent of the employee work-made-for-hire doctrine. Even a company that paid for 100% of the development owns nothing but, at best, a 'shop right' or implied license to use the invention. Any engagement where a contractor might invent something should include a present-tense assignment ('hereby assigns') of inventions arising from the work. Read more: Contractor vs. Employee: Who Owns the IP? ›
What is a contributor license agreement (CLA)?: A CLA is a contract that a contributor signs before their code is merged into an open-source project. It grants the project a clear copyright license (and usually a patent license) to use, modify, and redistribute the contribution — including the right to release it under the project's chosen license. CLAs don't take away the contributor's ownership; they simply give the project documented permission so it can safely ship and relicense the combined codebase. Read more: Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) ›
What is the difference between a CLA and the DCO?: A CLA is a signed contract that grants the project a license or assignment to your contribution. The Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) is a lightweight alternative: instead of signing an agreement, you add a 'Signed-off-by' line to each commit, certifying you have the right to submit that code. The DCO is far less friction but grants no separate license or patent rights — it relies on the project's inbound license instead. Read more: Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) ›
Do I keep the copyright to code I contribute under a CLA?: Under a license-style CLA — like the Apache Individual CLA that most projects use — yes. You retain ownership of your contribution and grant the project a broad, irrevocable license to use it. Only a copyright-assignment CLA actually transfers ownership to the project, and those are far rarer (the Free Software Foundation is the best-known example). Always read whether your CLA is a license or an assignment before signing. Read more: Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) ›
Why do acquirers care about CLAs in due diligence?: When someone buys a software company, their lawyers verify the company actually owns or is licensed to ship every line of its code. A project with no CLA or DCO may contain contributions with unclear rights — an ownership gap that can lower the price, trigger indemnities, or hold up the deal. A clean CLA record shows every outside contribution came in with documented permission, which makes the codebase far easier to diligence. Read more: Contributor License Agreements (CLAs) ›
What is the Copyright Claims Board in simple terms?: The CCB is a small-claims tribunal inside the U.S. Copyright Office, created by the CASE Act of 2020 and operating since June 2022. Three Copyright Claims Officers decide copyright disputes worth up to $30,000, entirely online through the eCCB system, with streamlined procedures instead of formal discovery. It hears infringement claims, declarations of noninfringement, and claims of DMCA takedown misrepresentation. Participation is voluntary — a respondent can opt out within 60 days of being served, which forces the claimant to federal court or nowhere. Read more: The Copyright Claims Board: Small Claims for Copyright, Explained ›
Should I opt out of a CCB claim against me?: It's a genuine strategic decision, not a reflex. Opting out ends the CCB case, but the claimant can still sue in federal court — where damages aren't capped at $30,000, statutory damages can reach $150,000 per work for willful infringement of a timely-registered work, and defense costs are far higher. Opting out makes sense when the claimant likely can't or won't fund a federal case; staying in can make sense when the claim is real and you want a cheap, capped resolution. If you do nothing, you're bound — including by a possible default award. Read more: The Copyright Claims Board: Small Claims for Copyright, Explained ›
How much can someone win at the Copyright Claims Board?: Total damages in any CCB proceeding are capped at $30,000, excluding certain costs. Statutory damages are capped at $15,000 per work if the work was timely registered, or $7,500 per work (and $15,000 total) if it wasn't — notably, unlike federal court, the CCB can award statutory damages even without timely registration. Attorney's fees generally aren't awarded except for bad-faith conduct, capped at $5,000. A smaller-claims track handles disputes of $5,000 or less before a single officer. Read more: The Copyright Claims Board: Small Claims for Copyright, Explained ›
What happens if I ignore a Copyright Claims Board notice?: Ignoring it is the one clearly bad option. If you don't opt out within 60 days of service, you become bound by the proceeding, and if you then fail to participate, the CCB can issue a default determination against you after giving notice and a chance to respond. That determination can be enforced as a judgment in federal district court. If you've received a CCB notice, either opt out on time or show up — deliberately choosing between those two is the whole game. Read more: The Copyright Claims Board: Small Claims for Copyright, Explained ›
Is a Higbee & Associates or PicRights letter a scam?: No — they're real, but they're also a business model. PicRights and Copytrack are collection-style agencies that find unlicensed images with reverse-image-search software and send settlement demands; Higbee & Associates is a licensed U.S. law firm that has filed hundreds of federal copyright suits and often takes over claims those agencies can't collect. The underlying copyright claim may be entirely valid even though the demanded amount is inflated. Treat the letter as real, then evaluate the claim's actual strength before paying anything. Read more: I Got a Copyright Demand Letter — Now What? ›
Can I just ignore a copyright demand letter?: Sometimes people do and nothing happens — but it's a gamble you should take deliberately, not by default. High-volume senders escalate with follow-up letters and raised demands, and the law-firm senders do file real federal lawsuits against a percentage of non-responders, especially where the photo was registered before the infringement. Ignoring also forfeits your chance to settle cheaply and early. Assess the sender's litigation record and the work's registration status first. Read more: I Got a Copyright Demand Letter — Now What? ›
I deleted the image as soon as I got the letter. Am I off the hook?: No. Copyright infringement liability attaches when the unauthorized use happens; removing the image stops new damages from accruing but doesn't erase the past use. That said, prompt removal matters practically — it shows good faith, limits the damages window, and strengthens your negotiating position. Just don't pair the removal with a written apology or admission, and preserve a copy of the page and the image for your own records. Read more: I Got a Copyright Demand Letter — Now What? ›
How much should I actually pay to settle a photo infringement claim?: It depends heavily on registration. If the photo wasn't registered before your use began (or within three months of first publication), the owner can generally recover only actual damages — often close to a reasonable license fee, which for ordinary editorial or stock-style photos is frequently in the tens to low hundreds of dollars. If it was timely registered, statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work (more if willful) plus attorney's fees are in play, and settlements run meaningfully higher. Negotiated resolutions at a large discount from the opening demand are the norm. Read more: I Got a Copyright Demand Letter — Now What? ›
Why do platforms remove videos so quickly after a copyright complaint?: Because of the DMCA safe harbor, 17 U.S.C. § 512. Platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok avoid liability for their users' infringement only if they remove content 'expeditiously' when a rightsholder sends a valid takedown notice and terminate repeat infringers. The safe harbor gives platforms a powerful legal incentive to take content down first and sort out the merits later — which is why enforcement feels one-sided to creators. The counter-notice process in § 512(g) is the built-in check, but few creators use it. Read more: Copyright for Online Creators: The Platform Survival Guide ›
What is the difference between a copyright claim and a copyright strike?: On YouTube, a Content ID claim is an automated, contractual match that lets the rightsholder monetize, track, or block your video — it carries no channel penalty. A copyright strike is a formal DMCA takedown request: the video comes down, your channel is penalized, and three strikes in 90 days means termination. Twitch and TikTok don't run Content ID-style monetization systems, so on those platforms most enforcement arrives directly as strikes, mutes, or removals. Read more: Copyright for Online Creators: The Platform Survival Guide ›
Does fair use protect creators from copyright strikes?: Not automatically. Fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 is a legal defense that a court weighs using four factors — it is not a setting a platform applies before removing your video. Automated systems like Content ID cannot evaluate fair use at all, and platforms generally process takedown notices without judging the defense. Fair use becomes practically useful when you dispute a claim or file a counter-notice, because that forces a human rightsholder to decide whether to actually litigate. Read more: Copyright for Online Creators: The Platform Survival Guide ›
Can a creator's channel actually be terminated over copyright?: Yes, and it happens regularly. The DMCA safe harbor requires every platform to adopt and enforce a repeat-infringer termination policy — that requirement, not platform meanness, is where three-strikes rules come from. YouTube terminates channels at three active strikes, Twitch permanently suspends accounts after multiple violations, and TikTok bans repeat infringers. Termination usually takes your entire catalog, subscribers, and monetization with it, which is why avoiding strikes matters more than winning arguments. Read more: Copyright for Online Creators: The Platform Survival Guide ›
How much can you be sued for per copyright infringement?: Under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), a copyright owner who timely registered can elect statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work infringed, at the court's discretion. If the infringement was willful, the ceiling rises to $150,000 per work; if you prove you were an innocent infringer, the floor can drop to $200. The critical unit is the work, not the copy: using one photo on ten pages is one award, while using ten different photos is ten separate awards. Read more: Copyright Statutory Damages: What You Could Actually Owe ›
What if the copyright owner never registered the work?: Timing is everything. Under 17 U.S.C. § 412, statutory damages and attorney's fees are unavailable for infringement that began before the work's registration, unless registration happened within a three-month grace period after first publication. An owner who registered late is limited to actual damages and the infringer's attributable profits — often just a reasonable license fee — and pays their own lawyers. This single fact separates five-figure exposure from three-figure exposure in a huge share of disputes, so check the registration date against the infringement date before believing any demand letter. Read more: Copyright Statutory Damages: What You Could Actually Owe ›
How do courts decide the amount of statutory damages within the range?: Courts and juries have wide discretion between the statutory floor and ceiling, guided by factors like the infringer's profits and the owner's losses, the value of the work, the infringer's state of mind, deterrence of the defendant and others, and cooperation once notified. In practice, ordinary commercial misuse of a stock photo or article typically lands in the low four figures to low five figures per work — often benchmarked as a multiple of a normal license fee — while six-figure per-work awards are reserved for egregious, willful conduct with strong evidence, such as counterfeiting or ignoring repeated takedown notices. Read more: Copyright Statutory Damages: What You Could Actually Owe ›
Are statutory damages decided by a judge or a jury?: Either side can demand a jury. In Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, 523 U.S. 340 (1998), the Supreme Court held the Seventh Amendment guarantees a jury trial on the amount of statutory damages when demanded. That adds unpredictability in both directions: juries produced the famous file-sharing verdicts of $9,250 and $22,500 per song, but they can also come in near the $750 floor when the infringement looks technical or the plaintiff looks opportunistic. Read more: Copyright Statutory Damages: What You Could Actually Owe ›
Do I need both a copyright and a trademark as a creator?: Often, yes. Copyright protects the creative content you make, your videos, songs, photos, and writing, and it attaches automatically the moment you fix the work in a tangible form. A trademark protects your brand identifiers, like your channel name, artist name, or logo, that tell fans the content comes from you. Because they cover different things, many creators end up needing both. An attorney licensed in your jurisdiction can help you decide what fits your situation. Read more: Copyright vs. Trademark for Creators ›
Can I copyright my channel name or band name?: No. The U.S. Copyright Office is clear that names, titles, and short phrases contain too little authorship to be copyrightable. That includes channel names, band names, song titles, and slogans. If you want exclusive rights to a name you use to identify your brand, that is trademark territory, handled by the USPTO, not copyright. Read more: Copyright vs. Trademark for Creators ›
What should a creator on a tight budget protect first?: It depends on what is most valuable and most exposed, so this is general information rather than advice for your situation. Copyright protection is automatic and cheap to register, so the bigger strategic decision is usually whether and when to file a trademark on the brand name you are building. An attorney licensed in your jurisdiction can help you sequence these based on your goals and risk. Read more: Copyright vs. Trademark for Creators ›
Do I need a license to cover a song?: Yes, if the composition is still under copyright. For an audio-only release (Spotify, Apple Music, downloads), U.S. law gives you a compulsory mechanical license under 17 U.S.C. § 115 — the songwriter cannot say no as long as you pay the statutory royalty, and distributors like DistroKid will handle it for about $12 per year per cover. For a video (including YouTube), you need a synchronization license, which is never compulsory; in practice most YouTube covers survive because publishers monetize them through Content ID instead of blocking them. Read more: Cover Songs on YouTube and Streaming: How Licensing Actually Works ›
Can I monetize a cover song on YouTube?: Usually you can post it, but you typically share revenue rather than keep it all. Most major publishers have Content ID agreements with YouTube: their system claims your cover, and the publisher takes some or all of the ad revenue in exchange for leaving the video up. That's a tolerance arrangement, not a right — a publisher without such a deal, or one that opts to block, can have your cover taken down because no compulsory license exists for video. A direct sync license from the publisher is the only way to truly own your monetization. Read more: Cover Songs on YouTube and Streaming: How Licensing Actually Works ›
What's the difference between a cover and a sample?: A cover is a brand-new recording of an existing composition — you perform every note yourself, so you only need rights to the composition (the written song). A sample lifts audio from someone else's existing sound recording, so you need permission for both the recording (from the label) and the composition (from the publisher), and neither is compulsory. That's why a cover of a hit song costs pennies per stream in mechanical royalties while clearing a sample of the same track can cost thousands plus an ownership share. Read more: Cover Songs on YouTube and Streaming: How Licensing Actually Works ›
Can I change the lyrics or arrangement when I cover a song?: Within limits. The compulsory license at § 115 lets you arrange the song to suit your style — change the key, tempo, genre, and instrumentation — but your arrangement may not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work. New or altered lyrics, translations, and mashups go beyond what the compulsory license allows; those create a derivative work and require the publisher's actual permission. Parody lyrics may qualify as fair use in some cases, but that's a fact-specific defense, not a license. Read more: Cover Songs on YouTube and Streaming: How Licensing Actually Works ›
Do I have to register my work to own the copyright?: No. Copyright is automatic the moment you fix an original work in a tangible form, such as saving a file, recording audio, or writing it down. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is a separate, optional step that adds powerful legal benefits but is not required for the copyright itself to exist. Read more: The Creator's Guide to Copyright (2026) ›
Why does registration timing matter so much?: To recover statutory damages and attorneys' fees in a U.S. lawsuit, your work generally must be registered before the infringement began, or within three months of first publication. Register late and you may be limited to actual damages, which are often hard to prove and small. Timely registration preserves your strongest remedies. Read more: The Creator's Guide to Copyright (2026) ›
How much does it cost to register a copyright in 2026?: Per the U.S. Copyright Office fee schedule, electronic filing is $45 for a Single Application (one work, one author, not made for hire, sole claimant) and $65 for the Standard Application that covers other situations. Always confirm current fees at copyright.gov before filing. Read more: The Creator's Guide to Copyright (2026) ›
Can I use a song, photo, or clip if I credit the creator?: Crediting someone is not the same as having permission. Credit does not create a license and does not make a use 'fair.' Unless your use clearly falls under fair use, the work is in the public domain, or you have a license, you generally need the owner's permission to copy, post, or build on their work. Read more: The Creator's Guide to Copyright (2026) ›
How long does a DMCA counter-notice take to restore my content?: Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C), the service provider must restore the material no less than 10 and no more than 14 business days after receiving a valid counter-notice — unless the original claimant notifies the platform that it has filed a lawsuit seeking a court order against you. Business days means the real-world wait is typically two to three calendar weeks. Platforms cannot lawfully restore it faster than day 10 and keep their safe harbor, which is why even obviously wrongful takedowns involve a forced waiting period. Read more: DMCA Counter-Notice: How to Fight a Wrongful Takedown ›
What happens after I file a DMCA counter-notice?: The platform forwards your counter-notice to the original claimant. The claimant then has one meaningful move: file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court and tell the platform it has done so. If they don't within the 10–14 business day window, the platform restores your content. If they do sue, the content stays down and you're now in litigation. In practice, the overwhelming majority of claimants never sue, which is why a counter-notice resolves most wrongful takedowns. Read more: DMCA Counter-Notice: How to Fight a Wrongful Takedown ›
Can I get in trouble for filing a DMCA counter-notice?: Yes, if you file one dishonestly. The counter-notice includes a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed by mistake or misidentification. If you actually copied the work without permission or a real fair-use basis, filing exposes you to perjury liability, a § 512(f) misrepresentation claim, and — because you must consent to federal court jurisdiction — an easy path for the claimant to sue you. A counter-notice is a sworn legal statement, not an appeal button. Read more: DMCA Counter-Notice: How to Fight a Wrongful Takedown ›
Is a YouTube Content ID claim the same as a DMCA takedown?: No. Content ID is YouTube's private, contractual fingerprint-matching system; a Content ID claim usually redirects your monetization rather than removing the video, and you fight it through YouTube's internal dispute process, not a § 512(g) counter-notice. A DMCA takedown is a legal notice under federal law that removes the video and puts a copyright strike on your account. A rejected Content ID dispute can escalate into a real DMCA takedown, at which point the counter-notice process in this guide applies. Read more: DMCA Counter-Notice: How to Fight a Wrongful Takedown ›
Can I send a DMCA takedown notice myself, without a lawyer?: Yes. There is no rule that a DMCA takedown notice must come from an attorney. The copyright owner — or someone authorized to act for the owner — can send it. The notice simply has to include the six elements the law requires under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), most importantly a good-faith statement and a statement under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act for the owner. Many platforms even have a web form that walks you through it. That said, if real money or a business dispute is involved, it is worth confirming your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction before you send anything. Read more: Someone Copied Your Content: DMCA Takedown, Explained ›
Does a DMCA takedown work for trademark or someone lying about me?: No. The DMCA notice-and-takedown process is a copyright tool only. It applies when someone copies your original creative work — a photo, video, article, song, or design — without permission. It does not cover trademark infringement, someone using your business name, defamation, or invasion of privacy. Those problems have their own separate legal paths. If you send a DMCA notice over a non-copyright issue, the platform can ignore it, and overstating your claim can create its own risk. Read more: Someone Copied Your Content: DMCA Takedown, Explained ›
What happens if the other person files a counter-notice?: If the person you reported sends a valid counter-notification, the platform forwards it to you and may restore the material. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g), the provider generally must put the content back not less than 10 nor more than 14 business days after receiving the counter-notice — unless, within that window, you notify the platform that you have filed a lawsuit in court seeking to stop the alleged infringement. In other words, a counter-notice puts the dispute back on you: either go to court or the content comes back. Read more: Someone Copied Your Content: DMCA Takedown, Explained ›
Does general liability insurance cover copyright infringement?: Sometimes — through Coverage B, 'personal and advertising injury.' The standard CGL form covers infringement of another's copyright, trade dress, or slogan committed in your advertisement, meaning the infringement has to arise from how you promote your goods or services, not from the product itself. A copied photo on your marketing website often fits; selling a product that copies someone's copyrighted design usually doesn't. Whether a specific claim is covered depends on the policy's exact language, endorsements, and your state's case law. Read more: Does Insurance Cover IP Claims? ‘Advertising Injury’ Explained ›
Does any insurance cover patent infringement claims?: Standard CGL policies effectively never do — patent infringement isn't an enumerated advertising-injury offense, and since 2001 the standard ISO IP exclusion expressly bars it. Coverage for patent claims exists only through specialty products: standalone IP defense-cost insurance, patent infringement liability policies, or (for enforcement) abatement policies that fund your own suits. These are a niche market with meaningful underwriting, premiums, and self-insured retentions, but for companies in patent-heavy industries they can be worth pricing given seven-figure defense costs. Read more: Does Insurance Cover IP Claims? ‘Advertising Injury’ Explained ›
What does 'duty to defend is broader than duty to indemnify' mean?: Two separate promises live in a liability policy. The duty to defend obligates the insurer to pay for lawyers to fight a suit whenever the complaint's allegations even potentially fall within coverage; in most states, one potentially covered claim obligates the insurer to defend the entire lawsuit. The duty to indemnify — actually paying a judgment or settlement — is decided later, on proven facts. Practically, this means a lawsuit mixing covered and uncovered theories can still get you a fully funded defense, which is often the most valuable benefit in the policy. Read more: Does Insurance Cover IP Claims? ‘Advertising Injury’ Explained ›
When should I notify my insurer about an IP claim?: Immediately — as soon as a demand letter, marketplace complaint, or lawsuit arrives, before you hire your own lawyer or respond to the claimant. Liability policies require prompt notice of claims, and in many states late notice can reduce or forfeit coverage entirely, especially under claims-made policies where notice within the policy period can be a hard condition. Tender the claim in writing to every potentially applicable policy, current and recent. The insurer may defend under a reservation of rights, but a declined tender costs you nothing. Read more: Does Insurance Cover IP Claims? ‘Advertising Injury’ Explained ›
What is the difference between the composition and the master in music?: Every recorded song carries two separate copyrights. The composition is the underlying song itself, the melody and lyrics, usually controlled by the songwriter and publisher. The master is the specific sound recording you actually hear, usually controlled by the artist or record label. To use a recording in a video, you generally need to license both: a sync license for the composition and a master use license for the recording. Read more: Entertainment & Media IP: A Creator's Guide ›
Does registering a script with the WGA copyright it?: No. Writers Guild of America registration creates a dated, third-party record that can help prove when you authored material, which is useful in a dispute. But it is not copyright registration and does not provide copyright's legal remedies. Only registration with the U.S. Copyright Office can unlock the ability to sue in federal court and to seek statutory damages and attorneys' fees. Many writers do both. Read more: Entertainment & Media IP: A Creator's Guide ›
Can someone steal my idea if it is not protected by copyright?: Copyright protects expression, not ideas, so a bare idea is not copyrightable. But in California, under Desny v. Wilder, an idea can be the subject of an implied-in-fact contract. If you submit an idea conditioned on payment if it is used, the recipient knows that condition and accepts the disclosure, and they then use it, you may have a claim for breach of that implied contract even though the idea itself was never copyrightable. Read more: Entertainment & Media IP: A Creator's Guide ›
What is chain of title and why do distributors demand it?: Chain of title is the documented, unbroken trail of paperwork showing the production company actually owns or controls every right in a project, from the original script and any underlying source material through life rights, talent, and music. Distributors and errors-and-omissions insurers require a clean chain of title before they will release or insure a project, because gaps in ownership expose everyone to infringement claims. Read more: Entertainment & Media IP: A Creator's Guide ›
Is there a number of seconds or a percentage I can safely use under fair use?: No. There is no magic number — no 30-second, 10-second, or 6-second rule, and no 10% or 30% rule that automatically makes a use fair. That is a myth. Fair use is decided case by case using four factors, and even a tiny excerpt can infringe if it captures the recognizable 'heart' of the work. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose (1994) the Supreme Court rejected rigid amount rules and said the amount taken must be judged in context. When in doubt, get permission or talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Fair Use, Explained (With Real Examples) ›
