Warner Brothers and its subsidiary, DC Comics, have sued for copyright and trademark infringement over the Batmobile design. They claim copyright protection covers the “overall look and feel” of a design. Gotham Garage, the garage that builds them, disagrees. Who will win?

Two weeks ago, Wired reported that Mumford & Sons’s latest album, Babel, contains fine print on the back that could expose individuals who lend the CD to friends to copyright litigation. The fine print reads:  “The copyright in this sound recording and artwork is owned by Mumford & Sons.  Warning: all rights reserved.  Unauthorized copying, [...]

The granting of exclusionary rights to the inventor/author lies at the heart of intellectual property law. Since the development of antitrust law and the ever-increasing grants of patents and copyright protection, tensions exist between the interfaces of these two areas of law.  Society has addressed these tensions in a variety of ways and one of [...]

Alicia Keys has been sued by Earl Shuman, a songwriter, for copyright infringement on her new track “Girl on Fire.” Shuman became aware of the similarity to a track of his from 1962 when a blogger mentioned it online.

Musician Zac Brown has been sued for copyright infringement, among other claims. A former employee, Kyle Landas, claims the musician used his intellectual property, a “Unity Tree” design, without authorization. Landas also alleges he was subjected to a hostile work environment.

Ars Technica reports that a “shockingly sensible memo” calling for reform of U.S. copyright law that has been recalled by the Congressional group that issued it. The group claimed the memo, entitled ”Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it,” had not undergone adequate review before being released. The memo, using stark [...]

The New York Times observes that fast fashion chain Zara doesn’t copy designs exactly, but changes designs to satisfy copyright law. Inditex, the company that owns fast fashion retailer Zara, manufactures clothing at a rapid pace, shipping new merchandise to its thousands of stores as often as two times per week. Zara offers on-trend clothing [...]

Did you ever wonder why you don’t hear the gentle knock of government agents at your door soon after selling something, like your used Twilight DVD, on eBay or Amazon?  No, there’s no law against bad taste, but have you ever considered you could be infringing on someone’s copyright?  If not, don’t worry; Congress has [...]

The U.S. Copyright Office has stated you can go jailbreak your phone, but that tablet of yours is off-limits. The cited reasons include the fact that smartphones have been more widely adopted by society, the definition of a tablet is “ill-defined,” and videogames are more complex and harder to create than smartphone apps. Interestingly, the [...]

With the role that technology plays in today’s world, companies are constantly on the initiative to develop something new to stay ahead of the competition. After all, innovations are not only useful for the consumer, but the company as well, particularly when it comes to making sure that the “secrets” stay put. It therefore comes [...]