The Siegel family enjoyed rare success under the Copyright Act, achieving a court ruling in 2008 in its favor.
FORBES: Heirs of Superman Creators Wage Epic Battle With Warner Bros.
In 1997, the Siegel heirs filed notice under the Copyright Act, formally seeking to reclaim 50% of the Superman copyrights.
FORBES: Heirs of Superman Creators Wage Epic Battle With Warner Bros.
To short circuit that process a major revamp of the Copyright Act would be necessary a laughable proposition in current Washington.
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The last time the Copyright Act was reviewed extensively was in late 1970s, notes Judy Roth, a partner at Schiff Hardin.
FORBES: A Timely Reminder that MPAA and RIAA Shouldn't Be Trusted with Too Much Enforcement Power
If Warner Bros. and DC are in the role of Superman in this long-lasting battle, then surely the Copyright Act is the Kryptonite.
FORBES: Heirs of Superman Creators Wage Epic Battle With Warner Bros.
But it turned out that ClearPlay had friends in the right places Congress amended the Copyright Act to clarify that ClearPlay was not infringing.
Ron Wyden, D-Ore. introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act to end provisions in the Copyright Act that favor incumbents over new entrants offering online music.
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Aereo, Inc (12-2807-CV), citing the language of the Copyright Act, its legislative history and the Court's prior decisions, including the Cartoon Network LP, LLLP v.
Although the Copyright Act generally does not allow an artist or his heirs to agree not to exercise a termination right, the judge determined this did not apply to the 1992 agreement.
Record labels and radio companies have actively lobbied Congress on the issue of whether the Copyright Act should be amended to legally require the payment of sound recording performance royalties for the past 80 years.
New hope came with the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, and certain amendments to the law in 1999, which provided limited rights to creators such as Siegel and Shuster, and their heirs, to reclaim copyrights.
FORBES: Heirs of Superman Creators Wage Epic Battle With Warner Bros.
"Through its use of AP content and refusal to pay a licensing fee, Meltwater has obtained an unfair commercial advantage in the marketplace and directly harmed the creator of expressive content protected by the Copyright Act, " Cote said.
The Court found that, like Aereo, it appears that many cloud-based businesses that allow users to store their own content in the cloud "have relied on Cablevision as an authoritative interpretation of the Transmit Clause" of the Copyright Act.
Although they may have made what now looks like a bad deal, it did not entitle them to termination under the Copyright Act because that bad deal was made with the knowledge and power of the termination right as it stood in 1992.
Ivi tried to argue it was a cable-TV network for the purposes of these retransmission rights, because an exception to the Copyright Act gives cable operators the right to retransmit if they pay fees set by the Copyright Royalty Board, an arm of the Library of Congress.
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Regarding Napster's claim that its users were not infringing copyright because sharing copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings via the Napster service is protected by the "fair use" doctrine, the court held that the four fair use factors in the Copyright Act tip the balance in the record companies' favour.
Setting aside the complicated intricacies of the Copyright Act, and what specific copyrights could and could not be reclaimed by the heirs, both court cases turn primarily on the same important issue did the heirs already reach agreements with the corporations to give up their rights to the copyrights, in exchange for higher royalties and other benefits?
FORBES: Heirs of Superman Creators Wage Epic Battle With Warner Bros.
With the 1976 Act, Congress added 19 years to the original 56-year copyright term established by the previous 1909 Copyright Act.
The framers of the 1976 Copyright Act took counsel from publishers, the recording industry, broadcasters and others with a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
FORBES: Congress Listens To Complaints Of Out Of Tune Royalty Rates For Internet Radio
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Fairness in Music Licensing Act of 1998 extended the US term of copyright to bring it in line with international norms.
The U.S. Copyright Office created an exemption last summer in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for users to jailbreak their own devices, despite Apple's objections that the ruling could open phones to dastardly hackers and even lead to "catastrophic" attacks that crash cellphone towers.
The case was closely followed not just because it pitted old media vs. new, but because it could determine the limits of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the law governing copyright infringement online.
We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress, and the views of the Supreme Court as expressed in its most recent decisions.
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The Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) have reasonable intents, but are singularly poorly constructed, seemingly drafted because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was not producing the intended effect.
The two face lawsuits from Sony under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for publishing methods that break the digital protections on the PlayStation 3 to allow the use of unauthorized programs.
They argue that the software is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits the distribution of software or devices intended to circumvent copyright protections.
The Library of Congress has the ability to grant exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which it has done in the past for smartphone users who wished to unlock their phones.
One purpose of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is to protect the technology of file sharing, and companies that use it, by inventing a theoretical "safe harbor" that shelters all sorts of user-powered platforms from the consequences of illegal actions by the users.
Pinterest, itself, is well-protected from lawsuits because of its policies and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The point of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was to protect content holders and prevent piracy.
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