Does giving credit make my use fair?: No. Crediting the creator is good etiquette and may help avoid a plagiarism accusation, but it is not one of the four fair-use factors and it does not turn an infringing use into a lawful one. You can credit someone perfectly and still infringe their copyright. Credit is not a substitute for permission, a license, or a genuine fair-use defense. Read more: Fair Use, Explained (With Real Examples) ›
If I'm not making money, is it automatically fair use?: No. Non-commercial use weighs in your favor under the first factor, but it does not make a use automatically fair. Courts still weigh all four factors together, including the effect on the market for the original. Plenty of non-commercial uses have been found to infringe, and some commercial uses — like the parody in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose — have been found fair. Commercial vs. non-commercial is one consideration, not a switch. Read more: Fair Use, Explained (With Real Examples) ›
What is chain of title in film and TV?: Chain of title is the documented, unbroken record of who owns every right in a film or TV project, traced from the original source material all the way to the production company that wants to distribute it. It is built from written agreements: the option or purchase of any underlying book or article, the writer's screenplay agreement assigning the script, any life-rights or location releases, music licenses, and the copyright assignments that move each right up the chain. Distributors and insurers review it to confirm the producer actually owns what they claim to own. This is general education, not legal advice — confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Film & TV Rights and Chain of Title, Explained ›
Why do distributors and E&O insurers require chain of title?: Because they are buying or insuring risk, not just a movie. A distributor that licenses a film is relying on the producer's promise that the producer owns all the necessary rights; if that promise is false, the distributor can be sued by the real owner. Errors and omissions (E&O) insurance protects against claims that the film infringes someone's copyright, trademark, privacy, or publicity rights — and insurers will not issue a policy, and most distributors will not close a deal, without reviewing a clean chain of title first. A gap signals an unowned right and an uninsurable risk. Read more: Film & TV Rights and Chain of Title, Explained ›
Does a copyright transfer have to be in writing?: Yes. Under U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. section 204(a)), a transfer of copyright ownership — other than by operation of law — is not valid unless it is in a writing signed by the owner of the rights being conveyed. That is why a verbal 'sure, you can make the movie' is worthless for chain of title, and why every link, from the screenwriter to the production company, needs a signed assignment. Always have transfer documents reviewed by an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Film & TV Rights and Chain of Title, Explained ›
Do I have to register to own the copyright in my work?: No. In the United States, copyright protection is automatic. The moment you create an original work and fix it in a tangible form — saving a file, writing it down, recording it — you own the copyright, with no application or fee required. Registration is optional for ownership. What registration does is unlock the ability to enforce that ownership: for works of U.S. origin, you generally must register before you can file a copyright infringement lawsuit, and registering on time is what makes statutory damages and attorney's fees available. So you own your work either way, but registration is what gives the ownership real teeth. This is general education, not legal advice; confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: How to Copyright Your Work (Do You Need to Register?) ›
How much does it cost to register a copyright?: As of 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office charges $45 for a single application — that means one work, by a single author, where the author is also the claimant and the work was not made for hire. If your filing does not fit that narrow category (multiple authors, a work made for hire, or a different claimant), the standard application fee is $65. You file and pay online through the Copyright Office's eCO registration portal, and in most cases you upload an electronic copy of the work as your deposit. Fees change over time, so always confirm the current amount on copyright.gov before you file. Read more: How to Copyright Your Work (Do You Need to Register?) ›
How long does copyright registration take?: It varies, but the Copyright Office reports an average processing time of roughly four months for all claims, with electronic applications generally processed the fastest. Mailing a paper application or a physical deposit slows things down, and processing also takes longer if there is a problem with your application, deposit, or fee that the Office has to contact you about. Importantly, your registration's effective date is the day the Office receives a complete application, deposit, and fee — not the day it finishes reviewing — so your protection dates back to when you filed correctly, even if the certificate arrives months later. Read more: How to Copyright Your Work (Do You Need to Register?) ›
Is source code automatically protected by copyright?: Yes. Under U.S. copyright law, original source code is protected automatically the moment it is fixed in a tangible medium — the instant you save the file. You do not need to register or put a notice on it to own the copyright. But you cannot file an infringement lawsuit until the work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, and registering before infringement (or within three months of publication) is what unlocks statutory damages and attorney's fees. Read more: How to Protect Your Source Code ›
Can I register source code without publicly revealing it?: Yes. The Copyright Office lets you register code while shielding trade secrets. Instead of depositing everything, you submit identifying portions — typically the first 25 and last 25 pages — and you may block out (redact) the portions containing trade secrets, as long as an appreciable amount of original code remains visible. Alternative deposit options exist for short programs and code that is entirely secret. Read more: How to Protect Your Source Code ›
Should source code be a trade secret or a patent?: Most proprietary code is best protected as a trade secret plus copyright. Copyright protects the literal code from copying; trade secret law protects the ideas, algorithms, and architecture as long as you keep them confidential. A patent may fit a genuinely novel, non-obvious technical method, but software patents face a high eligibility bar under Alice v. CLS Bank, and filing publishes your invention — the opposite of secrecy. Read more: How to Protect Your Source Code ›
What contracts do I need to protect source code?: Two are essential. Every employee needs a confidentiality and invention-assignment agreement so the company — not the individual — owns the code. Every contractor or freelance developer needs a written assignment, because absent one, the developer often keeps the copyright even after you pay them. Layer NDAs on top for anyone who sees the code, and use source-code escrow when you license to customers who fear you might disappear. Read more: How to Protect Your Source Code ›
Can I sue a studio for stealing my idea?: Often not under copyright law, because copyright protects only the fixed expression of an idea — the actual words and structure of your script — and never the underlying idea, theme, or concept (17 U.S.C. § 102(b)). But in California you may have a separate claim: a breach of implied-in-fact contract under Desny v. Wilder (1956). The theory is not that you 'own' the idea, but that you offered it for sale, the other side knew it was conditioned on payment, voluntarily accepted the disclosure, and then used it without paying. That is a contract claim, not an ownership claim. Whether you have one depends heavily on the facts of how you pitched it — talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Idea Theft in Hollywood: Submission & Desny Claims ›
What is a Desny claim?: A Desny claim is a California implied-in-fact contract claim for the unpaid use of a submitted idea, named after the California Supreme Court's 1956 decision in Desny v. Wilder. The idea is that when you pitch a concept for sale under circumstances that show you expect to be paid if it is used, and the recipient takes the pitch knowing those terms and then uses the material, the law can imply a promise to pay even though no one signed anything. It protects your right to be compensated, not a property right in the idea itself. It is a state-law doctrine, strongest and most developed in California's entertainment industry. Read more: Idea Theft in Hollywood: Submission & Desny Claims ›
Does an NDA or release help if my idea gets used?: They cut in opposite directions. A signed non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before a pitch can strengthen your position by creating an express, written promise of confidentiality and, sometimes, payment. A submission release — the form many studios require before they will look at unsolicited material — usually does the opposite: it often says the company can use similar ideas, owes you nothing unless you have enforceable separate rights, and limits or waives the very claims you might otherwise bring. Read any release carefully before signing, and have an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction review high-stakes versions. Read more: Idea Theft in Hollywood: Submission & Desny Claims ›
Do I really have to write #ad on every sponsored post?: You need a clear and conspicuous disclosure whenever you have a material connection to the brand, which includes paid posts, affiliate links, and even free products you were sent. #ad is the simplest way to do it, placed where viewers will actually see it, before they have to click 'more.' Vague tags like #sp, #collab, #partner, or #thanksbrand are not enough because the FTC says a significant minority of ordinary viewers would not understand them. In video, the disclosure should also be on screen and, ideally, spoken. This is general education, not legal advice; talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction about your situation. Read more: Influencer Brand Deals & FTC Disclosure Rules ›
Can I get in trouble even if the brand never told me to disclose?: Yes. Under the FTC's Endorsement Guides, the influencer can be held responsible for their own undisclosed posts, and the brand can be liable for an endorser's failure to disclose even if the brand never instructed the influencer to leave it out. Disclosure is your personal responsibility as the person speaking to your audience. The Federal Trade Commission has sent warning letters and pursued enforcement against both companies and creators. Read more: Influencer Brand Deals & FTC Disclosure Rules ›
Who owns the photos and videos I create for a brand deal?: It depends entirely on the contract. By default, the creator owns the copyright in content they make. Many brand agreements flip that with a 'work made for hire' clause or an assignment, giving the brand full ownership, while others grant the brand only a license to use the content. Read who owns what, how long the brand can use it, on which platforms, and whether the brand can run it as paid ads. An attorney licensed in your jurisdiction can review the terms before you sign. Read more: Influencer Brand Deals & FTC Disclosure Rules ›
Can you legally sell fan art of copyrighted characters?: Usually not without a license. Distinctly delineated characters are protected by copyright independent of any single story, so drawing and selling them creates an unauthorized derivative work under 17 U.S.C. § 106(2). Many franchises also hold trademark rights in character names and logos, which adds a second claim when the art goes on merchandise. Most fan-art selling continues anyway because rights holders tolerate small-scale fandom activity — but tolerance is a business decision they can reverse at any time, not a legal right you hold. Read more: Is Selling Fan Art Legal? What Every Artist Should Know ›
Why do fan artists rarely get sued?: Because suing fans is usually bad business, not because the law protects fan art. Fandom drives franchise revenue, and a company that sues hobbyist artists risks a community backlash worth more than any judgment. Enforcement instead flows through cheap, quiet channels: DMCA takedowns of Etsy and Redbubble listings, marketplace IP-complaint programs that delist products and can suspend shops, and cease-and-desist letters to sellers who scale up. Lawsuits are reserved for large commercial operations — but statutory damages of up to $150,000 per willfully infringed work exist if a rights holder ever wants to make an example. Read more: Is Selling Fan Art Legal? What Every Artist Should Know ›
Is fan art fair use if I drew it myself in my own style?: Drawing it yourself doesn't help — copyright's derivative-work right covers new works based on protected characters, no matter whose hand made them. Your personal style also doesn't change the analysis if the character remains recognizable; conversely, drawing an original character in a famous artist's or studio's style is generally fine, because style itself isn't copyrightable. True parody that comments on the character can be fair use, but a straightforward, admiring depiction sold as merchandise fails the fair-use factors, especially after Warhol v. Goldsmith emphasized commercial purpose. Read more: Is Selling Fan Art Legal? What Every Artist Should Know ›
How can I sell fan art legally?: Use an actual license. Redbubble's Fan Art Partner Program lets artists sell approved designs for dozens of participating brands — including Netflix, NBCUniversal, and CBS properties — with the platform handling the license and revenue split. Some game and entertainment companies publish fan-content policies permitting limited noncommercial or small-scale works, and some run their own licensed-merch programs. Outside a program, the legal route is written permission from the rights holder, and the safe creative route is original characters that evoke a genre without copying anyone's protected characters. Read more: Is Selling Fan Art Legal? What Every Artist Should Know ›
Is it legal to stream video games on Twitch or YouTube?: Streaming gameplay copies and publicly performs a copyrighted audiovisual work, so without permission it's technically infringement. In practice it's almost always fine because publishers grant permission — through published video policies, platform deals, or simple tolerance — since streams are free marketing. The catch is that this permission is a revocable license with conditions: many publishers require added commentary, ban pre-release footage, or restrict story sections, and licensed music inside games can be claimed even when the publisher is happy with you. Read more: Streaming Video Games: Why It's Technically Infringement (and Why It's Allowed Anyway) ›
Can Nintendo take down my Let's Play videos?: Legally, yes — Nintendo owns the copyright in its games' audiovisual content and could send takedowns. Since ending its revenue-sharing Creators Program in 2019, Nintendo has instead published Game Content Guidelines that affirmatively allow monetized videos and streams if you add your own creative or editorial input. Simply re-uploading raw footage, cutscene rips, leaked content, or material from unreleased games falls outside the guidelines, and Nintendo updated them in September 2024 to reserve the right to object to content it considers infringing or inappropriate. Read more: Streaming Video Games: Why It's Technically Infringement (and Why It's Allowed Anyway) ›
Why do streamers get DMCA strikes for in-game music?: A publisher's permission to stream its game usually doesn't cover the licensed commercial music inside it, because the publisher licensed those songs for the game — not for your broadcast. Radio stations in Grand Theft Auto, licensed soundtracks in sports and skating titles, and pop songs in story scenes are all owned by labels and publishers whose automated systems scan streams and VODs. That's why some games ship with a 'streamer mode' that swaps or mutes licensed tracks, and why muting in-game music is standard advice for VODs. Read more: Streaming Video Games: Why It's Technically Infringement (and Why It's Allowed Anyway) ›
Is streaming a full story game with all cutscenes fair use?: Almost certainly not, and no court has blessed it. A full playthrough shows the entire copyrighted work, including its narrative 'heart,' and can substitute for playing or buying a story-driven game — which hits the third and fourth fair-use factors hard. That's why publishers of narrative games like Atlus have historically restricted streaming past spoiler points. Your real protection is the publisher's video policy, not fair use, so read it before streaming a story-heavy release. Read more: Streaming Video Games: Why It's Technically Infringement (and Why It's Allowed Anyway) ›
What is the difference between licensing and selling my copyright?: Licensing is renting out permission to use your work under set conditions while you keep ownership of the copyright. Selling (assigning) the copyright transfers ownership to someone else, so you generally lose the ability to control or license the work afterward. Most creators want a license, not an assignment, so they can keep earning from the same work again and again. Read more: How to License Your Creative Work ›
Does a license have to be in writing?: A non-exclusive license can be oral or even implied from conduct, but it is still smart to put it in writing. An exclusive license must be in writing and signed by the copyright owner to be valid under U.S. law. Because an exclusive license transfers a chunk of your rights, the law treats it like a partial sale and requires that signed writing. Read more: How to License Your Creative Work ›
What is the difference between an exclusive and a non-exclusive license?: An exclusive license gives one licensee the right to use your work in a defined way, and you promise not to grant that same right to anyone else (sometimes not even yourself). A non-exclusive license lets you license the same work to many people at once. Exclusive deals usually pay more but lock you in; non-exclusive deals pay less per deal but can be repeated widely. Read more: How to License Your Creative Work ›
Do I need one license or two to use a song in my video?: Usually two. A recorded song you hear is two separate copyrights — the musical composition (the written song: melody, chords, lyrics, owned by the songwriter and publisher) and the sound recording or 'master' (the specific recording, owned by the artist and label). To pair that recording with video you generally need a synchronization ('sync') license for the composition AND a master use license for the recording. If you only have one, you are still infringing the other. This is general education, not legal advice — confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Music Licensing: Sync, Master & Mechanical Rights ›
What is the difference between a sync license and a mechanical license?: They cover different uses of the same composition. A sync license lets you synchronize a composition in time with visual media — film, TV, ads, YouTube, social video. A mechanical license lets you reproduce and distribute a composition as audio only — pressing CDs or vinyl, selling downloads, or releasing a cover on streaming. Neither one covers the sound recording itself; to use someone else's actual recording you also need a master use license from whoever owns the master. Read more: Music Licensing: Sync, Master & Mechanical Rights ›
Can I record my own cover of a song and release it without permission?: For audio-only distribution, often yes — the law provides a compulsory mechanical license under Section 115, so you can release a cover at a set statutory rate without the songwriter's individual approval, as long as you follow the rules and pay. In the U.S. that is now administered through the Mechanical Licensing Collective for digital uses. But the compulsory license does not cover putting your cover in a video (that needs a sync license) and does not let you copy the original artist's recording (that needs a master use license). Read more: Music Licensing: Sync, Master & Mechanical Rights ›
Do I need permission to sample a song?: Usually yes — and usually twice. A recorded song contains two separate copyrights: the musical composition (the melody, chords, and lyrics, typically owned by a songwriter and publisher) and the sound recording (the specific 'master' you actually hear, typically owned by a record label). When you copy a piece of the actual recording into your track, you are using both works, so you generally need a license from the publisher (for the composition) and a license from the label (for the master). This is general education, not legal advice — confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Music Sampling & Clearance: What You Actually Need ›
Is there an amount of a song I can sample for free?: There is no reliable 'safe' number of seconds or notes. Courts are split on whether tiny, unrecognizable samples of a sound recording can be excused as 'de minimis.' The Ninth Circuit (VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone) said the de minimis defense can apply to sound recordings; the Sixth Circuit (Bridgeport v. Dimension Films) effectively said it does not, treating any unlicensed copying of a master as infringement. Because the answer can depend on where you are sued, do not rely on a 'just a second' rule. Read more: Music Sampling & Clearance: What You Actually Need ›
Is interpolation cheaper than sampling?: Often, yes. Interpolation means re-recording or re-performing part of a song yourself instead of copying the original audio. Because you are not using anyone's master recording, you generally only need to clear the composition (the publisher's side) — not the label's master. That removes one negotiation, which is why interpolation is frequently faster and less expensive. But it is not free: re-recording a recognizable melody or lyric still requires permission from the composition's owner. Read more: Music Sampling & Clearance: What You Actually Need ›
Is software protected by copyright or patent?: Both, but they protect different things. Copyright automatically protects the expression of your code — the actual source and object code — the moment it's written, under 17 U.S.C. § 102. A patent can protect the functional invention behind the software (a novel method or system), but only if you file with the USPTO and it clears the Alice eligibility test. Most software companies rely on copyright plus trade secret for the code and reserve patents for genuinely novel functionality. Read more: Open Source & Software IP ›
Can you copyright software source code?: Yes, and protection is automatic. Original source code is a 'literary work' under U.S. copyright law and is protected the instant it's fixed in a tangible medium — no registration required. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is optional but valuable: it's a prerequisite to suing for infringement and unlocks statutory damages and attorney's fees if you register before the infringement or within three months of publication. Read more: Open Source & Software IP ›
Who owns code written by AI tools like Copilot?: Under current U.S. Copyright Office guidance (2023–2025), purely AI-generated code with no human authorship isn't eligible for copyright — no one owns it. Code you write with an AI assistant is protectable to the extent a human selected, arranged, or meaningfully edited it. Ownership between you and the tool vendor is set by the tool's terms of service, so read them before shipping AI-assisted code in a product. Read more: Open Source & Software IP ›
Does using open-source code mean my software becomes open source?: Only if you use code under a strong copyleft license like the GPL and distribute your product. Permissive licenses (MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD) let you use the code in closed-source software as long as you keep the notices. Copyleft licenses can require you to release your own source code under the same terms — the 'viral' effect. License compatibility, not the mere act of using open source, is what determines your obligations. Read more: Open Source & Software IP ›
What does open-source license compatibility mean?: Two open-source licenses are compatible when you can legally combine code under each into one project and satisfy both sets of obligations at the same time. Incompatibility happens when the licenses impose contradictory requirements — for example, one forbids adding restrictions while the other requires them. Permissive licenses like MIT and Apache 2.0 combine easily with almost anything; strong copyleft licenses like the GPL are far pickier about what they can merge with. Read more: Open-Source License Compatibility ›
Can I combine MIT and GPL code in the same project?: Yes, but the result must ship under the GPL. MIT is a permissive license with almost no conditions, so its code can be relicensed into a GPL project. Once you link MIT-licensed code with GPL code to form a single program, the GPL's copyleft governs the combined work: you must release the whole thing under the GPL and provide source. You cannot pull the GPL parts back out and ship them as closed source. Read more: Open-Source License Compatibility ›
Is Apache 2.0 compatible with GPLv2?: No. The Free Software Foundation considers Apache 2.0 incompatible with GPLv2 because Apache's patent-termination and indemnification terms count as extra restrictions GPLv2 does not permit. Apache 2.0 is, however, one-way compatible with GPLv3, which was written to accept those terms. If you must combine Apache 2.0 code with GPL code, use a GPLv3 (or later) project to avoid the conflict. Read more: Open-Source License Compatibility ›
What is the difference between permissive and copyleft licenses?: Permissive licenses (MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0) let you use, modify, and redistribute code — including in closed-source or commercial products — as long as you keep the copyright notice and license text. Copyleft licenses (GPL, LGPL, MPL, AGPL) add a reciprocity condition: if you distribute a modified or combined work, you must release that work's source under the same license. Copyleft keeps derivatives open; permissive licenses do not. Read more: Open-Source License Compatibility ›
What is the difference between permissive and copyleft open-source licenses?: Permissive licenses (such as MIT, BSD, and Apache 2.0) let you use, modify, and ship the code in a closed-source product as long as you keep the required notices. Copyleft licenses (such as GPL, LGPL, and AGPL) let you use the code too, but if you distribute software built on it, they can require you to release your own source code under the same terms. The practical question for a startup is whether using a component forces you to open your own code, and copyleft is where that risk lives. Read more: Open-Source Licensing for Software Startups ›
Can using open-source code force my startup to open-source its own product?: It can, if you use strong copyleft code the wrong way. GPL and AGPL are designed so that distributing (or, for AGPL, even running over a network for users) software that incorporates the licensed code triggers an obligation to make your corresponding source code available under the same license. Permissive licenses and weak copyleft (LGPL) carry much less of this risk. Always check each dependency's license before you build core product on top of it, and talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction if a copyleft component is in your stack. Read more: Open-Source Licensing for Software Startups ›
Do I have to give attribution when I use open-source software?: Almost always, yes. Even the most permissive licenses, like MIT and BSD, require you to keep the original copyright notice and license text when you redistribute the code. Apache 2.0 adds that you must pass along any NOTICE file. Stripping these notices is one of the most common and most avoidable license violations, so build attribution into your release process from day one. Read more: Open-Source Licensing for Software Startups ›
Why is open-source software a red flag in due diligence?: Open source itself isn't the problem — undisclosed or misused open source is. Copyleft licenses like the GPL and AGPL can require you to release your proprietary source code if you distribute derivative works, and even permissive licenses like MIT and Apache 2.0 carry attribution obligations. Acquirers and investors run software composition analysis scans to find components whose license terms conflict with keeping your code proprietary, because a single violation can cloud ownership of the product they are buying. Read more: Open-Source Risk in Due Diligence ›
