Category:
TV, Film, Media and Broadcasting

19/04/16

Google Books a win: Media giant wins epic copyright battle against Authors Guild

On Monday, a US Supreme Court decision ended an eleven year battle between Google and the US Authors Guild, under which the Authors Guild had claimed Google’s epic book scanning project breached copyright laws by scanning without permission. Google began the scanning process in 2004 with the intention of including extracts in a searchable database. ...

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Kapow! Court gives protection for the batmobile

On 7 March 2016, DC Comics (‘DC’) ended a long term battle with car designer Mark Towle (‘Towle’) in its fight to secure copyright protection of the Batmobile. The fight began in May 2011 when DC filed action against Towle alleging infringements of its trade mark, copyright and unfair competition claims amongst other things arising...

Re-writing the cheques? Australian Writers’ Guild commences significant Federal Court action against Screenrights

On 3 March, the Australian Writers’ Guild filed an action in the Federal Court against Screenrights, seeking to recover tens of millions of dollars in royalty payments from the collecting society on behalf of its members. The AWG has also accused Screenrights of misleading and deceptive conduct by falsely claiming to represent scriptwriters. Screenrights is...

Taking “Outwit Outplay Outlast” off the island

It seems that Survivor’s philosophy has a home beyond the exotic islands on which it is filmed! In 2008 Conrad Riggs sued his former business partner Mark Burnett, the creator of the reality TV show “Survivor”, claiming he was owed $70 million from the show’s profits. While that case was settled in 2012, later...

Don’t stop believing: 20th Century Fox loses Glee trade mark case

20th Century Fox has lost the latest round in a UK appeal court battle against Comic Enterprises, a British comedy business operating comedy venues under the trade marked name ‘The Glee Club’. Comic Enterprises first opened The Glee Club in Birmingham in 1994, and has branches in Cardiff, Nottingham and Oxford. It registered its trade...

“If you want me to Stay” As An Artist Pay Me My Royalties

After a 5 year legal battle, the Los Angeles Supreme Court has found funk icon Sly Stone is owed $5 million in back royalties by his former manager and entertainment lawyer. Sly Stone’s current lawyers claimed he had not received royalty payments for 20 years and that he was a victim of “shady accounting”. Sly...

Whose interest is it?

Register your security interest for personal property or you could lose it. The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (PPSA) provides security for personal property through registration. Did you know intellectual property (IP) and IP licenses are included in personal property? Next time you think of purchasing the rights to intellectual property, it might be a good...

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