Expanding the Internet: What do ICANN’s New gTLD Applications Mean for Trademark Owners?

One year ago, as part of a plan to expand the capacity of the Internet’s domain name system, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began accepting applications for more generic top-level domain names (gTLDs). Currently, the well-known gTLDs include .com, .org, and .net, as well as some of the country indicators that have been repurposed, such as .tv and .es. Adding gTLDs will allow for exponentially more domain names. During the new gTLD application period, ICANN opened the door to any combination of three or more letters in most major alphabets: .blue, .school, .mcdonalds, .law or .商城. The possibilities might seem almost endless, but, on “Reveal Day,” ICANN disclosed a list of 1,930 applications for new gTLDs.  

What does this mean for trademark owners and businesses? Some procedures have been set up; some are still vague and in development. At this stage trademark owners can review the list of proposed gTLDs to determine whether their brands, products or industry names are impacted, and then decide the next step to take with ICANN or otherwise. 

Please read the rest of my article here

President or Pirate? The DMCA Takedown War of the Presidential Campaigns

In what has been described by some as over-zealous enforcement of copyright, BMG (the large German publisher) forced YouTube to take down a Mitt Romney campaign video because it included footage of President Obama singing Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”

The Romney video followed the Obama campaign’s release of a political ad featuring Mitt Romney’s off-key rendition of “America the Beautiful" as underscored to images of off-shore employment out-sourcing. Romney’s campaign used the Al Green song to attack Obama for his relationship with lobbyists and campaign fundraisers. YouTube pulled down the Romney ad after BMG, the music publisher that owns the copyright in the “Let’s Stay Together” composition, filed a copyright takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Not wanting to look like it was playing politics and only targeting the Romney ads, BMG also sent notices to YouTube to take down the original news footage clips of Obama singing the song.[1] The Obama campaign met no similar copyright opposition to its attack ad because the copyright to “America the Beautiful,” first released in 1910, has expired and that musical composition is now in the public domain.

Read the rest of my post here

France Gives the "Feu Vert" to Google Books

The United States has yet to reach an agreement over the Google digital books project, but France, a literary haven and copyright devotee, has forged ahead. With what its supporters have praised as a tool for bringing out-of-print books into the hands of new readers, the Google digital books project has sought to digitally scan collections of current and out-of-print books to create a massive digital collection on Google’s database.

Similar to the Author’s Guild class action lawsuit against Google for the alleged infringement of thousands of copyrights, the French Publishers Association and the Société des Gens de Lettres, an authors’ group, filed a lawsuit charging that Google’s digital book scanning infringed French copyright laws. However, the French publishers and authors’ group have recently dropped their six-year lawsuit and reached an agreement that would allow Google to scan books and offer digital copies for sale. This agreement will make France the first country to have an industry-wide standard for digitizing books.

Please read the my post here

Google Disclosures

Last month Google announced a new addition to its website’s Transparency Report. 

Google has decided to release information on the number of requests it recieves from copyright owners (and the organizations that represent them) to remove Google Search results that allegedly link to infringing content. 

Google's senior copyright counsel Fred von Lohmann writes on Google's blog, “We believe that openness is crucial for the future of the Internet. 

When something gets in the way of the free flow of information, we believe there should be transparency around what that block might be.” It’s no surprise that entertainment giants are at the top, notably, Microsoft Corporation, NBC Universal, British Recorded Industry and the RIAA. 

Read the rest of my post here...

Viacom v. YouTube Brings About a Sea of Change in the Safe Harbor

Over the past decade, websites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have learned to rely on the takedown procedures of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to generally avoid copyright infringement liability imposed by content owners. 

ISPs have been able to shield themselves from all liability form their users posting infringing material by having a proper takedown system in place. But, a recent Second Circuit case undermines that level of confidence in takedown procedures. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is the first U.S. court to decide that ISPs may still be liable for copyright infringement even after complying with the takedown provisions of the DMCA.  

As a result, the underlying questions remain: should intermediaries be held liable for their users infringing actions? If so, then to what extent?  Where does the law now draw the line? How can a website owner or ISP best protect itself when posting content provided by others?

I write more about this here

German Court Ordered Google to Do More to Prevent Copyright Violations on YouTube

A German court ordered Google to install filters on its YouTube services in Germany in order to detect and stop people from accessing copyright infringing material.

I wrote about the Google decision on my own website

Facebook Asserts Trademark Rights Over the Word "Book"

If the day comes that Facebook applies to register “book” as a trademark, is the USPTO likely to reject its application? 

Perhaps Facebook is better off leaving that question open rather than documenting any USPTO denial. 

Does Facebook actually even use “book” as a mark as its new user agreement implies? If it does, is “book” sufficiently arbitrary, and not just descriptive, such that it can be recognized as a protectable mark? What is truly a “book” anyway in the technology of today’s publishing? We could quickly get philosophical. 

Read more about this Facebook issue at our blog...