What is the difference between copyleft and permissive open-source licenses?: Permissive licenses (MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0) let you use, modify, and redistribute code — including inside closed-source products — as long as you preserve copyright notices and, for Apache 2.0, the NOTICE file and patent terms. Copyleft licenses (GPL, LGPL, AGPL) are reciprocal: if you distribute software that incorporates the code, you may have to license your combined work under the same terms and make your source code available. That reciprocity is what makes copyleft a diligence concern. Read more: Open-Source Risk in Due Diligence ›
What is a software composition analysis (SCA) scan?: A software composition analysis scan is an automated tool — such as Black Duck, Snyk, FOSSA, or Mend — that inventories every open-source and third-party component in your codebase, identifies each component's license, and flags license conflicts and known security vulnerabilities. Acquirers and investors commission SCA scans during technical diligence to build a bill of materials and spot copyleft contamination before closing. Running your own scan first lets you fix problems on your timeline, not theirs. Read more: Open-Source Risk in Due Diligence ›
How do I fix open-source license problems before a deal?: Start with an inventory: run an SCA scan to produce a software bill of materials listing every dependency and its license. Then triage — replace or remove components under incompatible copyleft licenses, isolate weak-copyleft libraries so they are only dynamically linked, and confirm attribution and NOTICE files are complete. Adopt a written open-source policy governing future use. Remediation takes weeks to months, so begin well before you raise or sell. Read more: Open-Source Risk in Due Diligence ›
What is the difference between an option and a purchase in film deals?: An option rents the exclusive right to develop a property, like a book, script, or life story, for a set period such as 12 to 18 months, in exchange for an option fee. A purchase actually buys the underlying rights. Most deals are structured as an option with a pre-negotiated purchase price, so the producer only pays the full amount if and when they 'exercise' the option and move the project into production. Read more: Option & Rights Agreements for Books, Scripts & Stories ›
How much should an option fee be?: There is no fixed rate, and option fees range widely from a token sum to a meaningful percentage of the purchase price, often in the neighborhood of 10 percent. What matters most is whether the option fee is applicable against the purchase price, how long the option lasts, what a renewal costs, and what the agreed purchase price will be if the option is exercised. A small option fee can still tie up valuable rights for a long time, so the full structure matters more than the headline number. Read more: Option & Rights Agreements for Books, Scripts & Stories ›
Do I need to buy someone's life rights to tell their true story?: Facts and real events are not protected by copyright, so you do not technically need permission to tell a true story drawn from public information. A life-rights agreement is bought to reduce legal risk: the subject grants cooperation and access and typically releases claims for defamation, invasion of privacy, and right of publicity. It is risk management and access, not ownership of the facts. Talk to an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation. Read more: Option & Rights Agreements for Books, Scripts & Stories ›
Do I have to register a copyright to protect my content from theft?: No. Under U.S. law your work is protected by copyright the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form — you do not have to register to own the copyright or to send a DMCA takedown notice. But registration with the U.S. Copyright Office unlocks powerful enforcement tools: you generally must register before you can file a copyright lawsuit over a U.S. work, and if you register before the infringement begins (or within three months of first publishing the work), you may be eligible for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, plus attorney's fees. For anything you publish and care about commercially, timely registration is the single strongest step you can take. Confirm specifics with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: How to Protect Your Content From Theft Online ›
What is the fastest way to get stolen content taken down?: For most creators, the fastest free option is a DMCA takedown notice sent to the platform hosting the copy — a host, social network, marketplace, or search engine. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512, platforms that want to keep their legal 'safe harbor' must act quickly to remove infringing material once they receive a proper notice from the copyright owner. Many sites (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, and others) have built-in web forms that walk you through it, and content often comes down within days. You usually do not need a lawyer to send one, but if money or a business dispute is involved, it is worth confirming your approach first. Read more: How to Protect Your Content From Theft Online ›
Can I get in trouble for sending a takedown notice?: Yes, if you are careless or dishonest. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), anyone who knowingly makes a material misrepresentation in a takedown notice can be held liable for the other side's damages and attorney's fees. The Ninth Circuit's Lenz v. Universal decision also held that a copyright owner must consider whether the use might be fair use before sending a notice. So only target content that actually copies your work, only claim rights you really hold, and pause before targeting commentary, criticism, parody, or news use that may be protected. When in doubt, get advice from an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: How to Protect Your Content From Theft Online ›
Does registering with the WGA copyright my screenplay?: No. This is the single most common misconception among screenwriters. Registering with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Registry is not the same as registering a copyright. The WGA Registry is a dated deposit service: it creates a timestamped record that you had a particular version of your script on a particular date, and a WGA employee can later produce that material as evidence in a dispute. That is useful, but it is not a copyright registration. You still own your copyright automatically the moment you fix the script in tangible form, and only a federal registration with the U.S. Copyright Office gives you the right to sue for infringement and the ability to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees. Most professionals do both, but they are not substitutes for each other. This is general education, not legal advice; confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: How to Protect a Screenplay, Script or Story Idea ›
Can I protect a story idea or a title?: Not through copyright. Copyright protects original expression that has been fixed in a tangible form — the actual words, scenes, dialogue, and structure of your script — not the underlying idea, concept, premise, or genre, and not titles or short phrases. So a logline like 'a shark terrorizes a beach town' is free for anyone to use; what is protected is the specific way you wrote it out. If you need to share an idea or pitch before it is fully written, the practical tools are contracts and confidentiality (an NDA) plus a possible implied-contract or 'submission' claim under state law, not copyright. This is general education, not legal advice. Read more: How to Protect a Screenplay, Script or Story Idea ›
When should I register my screenplay with the Copyright Office?: As early as practical — ideally before you start widely sharing or pitching it, and certainly before any publication. Timing controls your most valuable remedies. For U.S. works you generally must register before you can file an infringement lawsuit, and statutory damages and attorney's fees are only available if you registered before the infringement began, or within three months of the work's first publication. If you wait until after a problem appears, you may be limited to proving actual damages and lose the ability to recover fees. Registering early, right after a draft is locked, keeps every remedy on the table. This is general education, not legal advice. Read more: How to Protect a Screenplay, Script or Story Idea ›
What is the public domain cutoff year in 2026?: As of January 1, 2026, published works from 1930 entered the U.S. public domain, because works published or registered before 1978 are protected for 95 years (1930 + 95 = 2025, expiring at the end of that year). So in 2026, anything published in or before 1930 is generally public domain in the United States. Sound recordings follow a separate schedule — recordings from 1925 entered the public domain in 2026. Always confirm a specific work's status before relying on it. Read more: Public Domain & Creative Commons, Explained ›
Can I use a Creative Commons image for commercial purposes?: It depends on the license. CC0, CC BY, and CC BY-SA all allow commercial use. But any license with the 'NC' (NonCommercial) element — CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-NC-ND — prohibits use that is primarily aimed at commercial advantage. Selling a product, running ads, or monetizing content typically counts as commercial. Read the license elements before you use anything, and when money is involved, confirm with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Public Domain & Creative Commons, Explained ›
Does 'found online for free' mean I can use it?: No. This is one of the most expensive myths in copyright. Most images, songs, articles, and videos online are protected the moment they are created — no copyright notice or © symbol is required. The absence of a price tag or a watermark does not make a work free to use. Unless the work is clearly in the public domain or carries a license that covers your specific use, assume you need permission. Read more: Public Domain & Creative Commons, Explained ›
Can software be both copyrighted and patented?: Yes, and serious products usually should be. Copyright protects the specific code you wrote — the literal source and object code as creative expression — and attaches automatically the moment you save the file. A patent protects the underlying functional invention or method, if it clears the eligibility bar. Because they protect different things (expression versus function), the two don't cancel out; layering them, plus trade secret protection for what stays private, gives the broadest coverage. Read more: Software: Patent vs. Copyright ›
Does copyright protect the functionality of my software?: No. Under 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), copyright never protects an idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation — only the particular expression of it. That means a competitor can study what your program does, then write entirely new code that performs the identical function, and copyright gives you no claim. Copyright stops someone from copying your actual code (or a substantially similar version of it), not from replicating the feature. Functionality is patent or trade secret territory. Read more: Software: Patent vs. Copyright ›
Why are software patents so hard to get after Alice?: In Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (2014), the Supreme Court held that simply implementing an abstract idea — like a business method or mathematical formula — on a generic computer is not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Examiners now apply a two-step test: is the claim directed to an abstract idea, and if so, does it add an inventive concept that is 'significantly more'? Claims tied to a concrete technical improvement pass more often than claims that merely automate a known process. Read more: Software: Patent vs. Copyright ›
Do I have to register my software copyright?: Copyright exists automatically on creation, but you must register with the U.S. Copyright Office before you can file an infringement suit, and registering before infringement (or within three months of publication) unlocks statutory damages up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement plus attorney's fees under 17 U.S.C. §§ 412, 504, and 505. Online registration is inexpensive — commonly $45 to $65 — so registering key releases early is one of the highest-leverage moves a software company can make. Read more: Software: Patent vs. Copyright ›
How long do I have to respond to a copyright lawsuit?: Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12, you generally have 21 days after being served with the summons and complaint to file an answer or a motion to dismiss. If you agreed to waive formal service under Rule 4(d), you get 60 days from when the waiver request was sent. These deadlines are real, unlike demand-letter deadlines: blow through them and the plaintiff can seek a default judgment, converting their allegations into a collectible court judgment without you ever telling your side. Read more: Sued for Copyright Infringement: The First 30 Days ›
Can my LLC represent itself in a copyright lawsuit?: No. A long-standing rule, confirmed by the Supreme Court in Rowland v. California Men's Colony (1993), holds that corporations, LLCs, and other artificial entities can appear in federal court only through a licensed attorney. If your business is the named defendant and no lawyer appears for it, the court can strike its filings and enter default judgment against it. Individuals may technically proceed pro se, but federal copyright litigation — with its expert reports, discovery rules, and fee-shifting risk — is a terrible place to learn on the job. Read more: Sued for Copyright Infringement: The First 30 Days ›
What are the main defenses to a copyright infringement lawsuit?: The recurring winners are: invalid or late registration (registration is required before suing, and timing controls statutory damages); the plaintiff doesn't actually own the rights asserted; independent creation or lack of access; the works aren't substantially similar in protected expression; fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107; an express, implied, or open license covered the use; and the three-year statute of limitations in § 507(b). Early case assessment is about ranking these against the actual facts, because the strength of your best defense drives everything from settlement value to whether to file a motion to dismiss. Read more: Sued for Copyright Infringement: The First 30 Days ›
How much does it cost to defend a copyright lawsuit?: Getting through the pleadings and early motions commonly runs in the tens of thousands of dollars; taking a copyright case through discovery, summary judgment, and trial routinely reaches several hundred thousand in attorney's fees, with industry surveys putting typical mid-size copyright litigation in the low-to-mid six figures per side. That economic reality — plus fee-shifting risk under § 505 running in both directions — is why the overwhelming majority of copyright cases settle, most before summary judgment. Read more: Sued for Copyright Infringement: The First 30 Days ›
Can businesses use TikTok sounds in their videos?: Only sounds from TikTok's Commercial Music Library. TikTok's licensing deals with labels and publishers cover personal, non-commercial use — so business accounts are cut off from the general music library entirely and limited to the CML, a pre-cleared catalog of roughly a million mostly library and emerging-artist tracks. Using a trending chart song in brand content requires your own sync and master licenses from the publisher and label. Major labels have sued brands over exactly this, most famously the Bang Energy cases, so it's an enforced rule, not a technicality. Read more: TikTok Sounds and Commercial Use: What Brands and Creators Can't Do ›
What happens if a brand uses a trending song in an ad without a license?: It's copyright infringement of both the composition and the recording, and rightsholders have pursued it aggressively. In the Bang Energy litigation, Universal, Sony, and Warner all sued the drink maker over hundreds of TikTok videos using their music, and a federal court in 2022 found Bang directly liable for the posts on its own accounts. Statutory damages run $750 to $30,000 per work and up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, so a campaign using dozens of songs can create eight-figure exposure. Removal of the videos doesn't erase liability that already accrued. Read more: TikTok Sounds and Commercial Use: What Brands and Creators Can't Do ›
Who owns an original sound on TikTok?: The person who created the underlying recording owns it — copyright vests in the creator at fixation, not in TikTok and not in whoever's video made it famous. Uploading grants TikTok a broad license to host and let others use the sound on the platform, but ownership stays with the creator. That means a viral original sound is a real asset its creator can license off-platform, and it also means brands can't treat original sounds as free just because they're user-generated: someone owns that audio, and commercial use still needs their permission. Read more: TikTok Sounds and Commercial Use: What Brands and Creators Can't Do ›
Can I reuse a TikTok sound in an Instagram Reel or YouTube Short?: Not by exporting or re-recording it. TikTok's music licenses cover use inside TikTok only, so ripping a sound and placing it in a Reel or Short breaks the license chain — the use on the other platform is unlicensed unless that platform's own music library independently offers the track and you add it through that platform's tools. The same logic applies in reverse. For crossposted brand content, the safe workflow is licensing music that's cleared for every platform in the campaign, or using each platform's commercial library natively. Read more: TikTok Sounds and Commercial Use: What Brands and Creators Can't Do ›
Can you play music on Twitch?: Only music you have rights to. Playing Spotify, Apple Music, the radio, or any commercial recording on stream is copyright infringement — Twitch's own music guidelines say so explicitly — even though live enforcement is spotty. Safe options include music you wrote and recorded yourself, tracks from stream-safe libraries like StreamBeats, Pretzel, or Epidemic Sound (with an active subscription), public domain works you've verified, and licensed DJ sets inside Twitch's DJ Program. The fact that thousands of streamers play chart music without visible consequences reflects enforcement gaps, not permission. Read more: Music on Twitch: What Gets You DMCA'd (and What's Actually Safe) ›
What happens if you get a DMCA strike on Twitch?: Twitch removes or disables the flagged content, notifies you by email and in your dashboard, and records a strike under its repeat-infringer policy. Accumulating multiple strikes leads to escalating suspensions and ultimately permanent account termination — Twitch doesn't publish an exact number, but treats three as the danger zone. You can resolve a strike by getting the rightsholder to retract the claim or by filing a DMCA counter-notification if you genuinely had rights, which gives the claimant roughly two weeks to sue or the strike resolves. Deleting the offending VODs and clips going forward is the essential damage-control step. Read more: Music on Twitch: What Gets You DMCA'd (and What's Actually Safe) ›
Why do Twitch VODs get muted but live streams don't?: Twitch runs audio-recognition scanning (via Audible Magic) on recorded content — VODs and past broadcasts — and mutes matched segments in blocks, but it does not apply the same automated matching to live broadcasts. That creates the dangerous illusion that live music use is fine. Legally, the live performance is just as infringing as the recording, and rightsholders can and do send DMCA notices targeting live and clipped content; the 2020 DMCA wave was built largely on old clips. Muting is Twitch's protective filter, not the boundary of your liability. Read more: Music on Twitch: What Gets You DMCA'd (and What's Actually Safe) ›
Is singing a cover song on Twitch allowed?: Twitch's music guidelines carve out one narrow lane: a cover performed entirely live in your stream, with a good-faith effort to perform the song as written and every audio element created by you — no karaoke tracks, backing recordings, or instrumentals owned by others. That's Twitch policy, not a full legal clearance: the songwriter's composition rights are still in play, and the VODs, clips, and exports of your performance aren't clearly covered the way YouTube's publisher deals cover them — unlike YouTube, Twitch has no revenue-share system that converts covers into a tolerated monetized use. In practice, enforcement against small singing streams is rare, but the strike risk on recorded content is real. Read more: Music on Twitch: What Gets You DMCA'd (and What's Actually Safe) ›
What are the 4 types of intellectual property?: The four canonical types are copyright (original creative works like writing, music, photos, and software), trademarks (brand identifiers like names, logos, and slogans), patents (new and non-obvious inventions, plus ornamental designs), and trade secrets (valuable confidential business information like formulas and algorithms). Many lawyers add a fifth: the right of publicity, which protects a person's name, image, and likeness from unauthorized commercial use. Read more: The 4 Types of Intellectual Property (Plus the One Everyone Forgets) ›
What type of intellectual property protects a logo?: Primarily trademark law, because a logo identifies the source of goods or services — that protection can last forever with continued use and renewals. But a sufficiently creative logo is also an original artistic work protected by copyright, so many logos carry both. This overlap matters in practice: copyright in a logo belongs to whoever created it unless assigned in writing, which is why businesses should get a written copyright assignment from their logo designer. Read more: The 4 Types of Intellectual Property (Plus the One Everyone Forgets) ›
Can one product be protected by multiple types of IP at once?: Yes — that's the norm for valuable products, not the exception. A single sneaker can carry a trademarked brand name and logo, a design patent on the sole's ornamental shape, utility patents on cushioning technology, copyright in its advertising, trade secrets in its manufacturing process, and a licensed athlete's right of publicity. Smart IP strategy deliberately layers types so that when one right expires or fails, others still stand. Read more: The 4 Types of Intellectual Property (Plus the One Everyone Forgets) ›
What is the difference between a patent and a trade secret?: They're opposite bargains over the same asset. A patent requires you to publicly disclose exactly how your invention works in exchange for roughly 20 years of exclusivity — after which anyone may use it. A trade secret requires you to disclose nothing and can last indefinitely (Coca-Cola's formula has been secret since 1886), but it gives no protection against independent invention or reverse engineering. Patent what competitors could reverse-engineer; keep secret what they can't. Read more: The 4 Types of Intellectual Property (Plus the One Everyone Forgets) ›
Can I use a song, font, or image commercially without permission?: Usually no. Most songs, photographs, illustrations, and font software are protected by copyright (or a license agreement) the moment they are created, and selling a product is a commercial use. Unless the work is clearly in the public domain or a license expressly allows your specific use, you generally need permission. 'Royalty-free' and 'free download' do not mean license-free. When in doubt, get a written license and confirm your situation with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Can You Legally Use That Song, Font, or Image on Your Product? ›
Is there a number of seconds of a song I can use legally?: No. There is no 'magic number' of seconds — no 30-second, 15-second, or 6-second rule that automatically makes use legal. That is a myth. Fair use is decided case by case using four factors, and even a few seconds can infringe if they capture the recognizable 'heart' of the song. Amount used is only one factor a court weighs, not a safe-harbor. Read more: Can You Legally Use That Song, Font, or Image on Your Product? ›
Why do I need a font license if typefaces can't be copyrighted in the US?: In the US, the visual design of a typeface generally is not protected by copyright, but the font software file that produces those letters usually is — it is a computer program. You license that file under an End-User License Agreement (EULA). The EULA, not copyright alone, controls whether you can use the font on merchandise, in a logo you sell, or embedded in a product. Read more: Can You Legally Use That Song, Font, or Image on Your Product? ›
Can I legally use AI-generated images and music for my business?: Often yes, but with caveats. Most popular tools grant paying users a commercial-use license in their terms of service, so you can put the output in ads, products, or content. The harder questions are whether you actually own exclusive rights to that output (in the U.S., purely AI-generated material generally cannot be copyrighted because it lacks human authorship) and whether the output happens to copy someone else's protected work, brand, or likeness. Read your tool's terms and avoid prompts that target real artists, brands, or celebrities. For your specific situation, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Using AI-Generated Images & Music Commercially: What's Safe? ›
Do I own the copyright to AI images or music I create?: Usually not in the way you might expect. The U.S. Copyright Office and federal courts have held that copyright requires human authorship, so material generated by AI without meaningful human creative control generally is not protectable on its own. In March 2026 the Supreme Court declined to hear the Thaler appeal, leaving that rule in place. You may still own copyright in the human-authored parts you add, such as your own edits, arrangement, and selection. Practically, this means you may not be able to stop competitors from copying purely AI-generated output. Read more: Using AI-Generated Images & Music Commercially: What's Safe? ›
Can AI-generated content infringe someone else's copyright or trademark?: Yes. AI tools are trained on large amounts of existing material, and an output can sometimes reproduce a recognizable image, melody, lyric, logo, character, or a real person's voice or likeness. If it does, using it commercially can expose you to copyright, trademark, or right-of-publicity claims regardless of what the tool's terms say. The safest approach is to avoid prompting for named artists, brands, or celebrities and to review outputs before publishing. When the stakes are high, have a licensed attorney review your use. Read more: Using AI-Generated Images & Music Commercially: What's Safe? ›
How many seconds of a movie can I legally use in my video?: There is no legal second count — the 10-second and 30-second 'rules' are myths with no basis in the Copyright Act. Fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 asks whether the amount you used is reasonable in relation to a transformative purpose like criticism or commentary, so thirty seconds that you actually analyze can be fair while five seconds used as decoration is not. Courts have found short takings unfair when they grabbed the heart of a work, and long ones fair when the commentary genuinely needed them. Read more: Using Movie and TV Clips in Your Videos: How Much Is Actually Fair Use? ›
Can I use movie clips in monetized YouTube videos?: Monetization doesn't kill fair use, but it counts against you on the first factor, especially after Warhol v. Goldsmith emphasized commercial purpose. A monetized video essay that criticizes and analyzes a film, using only the clips its arguments need, can still be solidly fair. The bigger practical issue is Content ID: studios' fingerprinting claims clips automatically regardless of fair use, so expect claims on monetized videos and be ready to use the dispute process — many film critics win disputes routinely. Read more: Using Movie and TV Clips in Your Videos: How Much Is Actually Fair Use? ›
Are movie recap channels legal?: Mostly no. A recap that retells the whole plot with the film's own footage substitutes for watching the movie and adds summary rather than critique — weak on the amount factor and terrible on market harm. Enforcement is real: in Japan's 'fast movie' cases, uploaders of roughly 10-minute film summaries received criminal convictions in 2021, and in 2022 the Tokyo District Court ordered two of them to pay ¥500 million (about $3.5 million) to thirteen studios. U.S. studios likewise target recap and 'movie in 10 minutes' channels with takedowns and strikes. Read more: Using Movie and TV Clips in Your Videos: How Much Is Actually Fair Use? ›
Can I use movie trailers freely since they're promotional?: No — trailers are copyrighted audiovisual works like any other studio content, and 'they released it for free publicity' is not a license. In practice studios tolerate trailer reactions and breakdowns more than film-footage uses because trailer commentary serves their marketing, and Content ID policies on trailers are often set to track or monetize rather than block. But that's tolerance, not permission, and it varies by studio; your fair-use analysis for trailer footage is the same four-factor test as for the film itself. Read more: Using Movie and TV Clips in Your Videos: How Much Is Actually Fair Use? ›
What is intellectual property in simple terms?: Intellectual property (IP) is the set of legal rights the law attaches to certain creations of the mind — creative works, brand names, inventions, confidential business know-how, and even a person's identity. Owning IP doesn't mean owning an idea; it means owning a bundle of exclusive rights to do specific things with a specific expression, mark, or invention, such as copying it, selling it, or licensing it, and to stop others from doing those things without permission for a limited time. Read more: What Is Intellectual Property? A Plain-English Explanation ›
What are the main types of intellectual property?: The canonical four are copyright (creative expression like books, music, photos, and software), trademarks (brand identifiers like names and logos), patents (inventions and designs), and trade secrets (valuable confidential information like formulas and customer lists). A fifth, the right of publicity, protects a person's name, image, and likeness from unauthorized commercial use. Most real products are protected by several types at once. Read more: What Is Intellectual Property? A Plain-English Explanation ›
What is not protected by intellectual property law?: IP law never protects abstract ideas, facts, or discoveries as such. Copyright's idea–expression rule, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), protects how you expressed something, not the concept behind it. Facts and data are free for everyone to use. Laws of nature and natural phenomena can't be patented. And functional product features get no protection unless they qualify for a patent — trademark and copyright can't be used as a back door to monopolize how something works. Read more: What Is Intellectual Property? A Plain-English Explanation ›
Do you have to register intellectual property to own it?: It depends on the type. Copyright exists automatically the moment an original work is fixed in tangible form, and trademark rights arise from actually using a mark in commerce — though registration adds major benefits for both, including the right to sue for copyright infringement and nationwide trademark priority. Patents are the opposite: no application, no patent — rights exist only if the government grants them. Trade secrets require no filing at all, just genuine, ongoing secrecy measures. Read more: What Is Intellectual Property? A Plain-English Explanation ›
What is intellectual property infringement in simple terms?: IP infringement means violating one of the exclusive rights the law grants to an IP owner — and each type of IP has its own test. For copyright, it's copying a protected work with substantial similarity. For trademarks, it's using a mark in commerce in a way likely to confuse consumers about source. For patents, it's making, using, selling, or importing something covered by the patent's claims, even if you invented it independently. For trade secrets, it's acquiring or using a secret through improper means like theft or breach of confidence. Read more: What Counts as IP Infringement? (And What Doesn't) ›
Is it infringement if I created something similar without copying?: It depends entirely on the type of IP. Independent creation is a complete defense to copyright infringement — if you never saw or copied the original, identical work infringes nothing. It's also lawful for trade secrets, where independent discovery and reverse engineering are legitimate. But patent infringement is strict liability: if your product falls within an issued patent's claims, you infringe even if you'd never heard of the patent. That asymmetry surprises more businesses than any other rule in IP law. Read more: What Counts as IP Infringement? (And What Doesn't) ›
What's the difference between direct and secondary infringement?: Direct infringement means you personally committed the violating act — copied the work, sold the confusing product, practiced the patented invention. Secondary liability reaches people who enable or profit from someone else's direct infringement: contributory infringement (knowingly materially contributing, like supplying a component with no non-infringing use) and vicarious liability (having the right to control the infringer plus a direct financial benefit). This is why platforms like YouTube and Etsy remove content on notice — the DMCA's § 512 safe harbors protect them from secondary copyright liability only if they take down promptly. Read more: What Counts as IP Infringement? (And What Doesn't) ›
Does not knowing about someone's IP protect me from infringement claims?: Generally no — ignorance is not a defense to liability for copyright, trademark, or patent infringement; at best it reduces damages. An innocent copyright infringer may see statutory damages reduced to as little as $200 per work under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2), while willfulness pushes them up to $150,000. In patent law, knowledge mainly affects whether damages get enhanced up to threefold for willfulness under 35 U.S.C. § 284. The one context where your state of mind is central to liability itself is trade secrets, where misappropriation requires knowing or having reason to know the information was improperly obtained. Read more: What Counts as IP Infringement? (And What Doesn't) ›
Can you copyright code written by AI?: Only the parts a human authored. The U.S. Copyright Office requires human authorship, so purely machine-generated output — code produced by a prompt with no creative human contribution — is not copyrightable and falls into an unprotected zone. Code you meaningfully write, edit, arrange, and select can be protected, but you must disclaim the AI-generated portions when you register. Autocomplete-style suggestions you review and integrate are a gray area courts and the Office are still mapping. Read more: Who Owns AI-Generated Code? ›
Who owns code generated by GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT?: Under the major tools' terms of service, the provider assigns whatever rights it has in the output to you, the user. But a tool can only transfer rights it actually holds — and if the output isn't copyrightable (no human author) or reproduces someone else's licensed code, there may be no exclusive right to assign. So the terms give you ownership of your side of the bargain, not a guarantee the code is protectable or free of third-party claims. Read more: Who Owns AI-Generated Code? ›
Does AI-generated code infringe open-source licenses?: It can. AI coding tools are trained on public repositories, including GPL and other copyleft code, and can occasionally emit near-verbatim snippets that carry license obligations. The GitHub Copilot litigation (Doe v. GitHub) tested exactly this. The safest practice is to treat AI output as untrusted: scan for copied code, check license compatibility, and keep attribution records before shipping it in a product. Read more: Who Owns AI-Generated Code? ›
How do I protect my company from AI code license risk?: Adopt a written AI-coding policy, require human review of every suggestion, run license and code-similarity scanning in your build pipeline, and keep provenance records of what was AI-assisted. In contracts, add representations and indemnities addressing AI-generated deliverables. For anything you plan to register or license, ensure a human meaningfully authored it so you have an enforceable copyright to assert. Read more: Who Owns AI-Generated Code? ›
Do I own the text or images an AI tool generates for me?: Usually you have the contractual right to use them, but that is set by the tool's terms of service, not a guarantee of copyright. OpenAI, for example, assigns output to the user, while some image tools only grant ownership to paying subscribers. Read the terms for the specific tool and plan you use. Read more: Who Owns the Output of an AI Tool? ›
Can I copyright purely AI-generated content?: Generally no. The U.S. Copyright Office's 2025 guidance holds that purely AI-generated material lacks the human authorship copyright requires, and that prompts alone are not enough. Works where a human makes meaningful creative contributions using AI as a tool may be protectable in part. Read more: Who Owns the Output of an AI Tool? ›
If I can use AI output but cannot copyright it, what is the risk?: Anyone else may legally copy uncopyrightable output, so you may not be able to stop competitors from using identical or similar material. There can also be infringement risk if the output resembles training data. For your situation, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. Read more: Who Owns the Output of an AI Tool? ›
If I paid a freelancer for a logo, do I own the copyright?: Not automatically. Under U.S. copyright law, an independent contractor who creates a logo owns the copyright by default unless there is a signed written assignment transferring it to you. Paying for the work buys you the design, but not the underlying copyright, without that writing. Read more: Do You Own the Logo You Paid a Freelancer to Make? ›
Isn't a logo a work made for hire if I commissioned it?: Usually no. A commissioned work only counts as a work made for hire if it both fits one of nine narrow statutory categories and is named a work made for hire in a signed agreement. A standalone logo almost never fits those nine categories, so a written copyright assignment is the reliable way to own it. Read more: Do You Own the Logo You Paid a Freelancer to Make? ›
How do I fix it if I never got anything in writing?: Go back to the designer and ask them to sign a short copyright assignment now, even after the fact. Most freelancers will sign, sometimes for a small fee. Get it before the relationship sours, because once you and the designer disagree, your leverage drops sharply. Read more: Do You Own the Logo You Paid a Freelancer to Make? ›
What qualifies as a work made for hire?: Only two things, under 17 U.S.C. § 101. First, a work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment — with ‘employee’ decided under common-law agency factors from CCNV v. Reid, not by what the contract calls the person. Second, a specially ordered or commissioned work that falls within one of nine listed categories (like a contribution to a collective work, part of an audiovisual work, or a translation) AND that both parties agreed in a signed writing would be a work made for hire. Anything outside those two paths is not a work made for hire, no matter what the contract says. Read more: Work Made for Hire, Actually Explained ›
Is freelance work automatically work for hire if the contract says so?: No. For an independent contractor, a work-for-hire clause only works if the deliverable fits one of the nine statutory categories in § 101 — and most common freelance deliverables, including logos, websites, photographs commissioned individually, and standalone software, don't clearly fit any of them. When the categories don't apply, the clause is legally empty and the freelancer remains the author and owner. That's why well-drafted contracts pair the work-for-hire language with a backup assignment clause transferring the copyright if the work-for-hire designation fails. Read more: Work Made for Hire, Actually Explained ›
What's the difference between a work made for hire and an assignment?: Ownership versus authorship. An assignment transfers a copyright from the creator to the buyer, but the creator remains the legal author — which means the creator (or their heirs) can terminate the assignment roughly 35 years later under 17 U.S.C. § 203 and reclaim the rights. A work made for hire makes the hiring party the author from the moment of creation, so there is nothing to terminate and no clawback right ever exists. The copyright term also differs: 95 years from publication or 120 from creation for works made for hire, versus life of the author plus 70 years otherwise. Read more: Work Made for Hire, Actually Explained ›
Why is a work-for-hire clause risky with California freelancers?: Because California statutorily converts the relationship. Under Labor Code § 3351.5(c) and Unemployment Insurance Code §§ 621(d) and 686, a person engaged under a signed work-made-for-hire agreement is treated as a statutory employee — and the commissioning party as an employer — for workers' compensation and unemployment insurance purposes. A business that drops a casual work-for-hire clause into a California freelance contract can unknowingly take on obligations to carry workers' comp coverage and make unemployment contributions. Many companies dealing with California contractors use a pure assignment instead. Read more: Work Made for Hire, Actually Explained ›
Is a copyright claim bad for my YouTube channel?: A Content ID claim by itself does not hurt your channel. It means an automated system matched material in your video to a rightsholder's reference file, and the rightsholder chose to monetize, track, or block that video. There is no penalty, no strike, and no effect on your channel's standing. The real costs are financial and practical: you may lose some or all ad revenue on that video, or lose visibility if it's blocked in certain countries. Repeatedly uploading claimed content can still draw manual takedowns, so treat frequent claims as a warning. Read more: YouTube Copyright Claim vs. Strike (and How Content ID Actually Works) ›
How do I get rid of a copyright strike on YouTube?: You have three routes. First, wait it out: a strike expires after 90 days once you complete Copyright School, as long as you don't accumulate three at once. Second, ask the claimant for a retraction — rightsholders can and do withdraw takedowns, especially for honest mistakes. Third, file a DMCA counter-notice if you have a genuine legal basis like fair use or a license; the claimant then has about 10 business days to file a lawsuit or the video is reinstated and the strike resolves. Counter-notices carry real litigation risk, so use them only when your position is solid. Read more: YouTube Copyright Claim vs. Strike (and How Content ID Actually Works) ›
Can I use 10 seconds of a copyrighted song on YouTube without a claim?: No — the 10-second rule is a myth. Copyright law has no minimum free duration, and Content ID routinely matches clips of just a few seconds. Whether a short use is lawful depends on fair use's four factors, not a stopwatch, and music is treated especially strictly because even brief recognizable fragments have licensing value. Practically, expect any recognizable commercial music, at any length and any volume, to be detected and claimed. Read more: YouTube Copyright Claim vs. Strike (and How Content ID Actually Works) ›
What happens if I dispute a Content ID claim and lose?: If the claimant rejects your dispute, the claim stays and you can escalate to an appeal. On appeal the claimant has 7 days to respond and must either release the claim or convert it into a formal takedown request — which becomes a copyright strike against your channel. That forced choice is the point of the ladder: it makes the rightsholder put real legal skin in the game. It also means you should only ride a dispute all the way up if you're prepared to absorb a strike or counter-notice fight. Read more: YouTube Copyright Claim vs. Strike (and How Content ID Actually Works) ›
Why was Napster contributorily liable?: Napster had actual and constructive knowledge that specific infringing files were available on its system and materially contributed to the infringement by providing the centralized index, search, and connection services that made the trading possible. Read more: A&M Records v. Napster: Contributory and Vicarious Liability in the P2P Era ›
How did the vicarious-liability holding differ?: Vicarious liability did not require knowledge. Napster had a direct financial interest in the infringing activity, which drew users, and it had the right and ability to police its centralized index but failed to patrol its system to the fullest extent possible. Read more: A&M Records v. Napster: Contributory and Vicarious Liability in the P2P Era ›
Did the Sony safe harbor protect Napster?: No. The court held Sony limited only when knowledge of specific infringement may be imputed from a product's design, not when a defendant has actual knowledge of specific infringing material and the ability to block access to it. Read more: A&M Records v. Napster: Contributory and Vicarious Liability in the P2P Era ›
Why wasn't Aalmuhammed a joint author when his contributions were used in the film?: Because joint authorship requires control and a mutually manifested intent to be co-authors, not merely a copyrightable contribution. Aalmuhammed lacked decision-making control over the final film, and the principals never treated him as a co-author. Read more: Control, Intent, and the Limits of Collaboration: Aalmuhammed v. Lee ›
Does Aalmuhammed mean only the director can be a film's author?: No. It means authorship turns on who superintends the work and whether the parties intended co-authorship. Multiple people can be joint authors if they share control and intend to be co-authors; the test simply prevents every contributor from automatically qualifying. Read more: Control, Intent, and the Limits of Collaboration: Aalmuhammed v. Lee ›
How can a contributor protect an ownership interest?: By negotiating a written agreement that designates co-authorship or assigns specified rights before contributing. Courts give great weight to objective manifestations of intent, and a contract is the clearest one. Read more: Control, Intent, and the Limits of Collaboration: Aalmuhammed v. Lee ›
Why did Aereo use thousands of tiny antennas?: To argue that each subscriber's stream came from a unique, individually-tuned antenna and a personal copy, making every transmission "private" under the Second Circuit's Cablevision reasoning rather than a public performance. Read more: ABC v. Aereo: When 'Looks Like Cable' Beat the Engineering ›
Why didn't that argument work?: The Court looked past the architecture to function. Because Aereo behaved like the cable systems Congress meant to cover, and because the Transmit Clause reaches transmissions to the public even from separate copies at different times, the service publicly performed the works. Read more: ABC v. Aereo: When 'Looks Like Cable' Beat the Engineering ›
Does Aereo make my cloud DVR or storage locker illegal?: The majority said its holding was limited and did not decide that question, distinguishing services whose users have lawful rights to the stored content. The exact line remains unsettled. Read more: ABC v. Aereo: When 'Looks Like Cable' Beat the Engineering ›
Did Alaska Stock have to name every photographer to register the images?: No. The Ninth Circuit held that because the agency owned the copyrights in the component photographs and followed the Copyright Office's prescribed collection-registration procedure, registering the collection registered the individual images without listing each author and title. Read more: One Application, Thousands of Photographs: Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin and Group Registration ›
Why did the court defer to the Copyright Office?: The Office administers the registration system, had sanctioned this collection-registration practice for about thirty years, and had explained and defended it. The court found the Office's interpretation reasonable and was unwilling to upset registrations that an entire industry had relied upon in good faith. Read more: One Application, Thousands of Photographs: Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin and Group Registration ›
Does this case still control how I register photographs today?: Its reasoning remains influential, but the Copyright Office has since adopted formal group-registration rules for photographs. Creators should register under the current procedures while drawing comfort from the decision's protection of good-faith reliance on Office guidance. Read more: One Application, Thousands of Photographs: Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin and Group Registration ›
Did the court decide that training AI on copyrighted art is infringement?: No. It decided only that the artists' allegations were plausible enough to proceed past a motion to dismiss. Whether training actually infringes — and whether fair use excuses it — remains to be litigated. Read more: Andersen v. Stability AI: The Theory That Diffusion Models Can 'Contain' the Works They Trained On ›
Why does the "model contains the work" idea matter?: Because it offers a theory of liability that does not depend on any output resembling a specific artwork. If protected images are encoded in the model's weights, the reproduction right may be implicated by the model's very existence — a question now headed for technical discovery. Read more: Andersen v. Stability AI: The Theory That Diffusion Models Can 'Contain' the Works They Trained On ›
Is this the same as the Anthropic and Meta book cases?: No. Those are separate suits over text training with their own fair-use rulings. Andersen concerns image generators and a different theory about what the trained model contains, and fair use has not yet been decided in it. Read more: Andersen v. Stability AI: The Theory That Diffusion Models Can 'Contain' the Works They Trained On ›
Why was Google Books ruled a fair use?: The Second Circuit found the copying highly transformative because it created a full-text search tool and snippet-display function that provide information about books rather than substituting for them, and it caused no meaningful market harm to authors. Read more: Authors Guild v. Google: Book Scanning and Snippets as Transformative Fair Use ›
Did displaying snippets change the fair-use result?: No. The court held that limited snippet display serves the transformative search purpose, that Google's design blocks users from reconstructing meaningful portions of a book, and that snippets are not an effective competing substitute for the originals. Read more: Authors Guild v. Google: Book Scanning and Snippets as Transformative Fair Use ›
Does Google's commercial motive defeat fair use?: No. The court held that a profit motive does not defeat fair use where the use is highly transformative; many transformative uses, including news reporting and criticism, are undertaken for profit. Read more: Authors Guild v. Google: Book Scanning and Snippets as Transformative Fair Use ›
What did HathiTrust hold about full-text search?: The Second Circuit held that digitizing books to create a full-text search database is a quintessentially transformative use, because it uses the works for the new purpose of locating information rather than reading, and does not substitute for the originals. Read more: Authors Guild v. HathiTrust: Mass Digitization for Search and Accessibility ›
How did the court treat access for the print-disabled?: The court held that providing digital copies to patrons with print disabilities is a fair use, finding no significant market that authors were losing because they had not made their works available in accessible formats at scale. Read more: Authors Guild v. HathiTrust: Mass Digitization for Search and Accessibility ›
Why is HathiTrust important for the Google Books case?: Decided a year earlier by the same circuit, HathiTrust established that full-text search is transformative and that mass digitization causes no cognizable market harm, providing the doctrinal foundation the court relied on in Authors Guild v. Google. Read more: Authors Guild v. HathiTrust: Mass Digitization for Search and Accessibility ›
Did the Court hold that Selden's book was uncopyrightable?: No. The Court did not disturb the copyright in the treatise's text and explanatory matter. It held only that the copyright did not reach the bookkeeping system or bar others from making and using account books embodying that system. Read more: The Method Belongs to the World: How Baker v. Selden Drew Copyright's First Boundary ›
Is Baker v. Selden still good law?: Yes. It has never been overruled and is treated as the foundation of the idea-expression dichotomy. Its principle is codified at 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), and courts continue to cite the opinion directly. Read more: The Method Belongs to the World: How Baker v. Selden Drew Copyright's First Boundary ›
What is the difference between the idea-expression dichotomy and the merger doctrine?: The dichotomy says ideas, systems, and methods are categorically unprotectable while expression is protectable. Merger is a corollary that withdraws protection from expression itself when an idea can be expressed in only one or a few ways, so that protecting the expression would monopolize the idea. Both trace to Baker. Read more: The Method Belongs to the World: How Baker v. Selden Drew Copyright's First Boundary ›
Did the court rule that AI training is legal?: It held that, on this record, training Claude on lawfully acquired books was fair use. That is a single district court's ruling, not a categorical or binding rule, and it was paired with a holding that pirating the training data is not protected. Read more: Bartz v. Anthropic: Transformative Training, Unforgivable Acquisition ›
Why did Anthropic pay $1.5 billion if it won on fair use?: Because it won only on the use of lawfully acquired works. The separate claim — that it had downloaded and retained millions of pirated books — was not protected by fair use and was resolved by settlement before trial. Read more: Bartz v. Anthropic: Transformative Training, Unforgivable Acquisition ›
What is the practical takeaway for companies building AI?: How you obtain training data may matter more than how you use it. Lawful, documented sourcing is the central compliance obligation the decision identifies. Read more: Bartz v. Anthropic: Transformative Training, Unforgivable Acquisition ›
What did Bleistein v. Donaldson decide?: The Supreme Court held that pictorial advertisements — here, chromolithograph posters promoting a circus — are copyrightable, and that a work does not lose copyright protection merely because it was made for commercial or advertising purposes. Justice Holmes established that copyright's originality requirement is met by a work reflecting the author's personal expression, however modest. Read more: Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing: Circus Posters, Originality, and the Anti-Discrimination Principle ›
What is the 'aesthetic non-discrimination' principle?: It is Holmes's warning that judges, trained only in law, make dangerous arbiters of artistic worth. Courts should not deny copyright based on their own assessment of a work's beauty, taste, or cultural value. This principle keeps the originality threshold low and objective, protecting commercial and avant-garde works alike. Read more: Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing: Circus Posters, Originality, and the Anti-Discrimination Principle ›
How low is the originality bar after Bleistein?: Very low. Holmes wrote that a work need only contain something 'irreducible' that is one man's own — a personal reaction of an individual upon nature. This standard, later refined in Feist as requiring a minimal 'creative spark,' means the vast majority of pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works easily qualify for copyright. Read more: Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing: Circus Posters, Originality, and the Anti-Discrimination Principle ›
What is the difference between sampling a composition and sampling a sound recording?: A composition is the underlying music and lyrics; a sound recording is the specific captured performance. Replaying a melody yourself implicates only the composition. Copying the actual master—as in Bridgeport—implicates the sound recording, which the Sixth Circuit treated under its own bright-line rule. Read more: "Get a License or Do Not Sample": Bridgeport's Bright Line for Sound Recordings ›
Did Bridgeport really make a two-second sample illegal?: For sound recordings in the Sixth Circuit, yes—the court held that the amount taken is irrelevant, so even a brief, manipulated fragment can infringe absent a license or a successful fair use defense. Read more: "Get a License or Do Not Sample": Bridgeport's Bright Line for Sound Recordings ›
Is Bridgeport still good law everywhere?: No. It remains binding in the Sixth Circuit, but the Ninth Circuit expressly declined to follow it in VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone (2016), holding that the de minimis defense applies to sound recordings and creating an open circuit split. Read more: "Get a License or Do Not Sample": Bridgeport's Bright Line for Sound Recordings ›
What did Burrow-Giles v. Sarony decide?: The Supreme Court held that photographs can be constitutional writings of an author and therefore eligible for copyright, upholding the statute that extended copyright to photographs. Sarony's portrait of Oscar Wilde reflected his original intellectual conception, so he was its author. Read more: The Camera Has an Author: Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony ›
Why did the lithographic company argue photographs could not be copyrighted?: Burrow-Giles argued a photograph is merely a mechanical reproduction of reality, not the writing of an author, so Congress had no constitutional power to grant it copyright. The Court rejected that view where the photograph embodies the photographer's original creative choices. Read more: The Camera Has an Author: Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony ›
Does Burrow-Giles mean every photograph is copyrightable?: Not necessarily. The Court rested its holding on the originality reflected in Sarony's posing, lighting, and arrangement. It left open whether a purely mechanical photograph with no creative authorship would qualify, a distinction that still matters today. Read more: The Camera Has an Author: Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony ›
Did 2 Live Crew win outright at the Supreme Court?: Not entirely. The Court reversed the Sixth Circuit and held that the parody could be fair use, but it remanded for further consideration of the third and fourth factors, including the potential market for a non-parody rap derivative. The case settled afterward. Read more: Parody Earns Its Keep: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose and the Birth of Transformative Fair Use ›
What is the difference between parody and satire in fair-use law?: Parody targets and comments on the original work itself, so it has a strong justification for copying that work. Satire borrows a work to comment on something else and therefore has a weaker claim, because it could often make its point without taking the specific original. Read more: Parody Earns Its Keep: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose and the Birth of Transformative Fair Use ›
Why is Campbell still cited so heavily?: It made "transformative use" the centerpiece of the first fair-use factor and rejected rigid presumptions, shaping how courts analyze everything from appropriation art to news commentary in the decades since. Read more: Parody Earns Its Keep: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose and the Birth of Transformative Fair Use ›
Why can I resell a used CD but not a downloaded song?: Reselling a CD transfers the same physical object, implicating only the distribution right, which first sale limits. Transferring a digital file makes a new copy, implicating the reproduction right, which has no first-sale exception. Read more: Capitol Records v. ReDigi: Why You Cannot Resell a Song the Way You Resell a Record ›
Didn't ReDigi delete the original as it copied?: Yes, but the court held that the reproduction right is triggered by the creation of the new copy regardless of whether the source is deleted. Deleting the original does not undo the fact that a new phonorecord was made. Read more: Capitol Records v. ReDigi: Why You Cannot Resell a Song the Way You Resell a Record ›
Could Congress create a digital first-sale right?: It could. The court treated digital exhaustion as a policy choice for the legislature, noting that the Copyright Office had studied and declined to recommend such a right. Until Congress acts, ReDigi controls. Read more: Capitol Records v. ReDigi: Why You Cannot Resell a Song the Way You Resell a Record ›
Did Richard Prince win the case?: Largely. The Second Circuit held twenty-five of his thirty works were fair use as a matter of law and reversed the order to destroy them, remanding only five for further analysis. The parties settled in 2014 before the remaining works were finally adjudicated. Read more: When the Eye Decides: Cariou v. Prince and Fair Use for Appropriation Art ›
Does Cariou still control after Warhol v. Goldsmith?: Its core holding that commentary is not strictly required survives, but the 2023 Warhol decision sharpened the first-factor analysis to emphasize the use's purpose and any commercial substitution, tempering Cariou's emphasis on a merely "different aesthetic." Read more: When the Eye Decides: Cariou v. Prince and Fair Use for Appropriation Art ›
Can any artist freely reuse a photograph if they change the style?: No. A new style or aesthetic helps, but courts also weigh how much was taken, whether the original remains recognizable, and whether the new work competes in the same market. Modest changes that preserve the original's expression can still infringe. Read more: When the Eye Decides: Cariou v. Prince and Fair Use for Appropriation Art ›
What is the volitional-conduct requirement?: To be a direct infringer of the reproduction right, a party must engage in volitional conduct that actually causes the copy to be made. In the remote DVR context, the court held that the subscriber who presses record supplies that volition, so the cable operator that built and ran the automated system is not the direct copier. Read more: Who Presses Record? Cartoon Network v. Cablevision and the Volitional-Conduct Rule ›
Why weren't the buffer copies infringing?: The Copyright Act protects works fixed for more than a transitory duration. Data passed through Cablevision's buffers for at most about 1.2 seconds before being overwritten, which the court held was too fleeting to be fixed, so no actionable copy was made. Read more: Who Presses Record? Cartoon Network v. Cablevision and the Volitional-Conduct Rule ›
Did this case decide whether remote DVRs are fair use?: No. The plaintiffs sued only for direct infringement and dropped any contributory or secondary-liability theory. Because the court found no direct infringement, it never reached fair use or secondary liability, and the Supreme Court later declined to hear the case. Read more: Who Presses Record? Cartoon Network v. Cablevision and the Volitional-Conduct Rule ›
What is VARA, and how does it differ from ordinary copyright?: The Visual Artists Rights Act, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 106A, grants authors of certain works of visual art "moral rights" — chiefly attribution and integrity — that exist independently of the economic rights in copyright. The integrity right includes, for works of recognized stature, a right to prevent their destruction, even by someone who owns the physical object. Read more: Whitewashed Overnight: Castillo v. G&M Realty and VARA's Protection for Art of 'Recognized Stature' ›
Did the artists own the buildings or the right to keep their murals forever?: No. The artists did not own the buildings, and the works were understood to be impermanent. The court's point was narrower: while the works existed and qualified as recognized stature, VARA required the owner to follow statutory procedures — notice and an opportunity to salvage, or a signed waiver — rather than destroy them willfully overnight. Read more: Whitewashed Overnight: Castillo v. G&M Realty and VARA's Protection for Art of 'Recognized Stature' ›
Why was the award the statutory maximum?: Because the destruction was found willful. Under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), willful infringement permits up to $150,000 per work. With forty-five qualifying works, the maximum totaled $6.75 million, which the Second Circuit affirmed in light of the developer's bad faith and the need for deterrence. Read more: Whitewashed Overnight: Castillo v. G&M Realty and VARA's Protection for Art of 'Recognized Stature' ›
Did CCNV lose all rights to the sculpture?: No. The Court held only that Reid was not an employee, so the work was not made for hire. It remanded to decide whether CCNV and Reid were joint authors, in which case both would co-own the copyright with the rights co-owners share. Read more: Who Owns the Statue? CCNV v. Reid and the Birth of the Agency Test ›
Does a signed contract calling something "work for hire" settle the question?: Not by itself. For the nine enumerated categories, a signed agreement is required and effective. For everything else, the label is irrelevant unless the creator is an employee under the agency test — which is why a separate assignment clause matters. Read more: Who Owns the Statue? CCNV v. Reid and the Birth of the Agency Test ›
Is the Reid test still good law?: Yes. It remains the controlling standard for distinguishing employees from independent contractors under the Copyright Act and is applied routinely across creative industries. Read more: Who Owns the Statue? CCNV v. Reid and the Birth of the Agency Test ›
Did Chamberlain win on its copyright claim?: No. Chamberlain did not prevail. The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Skylink, holding that operating a garage-door opener with a universal remote infringed none of Chamberlain's exclusive rights and therefore could not support a § 1201(a)(2) anti-trafficking claim. Read more: The Garage-Door Case That Tethered the DMCA to Infringement: Chamberlain v. Skylink ›
What is the "infringement nexus" requirement?: It is the rule, announced in this case, that a § 1201(a)(2) plaintiff must show a reasonable relationship between the circumvention enabled by the defendant's product and an infringement of a right protected by the Copyright Act. Circumvention that facilitates only authorized, non-infringing use is not actionable. Read more: The Garage-Door Case That Tethered the DMCA to Infringement: Chamberlain v. Skylink ›
Is Chamberlain still good law?: It remains binding precedent in the Federal Circuit and is widely cited nationwide. But the Ninth Circuit declined to adopt its nexus requirement in MDY v. Blizzard, so the two approaches coexist, and the Supreme Court has not chosen between them. Read more: The Garage-Door Case That Tethered the DMCA to Infringement: Chamberlain v. Skylink ›
What does it take to be a joint author under Childress v. Taylor?: Each putative author must make an independently copyrightable contribution, and both must intend, at the time of creation, that their contributions merge into a unitary whole as co-authors. Supplying ideas, direction, or research is not enough without that mutual intent to share authorship. Read more: Two Hands, One Author: Childress v. Taylor and the Intent Test for Joint Authorship ›
Why did Clarice Taylor lose her co-authorship claim?: The court found no shared intent to be co-authors. Taylor conceived the play about Moms Mabley and supplied research and ideas, but Alice Childress wrote the script and never regarded Taylor as a co-author. Absent that mutual intent, Taylor's contributions did not make her a joint author. Read more: Two Hands, One Author: Childress v. Taylor and the Intent Test for Joint Authorship ›
Does the intent test mean ideas and research never count?: Contributions of ideas and research can be valuable and may support other claims, but under Childress they do not by themselves confer joint authorship. Copyright protects expression, and joint authorship additionally requires that both parties intended to be co-authors of the unified work. Read more: Two Hands, One Author: Childress v. Taylor and the Intent Test for Joint Authorship ›
Did Altai escape liability entirely?: No. The court affirmed that OSCAR 3.4, which contained roughly thirty percent literally copied ADAPTER code, infringed. Only the clean-room rewrite, OSCAR 3.5, was held non-infringing. Read more: Filtering the Code: How Computer Associates v. Altai Brought the Idea-Expression Line to Software ›
What is abstraction-filtration-comparison?: It is a three-step test for nonliteral software infringement: break the program into levels of abstraction; filter out elements dictated by efficiency, by external factors, and by the public domain; then compare only the remaining protectable expression to the accused program. Read more: Filtering the Code: How Computer Associates v. Altai Brought the Idea-Expression Line to Software ›
How does Altai connect to Baker v. Selden and Nichols?: It applies the same idea-expression principle to code. The abstraction step adapts Learned Hand's Nichols ladder; the efficiency filter embodies the merger doctrine traceable to Baker; and the external-factors filter is the software version of scènes à faire. Read more: Filtering the Code: How Computer Associates v. Altai Brought the Idea-Expression Line to Software ›
Did the court decide that training Claude on song lyrics is legal?: No. It denied a preliminary injunction, ruling only that the publishers had not met the demanding standard for emergency relief. The underlying infringement and fair-use questions remain to be litigated. Read more: Concord Music v. Anthropic: Why the Music Publishers Lost Their Bid to Halt AI Training ›
Is this the same as the Anthropic books case?: No. This is a separate suit brought by music publishers over song lyrics. The well-known Anthropic fair-use ruling concerned books and a different record; lyrics present distinct fair-use considerations. Read more: Concord Music v. Anthropic: Why the Music Publishers Lost Their Bid to Halt AI Training ›
What are the "guardrails" the parties agreed to?: Technical measures Anthropic implemented to prevent Claude from reproducing the plaintiffs' copyrighted lyrics in its outputs. Under the January 2025 stipulation, Anthropic agreed to maintain them on current models and apply comparable measures to future ones. Read more: Concord Music v. Anthropic: Why the Music Publishers Lost Their Bid to Halt AI Training ›
Did the Supreme Court eliminate the DMCA repeat-infringer policy requirement?: No. Section 512(i)'s requirement that providers reasonably implement a repeat-infringer termination policy remains intact. The Court changed the consequences of losing the safe harbor: forfeiture returns a defendant to ordinary secondary-liability principles, which now require intent rather than mere knowledge. Read more: After Cox v. Sony: The Supreme Court Rebuilds the Wall Around ISP Safe Harbors ›
What happened to the $1 billion verdict?: It is gone. The Fourth Circuit had already vacated the original award and remanded for a new damages trial; the Supreme Court then reversed the liability finding that supported any damages, because the willfulness finding depended on the now-rejected contributory-infringement theory. Read more: After Cox v. Sony: The Supreme Court Rebuilds the Wall Around ISP Safe Harbors ›
Did Disney copy The Moodsters?: The court never decided that. It dismissed the case because the Moodsters were not protectable characters and the contract claim was inadequately pleaded, so the question of copying was never reached. Read more: Lightly Sketched: Why The Moodsters Lost to Inside Out in Daniels v. Disney ›
Why are personified emotions not automatically protectable?: Because the general idea of emotions as characters is unprotectable. Copyright reaches only a specific, sufficiently delineated, distinctive expression of that idea—something the Moodsters' shifting versions did not achieve. Read more: Lightly Sketched: Why The Moodsters Lost to Inside Out in Daniels v. Disney ›
What is an implied-in-fact contract claim in Hollywood?: Under Desny v. Wilder, a creator who submits an idea expecting payment if it is used may sue for breach of an implied contract. It protects the bargain, not the idea, and so survives copyright preemption—but it must be specifically pleaded. Read more: Lightly Sketched: Why The Moodsters Lost to Inside Out in Daniels v. Disney ›
Can a car really be copyrighted?: Not as a useful article in the ordinary sense, but the Batmobile was protected as a character—a recurring, distinctive, sufficiently delineated element of the Batman works. The protection runs to the character, not to functional automotive features. Read more: To the Batmobile: How DC Comics v. Towle Made a Car a Copyrightable Character ›
Does the same test apply to human characters in film and TV?: Yes. The three-part test applies to characters generally. A live-action or animated character that has consistent traits and is especially distinctive can qualify; a thinly drawn stock figure cannot. Read more: To the Batmobile: How DC Comics v. Towle Made a Car a Copyrightable Character ›
Why didn't DC lose the rights by licensing the TV and film versions?: Because licensees who create derivative works obtain rights only in their own new additions. The underlying character DC created remained DC's, and that ownership extended to the licensed incarnations that were recognizably the same character. Read more: To the Batmobile: How DC Comics v. Towle Made a Car a Copyrightable Character ›
Has any court ruled that Midjourney infringed Disney's copyrights?: No. The case was filed in June 2025 and is in discovery. The studios' complaint sets out allegations of direct and secondary infringement, but no court has decided the merits or ruled on a fair-use defense. This matter remains unsettled. Read more: Hollywood Sues the Image Machine: Disney and Universal v. Midjourney ›
Why does this case focus on outputs rather than just training?: Unlike many earlier AI suits centered on what happened during training, the studios emphasize that Midjourney's service generates images that closely depict their copyrighted characters on demand. That output-side theory aims to sidestep disputes about what a model internally contains. Read more: Hollywood Sues the Image Machine: Disney and Universal v. Midjourney ›
What does it mean that the Disney and Warner Bros. cases were consolidated?: In November 2025 the court combined the Disney and a later Warner Bros. suit against Midjourney into a single proceeding, with the Disney case as the lead. Consolidation streamlines discovery and pretrial rulings, but each studio's claims remain to be proven. Read more: Hollywood Sues the Image Machine: Disney and Universal v. Midjourney ›
Was the Star Trek mashup ever published?: No. Dr. Seuss Enterprises sued before publication, and after the Ninth Circuit's ruling the Supreme Court denied certiorari, leaving the infringement finding in place. The work was not lawfully released. Read more: Not a Place You'll Go: Dr. Seuss v. ComicMix and the Limits of the Mashup ›
Why did the trademark claim fail even though the copyright claim succeeded?: Under Rogers v. Grimaldi, the use of Seuss's title style and typeface had artistic relevance to the mashup and was not explicitly misleading about its source, so the Lanham Act did not apply. Trademark and copyright analyses are distinct. Read more: Not a Place You'll Go: Dr. Seuss v. ComicMix and the Limits of the Mashup ›
How is this different from Campbell v. Acuff-Rose?: In Campbell, 2 Live Crew's song commented on and parodied the original "Oh, Pretty Woman," earning parody's latitude. Boldly did not comment on Oh, the Places You'll Go!; it used Seuss's expression to tell an unrelated Star Trek story, so the parody justification was unavailable. Read more: Not a Place You'll Go: Dr. Seuss v. ComicMix and the Limits of the Mashup ›
Can a stock photo agency sue infringers on a photographer's behalf?: Only if it holds an exclusive right under the copyright or is a beneficial owner of one. A nonexclusive licensing agent cannot sue, and it cannot fix that by taking an assignment of the right to sue while the photographer keeps the copyright. Read more: Who Gets to Sue: DRK Photo v. McGraw-Hill and the Limits of Assigning a Copyright Claim ›
What is the difference between an exclusive and a nonexclusive license?: An exclusive license transfers ownership of one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights and makes the holder a co-owner who can sue. A nonexclusive license is mere permission to use the work and confers no ownership and no standing to sue under Section 501(b). Read more: Who Gets to Sue: DRK Photo v. McGraw-Hill and the Limits of Assigning a Copyright Claim ›
Why couldn't DRK just buy the right to sue?: Because Section 501(b) ties standing to ownership of an exclusive right. The court read the Copyright Act, following Silvers v. Sony, to bar assignment of a bare accrued claim divorced from any ownership interest, so DRK's paperwork transferred only a right to sue, which is not enough. Read more: Who Gets to Sue: DRK Photo v. McGraw-Hill and the Limits of Assigning a Copyright Claim ›
If Spotify infringed, why did Eight Mile Style lose?: Because the court applied equitable estoppel. The publisher knew Spotify was streaming its compositions for years, allowed an apparent licensing arrangement to continue, and — in the court's view — delayed suing to maximize damages. Spotify reasonably relied on that conduct, so the claim was barred despite the underlying infringement. Read more: Infringement Without a Remedy: Eight Mile Style v. Spotify and the Estoppel Trap ›
What role did the Harry Fox Agency and Kobalt play?: Kobalt had registered the compositions with the Harry Fox Agency in its own name in 2009, even though administration rights belonged to Bridgeport Music. No one corrected the error, so when Spotify licensed through Kobalt it believed in good faith that the Eminem works were covered — confusion central to the court's reliance finding. Read more: Infringement Without a Remedy: Eight Mile Style v. Spotify and the Estoppel Trap ›
Did the case decide whether the Music Modernization Act's liability limit is constitutional?: No. The court declined to reach the constitutional challenge, leaving that question "for a future case involving an appropriate plaintiff." The MMA's limitation-of-liability provision remains in force and untested on the merits in this litigation. Read more: Infringement Without a Remedy: Eight Mile Style v. Spotify and the Estoppel Trap ›
What did Eldred v. Ashcroft decide?: The Supreme Court upheld the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which added 20 years to the term of both existing and future copyrights. The Court held that extending subsisting copyrights is within Congress's power under the Copyright Clause's 'limited Times' language and does not violate the First Amendment. Read more: Eldred v. Ashcroft: The Supreme Court Upholds the 20-Year Copyright Extension ›
Why didn't the extension violate the 'limited Times' clause?: The Court reasoned that a term of life plus 70 years (or 95 years for corporate works) is still a fixed, finite period, not a perpetual one. Congress has historically extended existing terms since 1790, and the Court deferred to that long practice, holding that 'limited' constrains the duration but does not forbid Congress from enlarging a term evenhandedly for existing and future works alike. Read more: Eldred v. Ashcroft: The Supreme Court Upholds the 20-Year Copyright Extension ›
How does the First Amendment interact with copyright?: The Court held that copyright and free speech are generally compatible because copyright's own built-in safeguards — the idea/expression distinction and the fair use doctrine — accommodate free expression. Because the CTEA left those safeguards intact and did not alter the traditional contours of copyright protection, it required no separate heightened First Amendment scrutiny. Read more: Eldred v. Ashcroft: The Supreme Court Upholds the 20-Year Copyright Extension ›
Did Feist make all telephone directories uncopyrightable?: No. It held that Rural's white pages — an undifferentiated, alphabetized list of every subscriber — lacked creativity. Directories that reflect genuine editorial selection or a creative arrangement can still qualify, though protection extends only to those original elements, not to the underlying listings. Read more: Originality Over Effort: Feist v. Rural and the Constitutional Floor for Copyright ›
What is the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, and is it dead?: It was the rule that hard work in collecting facts earned copyright against copiers. Feist squarely rejected it as inconsistent with the Copyright Clause and the 1976 Act. Effort alone cannot make facts copyrightable. Read more: Originality Over Effort: Feist v. Rural and the Constitutional Floor for Copyright ›
How much creativity is "enough" after Feist?: Very little. The Court stressed that "even a slight amount will suffice," and "the vast majority of works make the grade quite easily." The standard screens out only the wholly mechanical or inevitable — like alphabetizing names — not modest creative choices. Read more: Originality Over Effort: Feist v. Rural and the Constitutional Floor for Copyright ›
Did Feltner win the case outright?: No. The Supreme Court reversed the \$8.8 million award and remanded for a jury trial on statutory damages. The ruling concerned the process for setting damages, not whether infringement occurred. Read more: Feltner v. Columbia Pictures: The Jury's Role in Setting Statutory Damages ›
Does the jury decide only liability or also the dollar amount?: Both. The Court held the Seventh Amendment right extends to the amount of statutory damages, not just the existence of infringement. Read more: Feltner v. Columbia Pictures: The Jury's Role in Setting Statutory Damages ›
Is the jury right automatic?: It must be invoked. The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right when a party demands a jury; a party that does not properly demand one may be tried to the bench. Read more: Feltner v. Columbia Pictures: The Jury's Role in Setting Statutory Damages ›
Does Fogerty mean a winning copyright defendant automatically gets attorney's fees?: No. The Court rejected both the old pro-plaintiff dual standard and the automatic British Rule. Fees under Section 505 are discretionary for any prevailing party, guided by nonexclusive factors like frivolousness, motivation, objective unreasonableness, and deterrence. Read more: Win Like a Plaintiff, Lose Like One Too: Fogerty v. Fantasy and the Evenhanded Fee Rule ›
Why did John Fogerty get sued over his own musical style?: Fantasy owned the copyright to his Creedence Clearwater Revival song 'Run Through the Jungle' and claimed his later solo song 'The Old Man Down the Road' was the same composition with new words. A jury found no infringement, so Fogerty was the prevailing defendant seeking fees. Read more: Win Like a Plaintiff, Lose Like One Too: Fogerty v. Fantasy and the Evenhanded Fee Rule ›
What factors do courts weigh when deciding Section 505 fees after Fogerty?: Courts consider nonexclusive factors such as frivolousness, the loser's motivation, objective unreasonableness in fact and law, and the need to advance compensation and deterrence — applied evenhandedly to plaintiffs and defendants, as later confirmed in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley (2016). Read more: Win Like a Plaintiff, Lose Like One Too: Fogerty v. Fantasy and the Evenhanded Fee Rule ›
Can I sue for copyright infringement the moment I file my application?: No. After Fourth Estate, the general rule is that you must wait until the Copyright Office acts on the application — by registering the claim or refusing it. Filing alone does not satisfy § 411(a)'s precondition for a U.S. work. Read more: No Certificate, No Courthouse: Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com and the Registration Precondition to Suit ›
Do I lose damages for infringement that happened while my application was pending?: No. Once registration is made, you may recover for infringement that occurred both before and after the registration date. The decision affects when you can sue, not the period of conduct you can recover for. Read more: No Certificate, No Courthouse: Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com and the Registration Precondition to Suit ›
What if the Copyright Office refuses my application?: Section 411(a) lets you sue anyway, provided you serve notice on the Register, who may choose to address the question whether the work is copyrightable. The refusal clause was central to the Court's reasoning that registration means Office action. Read more: No Certificate, No Courthouse: Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com and the Registration Precondition to Suit ›
How can someone be a co-author of a character they didn't draw?: Joint authorship requires each contributor to add expression and to intend that their contributions merge into a unitary work. Gaiman supplied the character's name, personality, and dialogue while McFarlane drew the figure; the court held those combined contributions made Gaiman a joint owner even though he never put pen to the artwork. Read more: Words, Pictures, and Joint Ownership: Gaiman v. McFarlane and the Co-Authored Comic Character ›
Are comic-book characters protectable by copyright at all?: Yes. The court reaffirmed that sufficiently delineated graphic and literary characters are copyrightable. A comic-book character, expressed through both a distinctive visual depiction and described traits and dialogue, is more readily protected than a purely verbal character. Read more: Words, Pictures, and Joint Ownership: Gaiman v. McFarlane and the Co-Authored Comic Character ›
Did the lawsuit run into a statute-of-limitations problem?: McFarlane argued the claim was time-barred, but the court rejected that defense. It held that the limitations clock did not start until McFarlane clearly repudiated Gaiman's co-ownership, and Gaiman sued within the limitations period after that repudiation. Read more: Words, Pictures, and Joint Ownership: Gaiman v. McFarlane and the Co-Authored Comic Character ›
Did the court say actors can never have any rights in their performances?: No. It held that an actor does not automatically own a separate copyright in a performance embedded in someone else's film. Performers can still acquire rights by contract and may have remedies under right-of-publicity, fraud, and related doctrines. Read more: A Performance Is Not a Work: Garcia v. Google and the Author Behind the Camera ›
Why did the First Amendment matter in a copyright case?: Because Garcia sought a court order removing a video about a matter of public concern from the internet. Such orders are prior restraints, which the Constitution disfavors. A weak copyright claim could not overcome that heavy presumption. Read more: A Performance Is Not a Work: Garcia v. Google and the Author Behind the Camera ›
What should Garcia have done instead?: The majority suggested her injuries fit other legal theories — fraud (she was deceived about the film's nature), right of publicity, and emotional-distress claims — rather than copyright, which does not exist to remedy the misuse of a performer's likeness. Read more: A Performance Is Not a Work: Garcia v. Google and the Author Behind the Camera ›
Are the statutes themselves copyrightable?: No, and that was never in dispute. Statutory text has always been uncopyrightable. Georgia extended the same treatment to the annotations in the official code because they were authored by a legislative body acting in its legislative capacity. Read more: The Law Belongs to Everyone: Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org and the Government Edicts Doctrine ›
Does this mean all government works lack copyright?: No. The decision concerns works authored by legislators or judges in their official duties. It does not address all government works, and federal works are governed separately by 17 U.S.C. § 105. Privately authored materials remain copyrightable even if they comment on the law. Read more: The Law Belongs to Everyone: Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org and the Government Edicts Doctrine ›
Why did it matter that a private contractor wrote the annotations?: It didn't change the outcome. Under the work-for-hire arrangement, the Code Revision Commission was the legal "author." Because the Commission is a legislative body, its authorship triggered the edicts doctrine regardless of who physically drafted the text. Read more: The Law Belongs to Everyone: Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org and the Government Edicts Doctrine ›
Did Golan v. Holder restore copyright to all foreign works?: No. Section 104A restored protection only to works that still enjoyed copyright in their source country and had fallen into the U.S. public domain for specific non-term reasons — lack of copyright relations, failure to satisfy U.S. formalities, or prior statutory exclusion of the medium. Works whose home-country term had expired stayed in the public domain. Read more: Golan v. Holder: When Congress Pulled Foreign Works Back Out of the Public Domain ›
Can Congress now take any work out of the public domain?: The Court did not endorse unlimited power, but its reasoning was not confined to the treaty setting. Golan holds that the Copyright Clause's "limited Times" language governs the length of a term, not the permanence of the public domain, leaving the outer boundary of congressional power undefined. Read more: Golan v. Holder: When Congress Pulled Foreign Works Back Out of the Public Domain ›
What happened to people who were already using the restored works?: Congress provided transitional protection for "reliance parties." They received notice and a grace period to wind down or, in the case of derivative works already created, the ability to continue exploiting them upon paying the restored owner reasonable compensation. Read more: Golan v. Holder: When Congress Pulled Foreign Works Back Out of the Public Domain ›
Did the Supreme Court decide whether software APIs can be copyrighted?: No. The Court assumed for argument's sake that the declaring code was copyrightable and decided the case on fair use, expressly declining to resolve the copyrightability question. Read more: Reusing the Interface: Google v. Oracle and Fair Use for Software APIs ›
How much code did Google copy?: Google copied roughly 11,500 lines of declaring code from the Java SE API, the lines that let programmers invoke prewritten functions by name. The Court emphasized this was a small fraction of the entire API, which runs to millions of lines. Read more: Reusing the Interface: Google v. Oracle and Fair Use for Software APIs ›
What made Google's use transformative?: The Court found Google reused the declarations to build a new and different platform, the Android smartphone environment, letting programmers apply their existing Java know-how in a new context. That further purpose, plus the limited copying, made the use transformative and fair. Read more: Reusing the Interface: Google v. Oracle and Fair Use for Software APIs ›
What did Gray v. Hudson decide about Katy Perry's Dark Horse?: The Ninth Circuit held that the eight-note ostinato shared by 'Dark Horse' and the plaintiffs' 'Joyful Noise' consisted of commonplace, unoriginal musical building blocks. Because those elements and their combination were not protectable, there was no copyright infringement, and the jury verdict was properly vacated. Read more: Building Blocks, Not Theft: Gray v. Hudson and Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse' Ostinato ›
How much money was the original jury award, and what happened to it?: A 2019 jury awarded the plaintiffs about $2.8 million. The district court then granted judgment as a matter of law for the defendants, vacating the award, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed that vacatur in 2022. Read more: Building Blocks, Not Theft: Gray v. Hudson and Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse' Ostinato ›
What does this case mean for music copyright lawsuits?: It reinforces that copyright does not protect common or trite musical building blocks like basic scales, simple pitch sequences, or conventional rhythms, even at the low bar for originality. Plaintiffs must show genuinely original expression or an original selection and arrangement of elements. Read more: Building Blocks, Not Theft: Gray v. Hudson and Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse' Ostinato ›
Did the court strike down any part of the DMCA?: No. The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the facial First Amendment challenge, leaving § 1201's anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions fully intact. Read more: Conduct, Not Speech: The D.C. Circuit Upholds DMCA § 1201 in Green v. DOJ ›
Why didn't the fair-use argument win?: The court treated circumvention as conduct rather than speech, so the statute was measured against the standard for laws that incidentally burden expression. It concluded that § 1201's legitimate applications vastly outweigh any potentially problematic ones, defeating the facial overbreadth claim, and that alternative channels remain available for those seeking to make fair uses. Read more: Conduct, Not Speech: The D.C. Circuit Upholds DMCA § 1201 in Green v. DOJ ›
What is the triennial exemption process, and did it survive?: Every three years the Librarian of Congress, advised by the Register of Copyrights, may grant temporary exemptions allowing circumvention for specified purposes such as security research, education, or repair. The court held this process is not an unconstitutional licensing scheme or prior restraint because it regulates conduct and lacks a direct nexus to speech. Read more: Conduct, Not Speech: The D.C. Circuit Upholds DMCA § 1201 in Green v. DOJ ›
What is controlled digital lending?: A model in which a library scans a print book it owns and lends the digital copy, purporting to keep the number of digital loans tied to the number of physical copies it holds. The Second Circuit held the practice is not fair use. Read more: Hachette v. Internet Archive: The End of 'Controlled Digital Lending' as a Fair-Use Theory ›
Did the one-to-one ratio save the Internet Archive?: No. The court found the use non-transformative and market-harming regardless of the lending ratio; the "National Emergency Library," which abandoned the ratio entirely, only sharpened the point. Read more: Hachette v. Internet Archive: The End of 'Controlled Digital Lending' as a Fair-Use Theory ›
Is the ruling final?: Yes. The Internet Archive announced in December 2024 that it would not petition the Supreme Court, so the Second Circuit's decision and injunction stand. Read more: Hachette v. Internet Archive: The End of 'Controlled Digital Lending' as a Fair-Use Theory ›
Why did The Nation lose despite quoting only about 300 words?: The Court held that the quoted material was qualitatively "the heart of the book" and that copying an unpublished work to scoop its first publication caused direct market harm, defeating fair use even though the amount taken was small. Read more: Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises: Unpublished Works and the Limits of Fair Use ›
What did Harper & Row say about the market-effect factor?: The Court called the fourth statutory factor — the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — "undoubtedly the single most important element of fair use," a characterization later qualified but never overruled. Read more: Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises: Unpublished Works and the Limits of Fair Use ›
Does the First Amendment create a public-interest exception to copyright?: No. The Court rejected the argument that the public interest in the Nixon pardon justified the copying, explaining that copyright's idea/expression distinction and fair-use doctrine already accommodate free-speech concerns without a separate public-figure exception. Read more: Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises: Unpublished Works and the Limits of Fair Use ›
Does termination give the author back everything, including sequels and merchandise?: Not necessarily. Termination recaptures the granted U.S. rights in the original work, but the statutory derivative-works exception lets authorized pre-termination derivatives continue under the old terms, and separately authored characters may belong to others. Horror Inc. expressly declined to decide character ownership. Read more: When the Author Comes Back: Horror Inc. v. Miller and the Limits of Work-for-Hire ›
Why did a signed 1979 agreement not defeat the termination?: Section 203 applies "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary," so a contractual waiver cannot bar termination. The only way to defeat it was to show the work was made for hire — which would mean there was no author grant to terminate at all. Read more: When the Author Comes Back: Horror Inc. v. Miller and the Limits of Work-for-Hire ›
Could a different writer in Miller's position lose on the same facts?: Yes. The Reid test is fact-intensive. A writer who received employee benefits, was carried on payroll with taxes withheld, worked on-site under close supervision, and was routinely assigned new projects could be found an employee — defeating any § 203 claim. Read more: When the Author Comes Back: Horror Inc. v. Miller and the Limits of Work-for-Hire ›
What is the "server test"?: It is the rule, originating in Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com (9th Cir. 2007), that a website directly infringes the public display right only if it stores a fixed copy of the image on a server it controls. A site that merely embeds — directing a browser to fetch the image from someone else's server — has not "shown a copy" and so has not displayed the work. Read more: The Server Test Survives: Hunley v. Instagram and the Public Display Right for Embedded Images ›
Did Hunley change the law?: No. It reaffirmed binding Ninth Circuit precedent. The panel held it could not overrule Perfect 10 and that Aereo did not require a different result. The significance lies in confirming the test's vitality and clarifying that it is not limited to search engines. Read more: The Server Test Survives: Hunley v. Instagram and the Public Display Right for Embedded Images ›
Is embedding now safe everywhere in the United States?: No. Hunley binds the Ninth Circuit, but courts in the Second Circuit, following Goldman v. Breitbart, have rejected the server test. The same embed may be treated differently depending on the forum until the conflict is resolved by a higher court. Read more: The Server Test Survives: Hunley v. Instagram and the Public Display Right for Embedded Images ›
Does this ruling mean OpenAI violated the DMCA?: No. A denial of a motion to dismiss only means the § 1202(b)(1) claim is plausible enough to proceed. The Intercept still must prove intentional CMI removal and the double-scienter knowledge element on a full evidentiary record. Read more: Stripping the Byline: The § 1202(b) Ruling in The Intercept Media v. OpenAI and the SDNY CMI Split ›
What is the difference between this case and Raw Story?: Both alleged OpenAI stripped CMI from news articles used to train ChatGPT. Judge McMahon dismissed Raw Story for lack of Article III standing absent dissemination of stripped copies; Judge Rakoff found The Intercept had standing and a viable § 1202(b)(1) claim, in part because it pointed to verbatim regurgitation. The two decisions conflict. Read more: Stripping the Byline: The § 1202(b) Ruling in The Intercept Media v. OpenAI and the SDNY CMI Split ›
Is this a § 1201 anti-circumvention case?: No. It is a § 1202 copyright-management-information case about removing author, title, and copyright notices. Section 1201, which bars bypassing technological protection measures, is not at issue. Read more: Stripping the Byline: The § 1202(b) Ruling in The Intercept Media v. OpenAI and the SDNY CMI Split ›
What is the central holding of Itar-Tass v. Russian Kurier?: The Second Circuit held that copyright ownership is governed by the law of the country with the most significant relationship to the work — typically its country of origin — while the question of infringement is governed by the law of the place where the allegedly infringing acts occurred, which here was the United States. Read more: Itar-Tass v. Russian Kurier: Splitting Ownership and Infringement Across Borders ›
Why didn't the Berne Convention decide the case?: Berne's national-treatment principle tells a court to apply the protecting country's substantive law to the scope of protection, but it does not specify which country's law decides who owns a work. The court filled that gap with U.S. federal common law and the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws. Read more: Itar-Tass v. Russian Kurier: Splitting Ownership and Infringement Across Borders ›
Why did some newspaper plaintiffs lose ground on appeal?: Under Russian copyright law as the court construed it, newspapers held a compilation copyright in the publication as a whole but not the copyright in the text of individual articles, which belonged to the journalists absent assignment. The district court had wrongly assumed the newspapers owned those article rights, requiring reversal and remand. Read more: Itar-Tass v. Russian Kurier: Splitting Ownership and Infringement Across Borders ›
What is the difference between a license condition and a covenant?: A condition limits the scope of the copyright permission itself, so using the work outside those limits is infringement. A covenant is merely a contractual promise; breaching it gives rise only to a breach-of-contract claim, not copyright remedies like statutory damages or an injunction. Read more: Open Source Gets Teeth: Jacobsen v. Katzer and the Power of License Conditions ›
Why does Jacobsen v. Katzer matter for open-source software?: It confirmed that open-source license terms such as attribution and notice requirements can be enforceable copyright conditions. That gives developers who release code for free access to copyright remedies — including injunctions — when downstream users ignore the license terms. Read more: Open Source Gets Teeth: Jacobsen v. Katzer and the Power of License Conditions ›
Did the Federal Circuit decide that Katzer infringed?: No. It held the Artistic License terms were conditions whose violation could constitute copyright infringement and vacated the denial of a preliminary injunction, sending the case back to the district court to apply the proper standard. The parties later settled. Read more: Open Source Gets Teeth: Jacobsen v. Katzer and the Power of License Conditions ›
What is a mechanical royalty, and why does the CRB set it?: A mechanical royalty pays the songwriter and publisher for reproducing and distributing a musical composition — distinct from the public-performance and sound-recording rights. Because Section 115 makes that license compulsory, the rate is fixed by the Copyright Royalty Board rather than negotiated, so the precise formula the Board adopts governs what every interactive streaming service must pay. Read more: The 44% Raise the D.C. Circuit Sent Back: Johnson v. Copyright Royalty Board ›
Did the D.C. Circuit cut songwriters' royalties?: No. The court vacated and remanded the determination for procedural and explanatory failures under the Administrative Procedure Act; it did not rule that the rate was too high. On remand, the Board re-adopted the same 15.1% headline rate and uncapped structure with a fuller record. Read more: The 44% Raise the D.C. Circuit Sent Back: Johnson v. Copyright Royalty Board ›
What was the "total content cost" cap that the Board removed?: The TCC prong ties part of the royalty calculation to what a service pays for sound-recording rights. Earlier rules capped how high that prong could push the total; Phonorecords III removed that cap, a change the court found the services had not received adequate notice to contest in combination with the higher headline rate. Read more: The 44% Raise the D.C. Circuit Sent Back: Johnson v. Copyright Royalty Board ›
Did this case dismiss the authors' lawsuit?: No. It was a partial summary judgment limited to the training/fair-use and DMCA issues; other claims survive. Describing it as a dismissal of the lawsuit is imprecise. Read more: Kadrey v. Meta: A Fair-Use Win That Reads Like a Plaintiffs' Brief ›
What is the "market dilution" theory?: The argument that AI output trained on an author's work can saturate the market and depress demand for human-authored works, causing market harm under the fourth fair-use factor even without direct copying. The court called it promising but did not decide on it. Read more: Kadrey v. Meta: A Fair-Use Win That Reads Like a Plaintiffs' Brief ›
Does Kadrey mean training on copyrighted books is legal?: No. The court expressly said it held only that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to build the right record. Read more: Kadrey v. Meta: A Fair-Use Win That Reads Like a Plaintiffs' Brief ›
Did Kirtsaeng get his attorneys' fees?: Not as a result of this decision. The Supreme Court vacated the denial and sent the case back to the district court to reconsider under the clarified standard; the Court did not itself order an award. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: How 'Objective Reasonableness' Anchors Copyright Fee-Shifting ›
Does a reasonable losing position guarantee no fee award?: No. Reasonableness gets substantial weight, but a court may still award fees based on other circumstances — for example, litigation misconduct or a need to deter a pattern of overreaching claims. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: How 'Objective Reasonableness' Anchors Copyright Fee-Shifting ›
How does this relate to the earlier Kirtsaeng decision?: The 2013 decision resolved the merits, holding that the first-sale doctrine applies to copies lawfully made abroad. The 2016 decision concerns only the fee dispute that followed his merits victory. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: How 'Objective Reasonableness' Anchors Copyright Fee-Shifting ›
What did Kirtsaeng actually decide?: That the first-sale doctrine in § 109(a) applies to copies lawfully manufactured outside the United States. Once the copyright owner authorizes the making and first sale of a copy, it cannot use the distribution right to block that copy's later importation or resale. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: First Sale Goes Global and the Gray Market Comes Home ›
Does this mean any imported copy is fair game?: No. First sale protects copies that were lawfully made — that is, made with the copyright owner's authorization or otherwise in compliance with the Act. Pirated or otherwise unauthorized copies are not covered. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: First Sale Goes Global and the Gray Market Comes Home ›
Can companies still enforce different prices in different countries?: Not through copyright's distribution right. Many rights holders turned instead to licensing arrangements and contractual restrictions, which raise separate questions about whether the recipient is an "owner" able to invoke first sale. Read more: Kirtsaeng v. Wiley: First Sale Goes Global and the Gray Market Comes Home ›
Is Sherlock Holmes in the public domain now?: As of Klinger, the characters as drawn in the fifty public-domain works were free to use. The few stories that remained under copyright in 2014 have since entered the public domain in the United States, but the case's element-by-element method remains the controlling analysis for any character in this posture. Read more: Elementary, After All: Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate and the Public-Domain Character ›
Can an author copyright a character all over again by adding new traits later?: No. New original material in a later work earns copyright only in that new material. It does not revive or extend protection over the earlier, already-public elements of the character. Read more: Elementary, After All: Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate and the Public-Domain Character ›
Why does this matter for film and television?: Producers reviving classic characters must trace each trait they use to its source work. Klinger makes clear that "famous" does not mean "owned," and that careful chain-of-title mapping—not assumptions—governs what is free. Read more: Elementary, After All: Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate and the Public-Domain Character ›
What does Lenz require copyright owners to do?: Form a subjective, good-faith belief about whether a use is a fair use before sending a DMCA takedown notice. They need not perform a full legal analysis, but they cannot ignore fair use entirely. Read more: The Dancing Baby's Rule: Lenz v. Universal and the § 512(f) Duty to Consider Fair Use ›
Why is it so hard to win a § 512(f) case?: Because the standard is subjective. A sender is liable only if it did not genuinely believe the material was infringing. An honest but mistaken — even unreasonable — belief is not enough for liability. Read more: The Dancing Baby's Rule: Lenz v. Universal and the § 512(f) Duty to Consider Fair Use ›
Did Stephanie Lenz win damages?: The Ninth Circuit confirmed she could pursue her § 512(f) claim and recover at least nominal damages without proving monetary loss. The case settled in 2018 before a final damages determination at trial. Read more: The Dancing Baby's Rule: Lenz v. Universal and the § 512(f) Duty to Consider Fair Use ›
Did 2 Live Crew lose because their music was a work made for hire?: No. The jury found the recordings were not works made for hire, and the Eleventh Circuit assumed as much. The group lost because one member's termination interest had passed into his bankruptcy estate, leaving too few authors to meet the statutory majority. Read more: Four Authors, One Vote Short: The Eleventh Circuit, 2 Live Crew, and the Fragility of the Termination Right ›
Why did a single member's status matter so much?: The grant was made by four joint authors, and § 203(a)(1) requires a majority — here, three of four — to terminate. With Ross unable to act, only two valid signatures remained, one short of a majority. Read more: Four Authors, One Vote Short: The Eleventh Circuit, 2 Live Crew, and the Fragility of the Termination Right ›
Is the catalog permanently back with Lil' Joe Records?: Not necessarily. The court reversed and remanded but expressly declined to decide whether Ross's heirs can still exercise the interest after addressing the bankruptcy issue, leaving the door open to further litigation. Read more: Four Authors, One Vote Short: The Eleventh Circuit, 2 Live Crew, and the Fragility of the Termination Right ›
What exactly did Borland copy?: Borland copied the Lotus 1-2-3 menu command hierarchy — the words and structure of the command menus — so that its Quattro products could emulate the 1-2-3 interface. It did not copy Lotus's underlying source or object code. Read more: A Menu Is a Method: How Lotus v. Borland Put Command Hierarchies Beyond Copyright ›
Did the Supreme Court agree the menu hierarchy is uncopyrightable?: The Supreme Court did not say. It affirmed by a 4-4 split without an opinion, which left the First Circuit's ruling in place between the parties but created no national precedent and adopted no reasoning. Read more: A Menu Is a Method: How Lotus v. Borland Put Command Hierarchies Beyond Copyright ›
Is a program's command structure copyrightable today?: It depends on the jurisdiction and the specific interface. Within the First Circuit, Lotus's "method of operation" analysis controls; elsewhere, courts may apply different frameworks, and later decisions on interfaces and APIs complicate any simple answer. Read more: A Menu Is a Method: How Lotus v. Borland Put Command Hierarchies Beyond Copyright ›
What did MAI Systems v. Peak decide about RAM?: The Ninth Circuit held that loading a copyrighted program from a hard drive into a computer's random-access memory (RAM) creates a 'copy' that is sufficiently fixed to be actionable under the Copyright Act, because the representation in RAM can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated while the machine is running. Read more: MAI Systems v. Peak: When Loading Software Into RAM Became a Copy ›
Why couldn't Peak rely on the Section 117 defense?: Section 117 lets the 'owner' of a copy of a program make copies essential to using it. The court found MAI's customers were licensees, not owners, and that their licenses did not authorize a third-party maintenance company like Peak to load the software, so the defense was unavailable to Peak. Read more: MAI Systems v. Peak: When Loading Software Into RAM Became a Copy ›
Is MAI v. Peak still good law?: Its core fixation holding has been narrowed. Congress enacted 17 U.S.C. § 117(c) in 1998 to let independent service organizations load software during repair, and the Second Circuit in Cartoon Network v. CSC (2008) questioned MAI's reasoning where a copy exists only momentarily and fails the 'more than transitory duration' requirement. Read more: MAI Systems v. Peak: When Loading Software Into RAM Became a Copy ›
What are the three types of photographic originality in Mannion v. Coors?: Judge Kaplan identified originality in rendition (angle, lighting, exposure, focus, and how the image is made), timing (capturing the right moment), and composition or creation of the subject (posing, arranging, or selecting what is photographed). A photo can be original in one, two, or all three ways. Read more: What Makes a Photograph Original: Mannion v. Coors and the Rendition-Timing-Composition Test ›
Did Coors infringe Mannion's photograph?: The court did not decide that on summary judgment. Judge Kaplan denied both sides' motions, finding substantial similarity was a jury question. The case later went to trial, where a jury found for Mannion and awarded damages before the matter resolved. Read more: What Makes a Photograph Original: Mannion v. Coors and the Rendition-Timing-Composition Test ›
Why is Mannion v. Coors so widely cited?: It gave courts a practical vocabulary for analyzing photographic originality and infringement, replacing vague gestures at the idea-expression line with a structured look at rendition, timing, and composition. Courts nationwide use the framework in photo cases. Read more: What Makes a Photograph Original: Mannion v. Coors and the Rendition-Timing-Composition Test ›
Why couldn't Jack Kirby's children terminate and recapture the characters?: Because the court found the works were made for hire under the 1909 Act, Marvel — not Kirby — was the statutory author. Section 304(c) lets heirs terminate only grants the author made, and there was no author grant to terminate. Read more: Instance, Expense, and the Heirs' Lost Recapture: Marvel Characters v. Kirby ›
What is the "instance and expense" test?: It is the 1909-Act standard for work-for-hire status. A work qualifies if it was created at the hiring party's instance (its inducement and supervision) and expense (its fixed payment and assumption of financial risk). Read more: Instance, Expense, and the Heirs' Lost Recapture: Marvel Characters v. Kirby ›
Does being a freelancer protect an artist's termination rights?: Not necessarily. The court held that freelance status, working from home, and selling to multiple publishers did not defeat work-for-hire status where Marvel induced and supervised the work and paid a flat per-page rate. Read more: Instance, Expense, and the Heirs' Lost Recapture: Marvel Characters v. Kirby ›
What did Mazer v. Stein hold?: The Supreme Court held that statuettes of dancing figures were copyrightable as works of art, and that they did not lose copyright protection because they were mass-produced and used as the bases of electric lamps. A work of art incorporated into a useful article retains its copyright in its artistic features. Read more: Mazer v. Stein: Art Keeps Its Copyright Even as a Lamp Base ›
Does using art in a functional product forfeit its copyright?: No. Mazer established that intended or actual use as an element of a manufactured, utilitarian article does not bar or forfeit copyright in the artistic work itself. The copyright protects the expression embodied in the sculpture; it does not give any exclusive right over the lamp's mechanical or utilitarian function. Read more: Mazer v. Stein: Art Keeps Its Copyright Even as a Lamp Base ›
How does Mazer relate to the modern useful-articles test?: Mazer is the doctrinal ancestor of today's separability analysis. Congress codified its principle in the 1976 Act's definition of 'pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works,' which protects design features of a useful article only if they can be identified separately from, and exist independently of, the article's utilitarian aspects — the test the Supreme Court later refined in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands (2017). Read more: Mazer v. Stein: Art Keeps Its Copyright Even as a Lamp Base ›
Did World of Warcraft players break the law by using Glider?: Not copyright law, in the Ninth Circuit's view. Using the bot violated Blizzard's terms of use, but the court held those terms were covenants rather than conditions tied to an exclusive right, so the players breached a contract rather than infringed a copyright. Read more: Bots, Warden, and the Two Halves of § 1201: MDY Industries v. Blizzard ›
Why was MDY liable under § 1201(a) but not § 1201(b)?: Section 1201(a) protects measures that control access to a work, and Warden gated access to the game's live, server-driven elements. Section 1201(b) protects measures that guard a copyright owner's rights, such as against copying — and Warden did not prevent copying, so the copy-control claim failed. Read more: Bots, Warden, and the Two Halves of § 1201: MDY Industries v. Blizzard ›
How does MDY differ from Chamberlain v. Skylink?: Chamberlain (Federal Circuit) requires a § 1201(a)(2) plaintiff to prove a nexus between circumvention and infringement. MDY (Ninth Circuit) rejected that requirement, holding that § 1201(a) creates a stand-alone right against circumventing access controls regardless of any infringement. Read more: Bots, Warden, and the Two Halves of § 1201: MDY Industries v. Blizzard ›
What is the Grokster inducement rule?: One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties, regardless of the device's lawful uses. Read more: MGM v. Grokster: The Inducement Rule for Secondary Copyright Liability ›
Did Grokster overrule the Sony Betamax safe harbor?: No. The Court left Sony intact and did not decide whether Grokster's software had substantial noninfringing uses. It held that Sony's safe harbor does not shield a distributor who actively induces infringement, resolving the case on inducement instead. Read more: MGM v. Grokster: The Inducement Rule for Secondary Copyright Liability ›
What evidence showed unlawful intent?: The defendants aimed to capture former Napster users, marketed themselves as an infringing-download alternative, built no filtering to reduce infringement, and profited from advertising that grew with the volume of infringing use. Read more: MGM v. Grokster: The Inducement Rule for Secondary Copyright Liability ›
What is the derivative works exception in copyright termination?: Under Section 304(c)(6)(A), a derivative work prepared under a grant before that grant is terminated may continue to be used under the terms of the grant after termination. Records, films, and other derivatives lawfully made before termination keep running on the old deal. Read more: Who Keeps the Royalties: Mills Music v. Snyder and the Derivative Works Exception to Termination ›
Why did the publisher keep collecting royalties after the heirs terminated the grant?: Because the records were derivative works made under the original grant before termination. The Court held that the exception preserves the whole pre-termination contractual structure, including the publisher's negotiated share of the royalties, not just the record companies' right to keep selling. Read more: Who Keeps the Royalties: Mills Music v. Snyder and the Derivative Works Exception to Termination ›
What is a "mechanical" royalty, and why does Section 115 matter here?: A mechanical royalty compensates the songwriter and publisher for reproducing and distributing a musical composition — distinct from the performance and sound-recording rights. Section 115 makes that license compulsory at a government-set rate, so the precise wording of the rate regulations, not private negotiation, controls what streamers must pay. Read more: When a Bundle Beats the Blanket: The MLC's Section 115 Royalty Fight With Spotify ›
Why does calling Premium a "bundle" reduce what songwriters earn?: Under 37 C.F.R. Part 385, a Bundled Subscription Offering lets a service allocate its single subscription price across the bundle's components. Attributing some revenue to audiobooks shrinks the music-attributable revenue base used to compute the royalty pool, lowering the mechanical payout — by an estimated $150 million-plus per year industry-wide. Read more: When a Bundle Beats the Blanket: The MLC's Section 115 Royalty Fight With Spotify ›
Is the case over after the January 2025 dismissal?: No. The original Section 115 claim was dismissed with prejudice, but the MLC filed an amended complaint on different theories, Spotify has moved to dismiss again, and the MLC is seeking interlocutory appellate review of the original ruling. As of late 2025, no final judgment had been entered. Read more: When a Bundle Beats the Blanket: The MLC's Section 115 Royalty Fight With Spotify ›
What is the merger doctrine?: The merger doctrine holds that when an idea can be expressed in only one or a very small number of ways, the idea and its expression are said to merge, and copyright will not protect that expression. Protecting it would let the copyright owner monopolize the underlying idea, which copyright law forbids. Read more: When Expression Runs Out: Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble and the Merger Doctrine ›
Why couldn't Morrissey copyright the sweepstakes rule?: The contest rule was so simple and constrained that there were only a limited number of ways to state it accurately. The court held that allowing copyright in such narrow material would let a party exhaust all the practical ways of expressing the rule and thereby appropriate the idea itself, so the rule was not protected. Read more: When Expression Runs Out: Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble and the Merger Doctrine ›
Does this mean instructions and rules can never be copyrighted?: No. The doctrine applies only where the subject is so narrow that expression is nearly dictated by the idea. Rules and instructions with room for varied, creative expression can still be protected; merger denies protection only to the expression that is effectively the sole or near-sole way to convey the idea. Read more: When Expression Runs Out: Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble and the Merger Doctrine ›
What is the predicate-act doctrine?: It is the rule that a copyright owner may recover for foreign infringement only if an initial, completed act of copyright infringement occurred in the United States and that domestic infringement enabled or was directly linked to the foreign infringement. Read more: The Predicate-Act Doctrine Meets Mirrored Servers: Motorola Solutions v. Hytera and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
Why did Motorola lose its foreign copyright damages despite winning on trade secrets?: The Copyright Act lacks an express extraterritoriality provision, so Motorola needed a domestic predicate act. Its only theory — that downloads implicated an Illinois "main server" — failed because the code was mirrored abroad and there was no evidence it was actually downloaded from the U.S. server. The DTSA, by contrast, expressly reaches foreign conduct when an act in furtherance occurs in the United States, which Hytera's domestic marketing satisfied. Read more: The Predicate-Act Doctrine Meets Mirrored Servers: Motorola Solutions v. Hytera and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
What practical lesson should companies take from the decision?: Where you store and replicate copyrighted data has legal consequences. Mirroring assets on foreign servers can place foreign copying beyond U.S. copyright law; rights holders should preserve forensic proof of domestic copying while also pleading trade-secret claims, which enjoy broader extraterritorial reach. Read more: The Predicate-Act Doctrine Meets Mirrored Servers: Motorola Solutions v. Hytera and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
Did the court rule that OpenAI infringed The New York Times's copyrights?: No. It denied most of the motion to dismiss, meaning the Times's claims are plausible enough to proceed. Whether infringement occurred, and whether fair use excuses it, remains to be decided. Read more: The New York Times v. OpenAI: Why a Manhattan Judge Let the Output-Infringement Claims Stand ›
Why is this ruling considered different from the California AI cases?: Several California judges dismissed output-based and contributory theories at the pleading stage. Judge Stein allowed the contributory-infringement claim to proceed, creating a divergence that may ultimately require appellate resolution. Read more: The New York Times v. OpenAI: Why a Manhattan Judge Let the Output-Infringement Claims Stand ›
Was fair use decided?: No. Fair use is an affirmative defense unsuited to resolution on a motion to dismiss; it will be litigated on a full factual record at summary judgment or trial. Read more: The New York Times v. OpenAI: Why a Manhattan Judge Let the Output-Infringement Claims Stand ›
What did Tasini decide about freelance articles in databases?: The Supreme Court held that publishers who bought only the right to publish a freelancer's article in a print periodical could not, without further permission, license that article to electronic databases like LEXIS/NEXIS. Doing so infringed the freelancers' copyrights because the databases reproduced the articles standing alone, not as part of the original collective work. Read more: New York Times Co. v. Tasini: Freelancers Keep Their Electronic Rights ›
What is the Section 201(c) privilege?: Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act gives the owner of a collective work (such as a newspaper or magazine) a default privilege to reproduce and distribute each contributor's article "as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series." It is a narrow default that applies only when authors and publishers have not otherwise agreed on rights. Read more: New York Times Co. v. Tasini: Freelancers Keep Their Electronic Rights ›
Did Tasini force databases to delete the articles?: No. The Court expressly noted that remedial questions were for the lower courts and that deletion was not the inevitable outcome. Publishers and databases could negotiate licenses or blanket payments. The litigation ultimately produced a class settlement, and many publishers moved to secure electronic rights in their freelance contracts going forward. Read more: New York Times Co. v. Tasini: Freelancers Keep Their Electronic Rights ›
Did Nichols win or lose?: She lost. The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal, holding that The Cohens and the Kellys took only the unprotectable idea and stock characters of Abie's Irish Rose, not its protectable expression. Read more: A Series of Abstractions: Learned Hand and the Line No One Can Fix in Nichols v. Universal ›
What is the abstractions test?: It is Judge Hand's method of describing a work at successively more general levels and identifying the point at which the description becomes a mere idea. Expression below that point is protectable; everything above it is not. Hand stressed that the exact point cannot be fixed by rule. Read more: A Series of Abstractions: Learned Hand and the Line No One Can Fix in Nichols v. Universal ›
How does Nichols relate to scènes à faire?: Hand's treatment of the feuding fathers as generic types — "no more than Jew and Irishman" — anticipated the doctrine that stock characters and situations inherent in a theme are unprotectable, which later courts formalized as scènes à faire. Read more: A Series of Abstractions: Learned Hand and the Line No One Can Fix in Nichols v. Universal ›
Did Rimini Street "win" the case?: Rimini won the most important issues on this appeal: the derivative-works findings were vacated and the permanent injunction was dissolved. But the litigation is long-running and multi-phase; earlier rulings established that some of Rimini's prior practices infringed, and disputes over Rimini's conduct and Oracle's license terms continue. Read more: Interoperability Is Not Infringement: The Ninth Circuit Rewires Derivative-Works Law in Oracle v. Rimini Street ›
What is the practical test for a software derivative work after this decision?: Look for actual incorporation of the copyrighted program's protected expression — literal code copying or non-literal copying of creative structure. Mere interoperability, compatibility, or designing software to run in another vendor's environment is not enough. Read more: Interoperability Is Not Infringement: The Ninth Circuit Rewires Derivative-Works Law in Oracle v. Rimini Street ›
Why does the case attract attention from the AI world?: Generative-AI defendants often argue their systems interact with or are informed by copyrighted works without reproducing protected expression. The Ninth Circuit's insistence on "something more" than functional connection gives those arguments a useful, recent appellate anchor — though the court did not decide any AI question. Read more: Interoperability Is Not Infringement: The Ninth Circuit Rewires Derivative-Works Law in Oracle v. Rimini Street ›
What is a "partial withdrawal," and why did publishers want one?: A partial withdrawal is an attempt to remove only certain rights — here, digital "new media" performance rights — from ASCAP while keeping the rest in the collective. Major publishers wanted to negotiate digital licenses directly with services like Pandora to command higher fees than the rate court was setting, while still relying on ASCAP for traditional outlets. Read more: All In or Not at All: Pandora v. ASCAP and the Limits of Partial Withdrawal ›
Why couldn't ASCAP simply agree to it?: Because ASCAP operates under the AFJ2 consent decree, which requires it to license its full repertory to any applicant. The Second Circuit read that obligation to mean a work is either in the repertory for everyone or out for everyone — leaving no room for ASCAP to accept rights for some users but not others. Read more: All In or Not at All: Pandora v. ASCAP and the Limits of Partial Withdrawal ›
How does a mechanical royalty differ from the performance right in this case?: A mechanical royalty covers reproducing and distributing a composition (as in downloads and interactive-stream copies). This case concerns the separate public-performance right — the right to perform a work publicly — which ASCAP and BMI license collectively and which the rate courts value under their consent decrees. Read more: All In or Not at All: Pandora v. ASCAP and the Limits of Partial Withdrawal ›
Did Petrella win her case?: The Supreme Court did not decide the merits; it reversed the dismissal on laches grounds and remanded so her timely claims could proceed. The ruling cleared a procedural barrier rather than declaring infringement. Read more: Petrella v. MGM: Why Laches Cannot Shorten the Copyright Damages Window ›
Can delay ever affect a copyright case after Petrella?: Yes, but in a limited way. Delay cannot bar a timely damages claim, yet it may influence the equitable relief a court grants in extraordinary circumstances, and equitable estoppel remains available where the owner's conduct misled the defendant. Read more: Petrella v. MGM: Why Laches Cannot Shorten the Copyright Damages Window ›
How far back can a copyright plaintiff recover damages?: Under the separate-accrual rule discussed in Petrella, a plaintiff may sue for infringing acts within the three years preceding the complaint; older acts fall outside the limitations window. Read more: Petrella v. MGM: Why Laches Cannot Shorten the Copyright Damages Window ›
Did Reed Elsevier eliminate the copyright registration requirement?: No. It held only that the requirement is a precondition to suit rather than a limit on subject-matter jurisdiction. Registration is still required to bring an ordinary infringement claim, as the Court later confirmed in Fourth Estate. Read more: A Precondition, Not a Jurisdictional Bar: Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick Untangles § 411(a) ›
Why did the characterization matter so much here?: If § 411(a) were jurisdictional, the district court would have lacked power to approve a settlement covering unregistered works, and the Second Circuit's sua sponte vacatur would have been mandatory. Treating it as a precondition let the settlement — covering both registered and unregistered claims — survive. Read more: A Precondition, Not a Jurisdictional Bar: Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick Untangles § 411(a) ›
Can a defendant waive the registration defense?: The decision strongly implies yes, because non-jurisdictional preconditions are generally subject to waiver and forfeiture. The Court did not, however, spell out every procedural consequence, leaving some details to the lower courts. Read more: A Precondition, Not a Jurisdictional Bar: Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick Untangles § 411(a) ›
What is the volitional-conduct rule from Netcom?: Direct copyright infringement requires some element of volition or causation by the defendant. A service provider whose equipment automatically and indiscriminately copies material at a user's command has not itself engaged in the volitional act of copying, so it is not directly liable, even though copyright infringement is otherwise a strict-liability tort. Read more: RTC v. Netcom: The Volitional-Conduct Rule That Shaped ISP Liability ›
Was Netcom off the hook entirely?: No. The court granted summary judgment to Netcom on direct and vicarious infringement but denied it on contributory infringement, finding a triable issue over whether Netcom, after receiving notice, knew of the infringement and materially contributed by failing to cancel the postings or the user's access. Read more: RTC v. Netcom: The Volitional-Conduct Rule That Shaped ISP Liability ›
How did Netcom influence the DMCA?: Congress pointed to Netcom as the leading judicial decision on online service-provider liability when it enacted the DMCA's Section 512 safe harbors in 1998, which codified and expanded protections for providers that act as passive conduits or respond to takedown notices. Read more: RTC v. Netcom: The Volitional-Conduct Rule That Shaped ISP Liability ›
Did Nike copy Rentmeester's photograph?: As a factual matter, the court assumed it did — Nike had access to the image, and the resemblance was strong. But factual copying alone is not infringement. The claim failed because Nike did not copy enough of the protected expression to make the works substantially similar. Read more: The Pose Belongs to No One: Rentmeester v. Nike and the Thin Copyright in a Photograph ›
Can you copyright a pose?: No. A pose, however original, is treated as an unprotectable idea. What copyright protects is the way a particular photograph expresses that pose through choices like camera angle, lighting, timing, and composition. Read more: The Pose Belongs to No One: Rentmeester v. Nike and the Thin Copyright in a Photograph ›
Why did the Jumpman logo claim fail too?: The logo is a silhouette taken from Nike's photograph. Since that photograph was not substantially similar to the protected expression in Rentmeester's image, a silhouette derived from it could not infringe either. A bare outline of a pose is idea, not protected expression. Read more: The Pose Belongs to No One: Rentmeester v. Nike and the Thin Copyright in a Photograph ›
Have the courts decided whether training AI on sound recordings is legal?: No. Both cases were filed in June 2024 and remain in litigation. The companies deny infringement and assert fair use, and no court has issued a final merits ruling. A summary-judgment hearing in the Suno case was set for July 2026. The matter is unsettled. Read more: The Record Labels Take On AI Music: UMG and Sony v. Suno and Udio ›
Did some of these cases settle?: Yes, in part. Universal Music Group reached a settlement and licensing arrangement with Udio in October 2025, and Warner Music settled with Suno in November 2025. But Sony Music and other plaintiffs continued to litigate, so live claims against both companies remain. Read more: The Record Labels Take On AI Music: UMG and Sony v. Suno and Udio ›
What exactly do the labels accuse Suno and Udio of copying?: The complaints allege the companies copied vast numbers of the labels' copyrighted sound recordings to train their models, producing outputs that imitate real recordings. Later amended complaints added allegations of stream-ripping from YouTube and related circumvention claims. Read more: The Record Labels Take On AI Music: UMG and Sony v. Suno and Udio ›
Why did Jeff Koons lose the fair use defense?: The Second Circuit rejected Koons's parody argument because a parody must comment, at least in part, on the copied work itself. Koons said he was satirizing society at large, not Art Rogers's photograph, so copying that specific image was not necessary and the use was not a protected parody. Read more: Rogers v. Koons: When Appropriation Art Is Infringement, Not Parody ›
Did it matter that Koons made a sculpture from a photograph?: No. Copyright infringement does not require copying in the same medium. The court found the sculpture substantially similar to the photograph — Koons instructed his artisans to replicate the composition, poses, and expressions faithfully — so changing dimensions and adding color did not avoid liability. Read more: Rogers v. Koons: When Appropriation Art Is Infringement, Not Parody ›
How does Rogers v. Koons compare to Campbell v. Acuff-Rose?: Rogers narrowly defined parody as commentary on the original. Two years later, the Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (1994) embraced transformative-use analysis and a more flexible view of parody, and Koons himself later prevailed on fair use in Blanch v. Koons (2006) under that transformative framework. Read more: Rogers v. Koons: When Appropriation Art Is Infringement, Not Parody ›
Did this ruling give Victor Willis the entire copyright to "Y.M.C.A."?: No. It allowed him to recapture his own undivided author's share through his own separate grant. The interests of any co-authors who did not terminate were unaffected, leaving Willis a co-owner rather than the sole owner. Read more: One Voice Is Enough: Scorpio Music v. Willis and the Joint Author's Solo Termination ›
When can one joint author terminate alone?: When that author separately transferred only his own interest through his own grant. If two or more authors signed a single joint grant, § 203 requires a majority of the authors who executed that grant to terminate it together. Read more: One Voice Is Enough: Scorpio Music v. Willis and the Joint Author's Solo Termination ›
Can a contract override the termination right?: No. Section 203 operates "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary," so a publishing or assignment contract cannot waive or bargain away an author's statutory right to terminate within the five-year window. Read more: One Voice Is Enough: Scorpio Music v. Willis and the Joint Author's Solo Termination ›
Did Kat Von D win the tattoo copyright case?: A jury found in her favor in 2024, and a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed in January 2026. But the full court then granted en banc rehearing in June 2026, which vacated the panel opinion. The case is now being reheard, so there is no final appellate ruling governing it. Read more: Ink on Trial: Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg and the Fight Over Tattoos, Photographs, and the Ninth Circuit's Similarity Test ›
What is the Ninth Circuit's intrinsic test that is under fire?: It is the second half of the circuit's two-part substantial similarity analysis, asking an ordinary observer whether two works share the same total concept and feel. Concurring judges criticized it as vague and possibly inconsistent with copyright's exclusion of ideas, and the en banc court may reconsider it. Read more: Ink on Trial: Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg and the Fight Over Tattoos, Photographs, and the Ninth Circuit's Similarity Test ›
Can a tattoo based on a photograph infringe copyright?: It can, in principle, because a photograph's protected expression can be copied into another medium. Whether a particular tattoo infringes turns on substantial similarity and possible defenses like fair use, which is exactly what the courts are still sorting out here. Read more: Ink on Trial: Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg and the Fight Over Tattoos, Photographs, and the Ninth Circuit's Similarity Test ›
Did Accolade win the case?: On the copyright claim, yes — the Ninth Circuit held that its disassembly of Sega's code to study functional requirements was fair use and reversed the infringement-based injunction. The court also viewed Sega's trademark theory skeptically because Sega's own lock-out design caused its logo to appear. Read more: Disassembly as Fair Use: Why Sega v. Accolade Still Governs Reverse Engineering ›
Does Sega v. Accolade make all reverse engineering legal?: No. The holding is bounded: disassembly is fair use when it is the only way to access a program's unprotected functional elements and there is a legitimate reason for the access. Later developments — restrictive license terms and the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules — can change the analysis. Read more: Disassembly as Fair Use: Why Sega v. Accolade Still Governs Reverse Engineering ›
Why is the "nature of the work" factor so important here?: Because object code mixes protected expression with unprotected ideas and functions that cannot be examined without copying. That technical reality pushes software away from copyright's core and supports treating necessary intermediate copying as fair use. Read more: Disassembly as Fair Use: Why Sega v. Accolade Still Governs Reverse Engineering ›
Is this a copyright case or a contract case?: Both, in effect. Conservancy pleads breach of contract, but the contract is the GPL, which is itself a copyright license. The federal court's 2022 remand turned on the holding that the contractual source-code promise is an "extra element" beyond copyright, so the claim is not preempted and proceeds as a state-law contract action. Read more: Can a TV Buyer Enforce the GPL? SFC v. Vizio Heads Toward a Landmark Trial ›
Did Vizio win in December 2025?: Vizio won a narrow ruling — that GPLv2/LGPLv2.1 do not require a distributor to guarantee that modified software can be reinstalled while the TV keeps working. Conservancy says that issue is peripheral to its actual demand for complete corresponding source code, and the central third-party-beneficiary question remains for trial. Read more: Can a TV Buyer Enforce the GPL? SFC v. Vizio Heads Toward a Landmark Trial ›
Why does it matter who can enforce the GPL?: Historically only copyright holders could sue. If a purchaser can enforce the license as a third-party beneficiary, enforcement rights extend to millions of downstream recipients, dramatically changing the compliance-risk calculus for any company distributing copylefted software in consumer devices. Read more: Can a TV Buyer Enforce the GPL? SFC v. Vizio Heads Toward a Landmark Trial ›
Why couldn't the jury hear the "Taurus" recording?: Because "Taurus" is governed by the 1909 Copyright Act, its protected work is the composition as deposited with the Copyright Office—a one-page lead sheet. The 1909 Act did not protect sound recordings, so the comparison for substantial similarity ran between "Stairway to Heaven" and the notation, not the Spirit master. Read more: Climbing Down: Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin and the End of the Inverse Ratio Rule ›
What was the "inverse ratio rule" and why did the court abolish it?: It held that stronger evidence of access to the plaintiff's work lowered the degree of similarity a plaintiff had to prove. The en banc court found the rule logically unsound and unevenly applied—access and similarity are distinct—and overruled it, especially given that in the digital age nearly every work is widely accessible. Read more: Climbing Down: Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin and the End of the Inverse Ratio Rule ›
Does Skidmore mean common musical phrases can never be protected?: Individual commonplaces—a chromatic descent, a familiar chord progression—are not protectable on their own. But an author's original selection and arrangement of such elements can be, though it receives only "thin" protection enforceable against virtually identical copying. Read more: Climbing Down: Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin and the End of the Inverse Ratio Rule ›
Are tattoos copyrightable?: Yes. An original pictorial design fixed on skin can satisfy copyright's originality and fixation requirements. Solid Oak did not question that tattoos can be protected; it held that this particular use of protected designs was nonetheless lawful. Read more: Ink on Screen: Solid Oak Sketches v. 2K Games and the Copyright Status of Tattoos in Video Games ›
Does this mean a video game can always copy a player's tattoos?: No. The court relied on three context-specific grounds — the tattoos were tiny and indistinct in the game, the artists had impliedly licensed the players to display them, and the use was fair. A more prominent or differently structured use could change the outcome. Read more: Ink on Screen: Solid Oak Sketches v. 2K Games and the Copyright Status of Tattoos in Video Games ›
Who controls a tattoo once it is on someone's body — the artist or the client?: The artist generally holds the copyright, but by inking a client the artist is typically found to grant an implied license allowing the client to display the tattoo as part of their own appearance. Express written agreements can override that default. Read more: Ink on Screen: Solid Oak Sketches v. 2K Games and the Copyright Status of Tattoos in Video Games ›
What did Sony v. Connectix hold about reverse engineering?: The Ninth Circuit held that the intermediate copies Connectix made while disassembling Sony's copyrighted PlayStation BIOS to reverse engineer it were protected fair use, because copying was necessary to access the unprotected functional elements of the software and to create a new, non-infringing product. Read more: Sony v. Connectix: Reverse Engineering as Fair Use ›
Did the final emulator contain Sony's copyrighted code?: No. The Virtual Game Station shipped with Connectix's own BIOS code, not Sony's. The copyright dispute concerned only the temporary, intermediate copies of Sony's firmware that Connectix made and discarded during development, which the court treated as a fair use. Read more: Sony v. Connectix: Reverse Engineering as Fair Use ›
How does Sony v. Connectix relate to Sega v. Accolade?: It follows and extends Sega Enterprises v. Accolade (9th Cir. 1992), which first held that intermediate copying to reverse engineer software for interoperability can be fair use. Connectix applied that framework and rejected Sony's argument that a cleaner, less copying-intensive method was required. Read more: Sony v. Connectix: Reverse Engineering as Fair Use ›
What did the Supreme Court actually decide in the Betamax case?: It decided two things: that private, noncommercial time-shifting—recording a broadcast program to watch it once at a more convenient time—is fair use, and that Sony was not contributorily liable for selling VCRs because the machines were capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Read more: The Betamax Bargain: Sony v. Universal and the Right to Record at Home ›
What is the staple-article-of-commerce rule?: Borrowed from patent law, it shields the sale of a product from contributory-infringement liability if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes—that is, if it is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses. The Court applied that standard to the VCR. Read more: The Betamax Bargain: Sony v. Universal and the Right to Record at Home ›
How close was the decision?: Very close. The Court ruled 5 to 4, with Justice Stevens writing for the majority and Justice Blackmun writing a vigorous dissent. The case was argued twice before the Court reached its decision in January 1984. Read more: The Betamax Bargain: Sony v. Universal and the Right to Record at Home ›
Did Spanski make U.S. copyright law apply extraterritorially?: No. The D.C. Circuit was careful to hold that the Copyright Act has no extraterritorial reach. It found instead that this was a domestic application, because the public performance — the conduct relevant to the statute's focus — was completed on screens in the United States, even though the transmitting servers were in Poland. Read more: Spanski v. Telewizja Polska: A Foreign Broadcaster's Stream Lands Inside U.S. Copyright ›
Why was Telewizja Polska the infringer rather than the U.S. viewers?: The court held that TV Polska itself performed the works by operating the video-on-demand system, controlling its content, and removing the geoblocking that had prevented U.S. access. The volitional-conduct requirement was satisfied by those deliberate acts; the Copyright Act does not require a third party to complete the performance for the system operator to be a direct infringer. Read more: Spanski v. Telewizja Polska: A Foreign Broadcaster's Stream Lands Inside U.S. Copyright ›
How were the damages calculated?: The district court awarded statutory damages of $60,000 for each of the fifty-one infringed episodes, for a total of $3,060,000, after finding the infringement willful. The D.C. Circuit affirmed both the willfulness finding and the amount as within the court's discretion. Read more: Spanski v. Telewizja Polska: A Foreign Broadcaster's Stream Lands Inside U.S. Copyright ›
Did Star Athletica make clothing designs copyrightable?: Only in part. It made separable surface designs — the graphics applied to a garment — eligible for copyright. The garment's shape, cut, and function remain unprotectable useful-article features. Read more: Designs on a Uniform: Star Athletica and the New Test for Separability ›
What is the two-part test?: A design feature on a useful article is eligible for copyright if it (1) can be perceived as a two- or three-dimensional work of art separate from the article, and (2) would qualify as a protectable pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work if imagined apart from the article. Both steps must be met. Read more: Designs on a Uniform: Star Athletica and the New Test for Separability ›
Did the Court decide whether Varsity's designs were original or infringed?: No. The Court resolved only eligibility under § 101. Whether the designs satisfy Feist's originality threshold and whether Star Athletica infringed were left for further proceedings. Read more: Designs on a Uniform: Star Athletica and the New Test for Separability ›
What was the core holding of Stewart v. Abend?: When an author assigns renewal-term rights in a work and dies before the renewal term begins, the assignee's expectancy fails, and the renewal copyright vests in the statutory successors named in the Copyright Act. Those successors are not bound by the deceased author's promise, so continued distribution of a derivative work made under the original grant infringes the renewal copyright unless the successors consent. Read more: Stewart v. Abend: Renewal Rights Trump a Dead Author's Derivative-Work Grant ›
How does this affect derivative works like films and adaptations?: A derivative work is separately copyrightable, but it can only be exploited with authority to use the underlying work. If the license to the underlying work rested on an author's renewal-term grant that lapsed at his death, the derivative work's owner loses the right to distribute it during the renewal term without a new license from the underlying work's renewal owner. Read more: Stewart v. Abend: Renewal Rights Trump a Dead Author's Derivative-Work Grant ›
Does the 1976 Copyright Act change this result?: For works created after January 1, 1978, the 1976 Act eliminated the two-term renewal structure and replaced it with a single term and a separate statutory termination-of-transfers right. Stewart v. Abend interpreted the older 1909 Act renewal scheme, which still governs the renewal terms of many works first published before 1978. Read more: Stewart v. Abend: Renewal Rights Trump a Dead Author's Derivative-Work Grant ›
Is this the same case as the Ed Sheeran jury trial?: No. A separate, highly publicized case also cleared Sheeran. This appeal involved a different plaintiff, Structured Asset Sales, which holds a fractional royalty interest in the song. Read more: Structured Asset Sales v. Sheeran: The Deposit Copy and the Limits of Owning a Groove ›
What is a "deposit copy"?: For songs copyrighted under the pre-1978 (1909 Act) regime, it is the sheet music filed with the Copyright Office, which defines the scope of the composition copyright — meaning the sound recording's distinctive feel is not part of the protected work. Read more: Structured Asset Sales v. Sheeran: The Deposit Copy and the Limits of Owning a Groove ›
Can someone copyright a chord progression?: Generally no. A common chord progression and a standard harmonic rhythm are unprotectable building blocks; copyright protects original expression such as melody and lyrics. Read more: Structured Asset Sales v. Sheeran: The Deposit Copy and the Limits of Owning a Groove ›
What did Subafilms decide about U.S. copyright law overseas?: The en banc Ninth Circuit held that merely authorizing within the United States acts of infringement that occur entirely abroad does not state a claim under the U.S. Copyright Act, because the predicate foreign acts are themselves outside the statute's reach. Read more: Yellow Submarine, Hard Borders: Subafilms v. MGM-Pathe and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
What case did Subafilms overrule?: It overruled Peter Starr Production Co. v. Twin Continental Films insofar as that decision held that domestic authorization of wholly extraterritorial infringement was actionable under U.S. copyright law. Read more: Yellow Submarine, Hard Borders: Subafilms v. MGM-Pathe and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
Can a rightsholder ever reach foreign infringement?: Generally not under the U.S. Copyright Act for conduct occurring entirely abroad. The usual remedy is to sue under the copyright laws of the countries where the infringement occurs, often relying on international conventions like the Berne Convention. Read more: Yellow Submarine, Hard Borders: Subafilms v. MGM-Pathe and the Limits of U.S. Copyright Abroad ›
Does Tangle hold that the sculptures are definitively protected?: No. The court held only that Tangle plausibly alleged protectable expression and substantial similarity. Validity, scope, and infringement remain to be decided on a full record. Read more: Where Ideas End and Expression Begins: The Ninth Circuit Revives Tangle's Sculpture Suit Against Aritzia ›
How does the case relate to the merger doctrine?: Indirectly but importantly. The panel found the arrangement protectable precisely because the elements could be combined in many ways — the inverse of merger, which denies protection when an idea admits only one or a few expressions. Merger and scènes à faire remain available to the defendant on remand. Read more: Where Ideas End and Expression Begins: The Ninth Circuit Revives Tangle's Sculpture Suit Against Aritzia ›
Why does fixation matter for a physical sculpture?: Because the defendant argued that a work designed to assume ever-changing poses is not "fixed." The court rejected that, holding that movable works are fixed if embodied in a perceivable material object, analogizing to choreography, film, and music. Read more: Where Ideas End and Expression Begins: The Ninth Circuit Revives Tangle's Sculpture Suit Against Aritzia ›
Does Thaler mean nothing made with AI can be copyrighted?: No. The holding addresses works with no claimed human author. Works reflecting meaningful human creative contribution may still be registered, with the AI-generated portions disclaimed. The court deliberately left the human-contribution threshold for another day. Read more: Authorship Without an Author: Thaler v. Perlmutter and the Human Floor of Copyright ›
Why didn't Thaler simply claim he was the author?: He tried, but only on appeal. Because he had told the Copyright Office the machine was the sole author and disclaimed human input, the D.C. Circuit treated the contrary argument as waived and decided the case on the record he created. Read more: Authorship Without an Author: Thaler v. Perlmutter and the Human Floor of Copyright ›
Is the question now settled?: As to fully autonomous machine output, effectively yes within the D.C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court's March 2026 cert denial leaves the ruling undisturbed. But cert denials are not merits rulings, the human-contribution line remains unlitigated, and Congress retains authority to change the statute. Read more: Authorship Without an Author: Thaler v. Perlmutter and the Human Floor of Copyright ›
Was this a generative-AI case?: No. Ross built a non-generative legal-research search tool, which is why courts have been careful not to read it as controlling the generative-AI training cases. Read more: Thomson Reuters v. Ross: The First Refusal of Fair Use in the AI Era ›
Is the decision final?: No. It was certified for interlocutory appeal and the Third Circuit accepted review; the appeal was pending as of late 2025. Read more: Thomson Reuters v. Ross: The First Refusal of Fair Use in the AI Era ›
Why did the software fair-use cases not help Ross?: Because those cases excuse copying needed to reach uncopyrightable functional elements. The court found Ross copied protected expression — West's editorial headnotes — not mere functional material. Read more: Thomson Reuters v. Ross: The First Refusal of Fair Use in the AI Era ›
Did Grande lose its DMCA safe harbor in this appeal?: Grande had already lost the safe-harbor defense at the district court, which ruled it could not invoke Section 512 because it had no working repeat-infringer policy during the relevant years. Grande did not challenge that ruling on appeal, so the Fifth Circuit decided liability and damages without the safe harbor in play. Read more: When the Pipe Becomes Liable: UMG v. Grande and the ISP Repeat-Infringer Problem ›
Does an ISP have to terminate a customer's account to avoid liability?: The court did not impose a flat termination rule. It held that knowingly continuing to provide service to subscribers identified as repeat infringers, without taking any available steps to stop the infringement, can be enough material contribution to support contributory liability. What steps suffice will turn on the facts. Read more: When the Pipe Becomes Liable: UMG v. Grande and the ISP Repeat-Infringer Problem ›
Why did the court throw out the $46.7 million damages award?: The jury awarded statutory damages per individual song. The Fifth Circuit held that under Section 504(c) the songs released as parts of an album count as one work, so the award had to be vacated and damages retried on a per-album basis. Read more: When the Pipe Becomes Liable: UMG v. Grande and the ISP Repeat-Infringer Problem ›
Did Veoh win?: Yes, on the safe-harbor question — the Ninth Circuit affirmed that § 512(c) protected Veoh. The victory was, however, pyrrhic: Veoh had already been driven into bankruptcy by the cost of the litigation. Read more: Storage With Access: UMG v. Shelter Capital and the Reach of the § 512(c) Safe Harbor ›
Why did the court treat streaming and transcoding as "storage"?: Because storage that no one can access is pointless. The court read § 512(c)'s phrase "by reason of the storage at the direction of a user" to include the automated, user-triggered functions that make stored content viewable. Read more: Storage With Access: UMG v. Shelter Capital and the Reach of the § 512(c) Safe Harbor ›
Does a copyright owner have to send a takedown notice before suing?: The statute does not strictly require it, but the court treated UMG's failure to send notices as significant to the knowledge analysis. Specific notices are the ordinary way to put a provider on the kind of specific notice that triggers a duty to act. Read more: Storage With Access: UMG v. Shelter Capital and the Reach of the § 512(c) Safe Harbor ›
Does Unicolors mean any mistake on a registration is harmless?: No. An inaccuracy is excused only if the applicant did not actually know it was inaccurate. Knowing misstatements — and willful blindness to inaccuracy — still expose a registration to invalidation under § 411(b), and the error must also be one that would have caused the Register to refuse registration. Read more: Honest Mistakes of Law Survive: Unicolors v. H&M and the Scienter Floor of § 411(b) ›
Did the Supreme Court decide that Unicolors's registration was valid?: No. The Court resolved only the legal standard — that mistakes of law, like mistakes of fact, can be excused — and vacated and remanded. Whether Unicolors actually knew its single-application filing was inaccurate was left for the lower courts to determine under the correct standard. Read more: Honest Mistakes of Law Survive: Unicolors v. H&M and the Scienter Floor of § 411(b) ›
Who has the better of the willful-blindness point for litigants going forward?: Both sides gain something. Plaintiffs benefit from a forgiving subjective-knowledge rule; defendants retain a path to invalidation by proving, often circumstantially, that the applicant was aware of or deliberately avoided learning the truth. The practical contest now centers on the registrant's state of mind. Read more: Honest Mistakes of Law Survive: Unicolors v. H&M and the Scienter Floor of § 411(b) ›
What did Universal City Studios v. Corley hold?: The Second Circuit upheld an injunction barring Eric Corley from posting and linking to DeCSS, a program that decrypts DVD protection. It held the DMCA's anti-trafficking provision, Section 1201(a)(2), constitutional and ruled that the ban did not violate the First Amendment or fair use. Read more: Code, Keys, and the First Amendment: Universal City Studios v. Corley ›
If computer code is speech, how could the court ban it?: The court agreed code has an expressive component, but found the DMCA regulated DeCSS because of its function, not its message. As a content-neutral regulation of the code's functional capacity to decrypt, the ban survived intermediate First Amendment scrutiny. Read more: Code, Keys, and the First Amendment: Universal City Studios v. Corley ›
Why was linking to DeCSS treated as trafficking?: Corley not only posted DeCSS but also linked to other sites offering it and urged readers to download and spread it. The court held that knowingly linking to circumvention code, with the purpose of disseminating it, amounted to trafficking under the statute. Read more: Code, Keys, and the First Amendment: Universal City Studios v. Corley ›
Did Viacom win the case?: Not ultimately. Viacom won a significant appellate ruling in 2012 reviving its claims, but on remand the district court again sided with YouTube in 2013, and the case settled in 2014 with no payment reported. Read more: How Red Must the Flag Be? Viacom v. YouTube and the Specificity of § 512(c) Knowledge ›
What is "red flag" knowledge after this decision?: It is awareness of facts or circumstances that would make a specific infringement objectively obvious to a reasonable person. General knowledge that a platform contains infringing material is not enough. Read more: How Red Must the Flag Be? Viacom v. YouTube and the Specificity of § 512(c) Knowledge ›
Did the ruling create a duty to monitor?: No. The court reaffirmed that § 512(m) imposes no general monitoring obligation. Willful blindness can supply knowledge only where a provider consciously avoids confirming specific infringement it has strong reason to suspect. Read more: How Red Must the Flag Be? Viacom v. YouTube and the Specificity of § 512(c) Knowledge ›
What did VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone hold about music sampling?: The Ninth Circuit held that the de minimis exception applies to alleged copying of sound recordings, so an unauthorized sample that an average listener would not recognize as taken from the original is not actionable infringement. Read more: A 0.23-Second Split: VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone and the De Minimis Defense for Sampling ›
How does this case create a circuit split?: It expressly disagreed with the Sixth Circuit's 2005 decision in Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films, which held that any unauthorized sampling of a sound recording, no matter how small, infringes. The Ninth Circuit rejected that bright-line 'get a license or do not sample' rule. Read more: A 0.23-Second Split: VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone and the De Minimis Defense for Sampling ›
What was actually sampled in Vogue?: The plaintiff alleged that producer Shep Pettibone copied a horn segment of no more than 0.23 seconds from the Salsoul Orchestra's 'Ooh I Love It (Love Break)' and used a modified version of it in Madonna's 'Vogue.' The court found any such copying was trivial and de minimis. Read more: A 0.23-Second Split: VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone and the De Minimis Defense for Sampling ›
Can a recording artist terminate the transfer of a master recording?: Potentially yes, under § 203, if the artist personally executed the grant and the recording is not a work made for hire. Both conditions are contested and fact-specific, as Waite illustrates. Read more: Recording Artists at the Termination Gate: Waite v. UMG Recordings ›
Why did the court refuse to certify a class?: Because the work-for-hire defense — especially the "instance and expense" test for older recordings — requires an individualized inquiry into each artist's creative and financial arrangement, so common issues did not predominate over individual ones. Read more: Recording Artists at the Termination Gate: Waite v. UMG Recordings ›
Why does a loan-out company matter?: Section 203 permits termination only of grants "executed by the author." When an artist's loan-out corporation, rather than the artist personally, executed the transfer, the court held there is no author-executed grant to terminate. Read more: Recording Artists at the Termination Gate: Waite v. UMG Recordings ›
Did the Supreme Court rule that Warhol's art infringed Goldsmith's copyright?: No. The Court decided only that the first fair use factor disfavored the Foundation's 2016 commercial license of "Orange Prince" to Condé Nast. It expressly declined to address the creation, display, or sale of the Prince Series works, and it did not enter a final infringement judgment. Read more: When Purpose Eclipses Meaning: Warhol v. Goldsmith and the Narrowing of Transformative Fair Use ›
Is "transformative use" dead after Warhol?: No, but it is diminished as a standalone argument. Transformative new expression remains relevant to the first factor, yet it is no longer dispositive. When a secondary use shares the original's purpose and is commercial, that combination will usually outweigh claims of new meaning. Read more: When Purpose Eclipses Meaning: Warhol v. Goldsmith and the Narrowing of Transformative Fair Use ›
What is the single most important takeaway for creators?: Focus on the purpose and market of the specific use. If your use competes commercially with the copyright owner's own licensing market and serves the same function, adding artistic meaning may not be enough to establish fair use. Read more: When Purpose Eclipses Meaning: Warhol v. Goldsmith and the Narrowing of Transformative Fair Use ›
Does Nealy mean there is no statute of limitations on copyright damages?: No. The three-year limitations period in § 507(b) still applies — but it limits when a claim may be brought, not how far back damages reach once a claim is timely. A claim filed outside the limitations window is still barred; a timely claim, however, can recover for infringement no matter how old. Read more: Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy: The Supreme Court Unshackles Copyright Damages From the Three-Year Window ›
Did the Supreme Court endorse the discovery rule?: No. The Court assumed the discovery rule applied because the parties did, and decided only the damages question. It expressly did not decide whether the Copyright Act actually incorporates a discovery rule — and shortly afterward declined to take up a case (Hearst v. Martinelli) that posed exactly that question. Read more: Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy: The Supreme Court Unshackles Copyright Damages From the Three-Year Window ›
Why does the Gorsuch dissent matter for future litigation?: Because it signals that at least three Justices doubt the discovery rule survives scrutiny. That makes the threshold accrual question the most likely next frontier: if the discovery rule falls, Nealy's pro-plaintiff damages holding would rarely come into play for older infringements. Read more: Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy: The Supreme Court Unshackles Copyright Damages From the Three-Year Window ›
Can copyright protect a song's "groove" or "feel"?: Not directly—style, genre, and feel are unprotectable. But Williams v. Gaye affirmed a verdict that critics, including the dissent, argued came perilously close to protecting feel, by allowing a jury to find infringement based on a constellation of specific compositional elements that together evoke the same atmosphere. Read more: Infringing a Feeling? Williams v. Gaye and the "Blurred Lines" Verdict ›
Why couldn't the jury simply listen to both records?: Because "Got to Give It Up" is a 1909-Act work whose copyright was limited to the lead sheet deposited with the Copyright Office, the recording's production elements were largely off the table for the similarity question; the comparison focused on notated composition. Read more: Infringing a Feeling? Williams v. Gaye and the "Blurred Lines" Verdict ›
Did everyone involved in "Blurred Lines" lose?: No. The Ninth Circuit affirmed liability against Williams and Thicke but reinstated the jury's verdict clearing rapper Clifford Harris Jr. (T.I.) and the Interscope/record-company defendants, and it reversed an award of attorneys' fees to the Gayes. Read more: Infringing a Feeling? Williams v. Gaye and the "Blurred Lines" Verdict ›
Did Paramount win on the merits or on a technicality?: On the merits, at summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that Top Gun: Maverick and the 1983 article are not substantially similar in protectable expression, and separately affirmed the contract ruling. Read more: What Survives the Filter: The Ninth Circuit's 'Top Gun: Maverick' Decision and the Limits of Substantial Similarity ›
Is the case completely over?: Not necessarily. The Ninth Circuit's January 2, 2026 decision is final at the appellate level, but a Supreme Court application (No. 25A1217) was docketed on May 5, 2026. Any certiorari petition would still need to be filed and granted, which is uncommon. Read more: What Survives the Filter: The Ninth Circuit's 'Top Gun: Maverick' Decision and the Limits of Substantial Similarity ›
Why didn't the heirs' § 203 termination help them?: Because the court found no infringement of the article's protected expression, and because the contract conditioned credit on a film "produced … hereunder" — and the sequel was made after the grant had been terminated, so it was not produced under the agreement at all. Read more: What Survives the Filter: The Ninth Circuit's 'Top Gun: Maverick' Decision and the Limits of Substantial Similarity ›

Educational content, not legal advice. These answers explain general legal concepts under U.S. law and are not a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change over time.