Viacom, which owns MTV and Nickelodeon, is bringing the hammer down on Google’s YouTube service alleging over 160,000 instances of intentional copyright infringement. The maximum statutory remedy for this could theoretically be as high as 24 billion dollars. Viacom only seems to be seeking about 1 billion dollars. Check back soon for a fuller discussion [...]

By: Court Heinle Last September, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published statistics on the share of countries in patent applications at the USPTO and the JPO.i While roughly half of the patent applications to the USPTO list a foreigner as first-named inventor, only 28.1% of applications to the JPO are by foreigners.ii [...]

By: Shmuel Honig The United States of America is facing a crisis. People across the country are distraught by the warning signs of a potentially imminent disaster. No, I am not referring to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I am talking about the potential demise of Scrabulous. Scrabulous, of course, is an immensely popular online game [...]

By: Jeffrey Dicker The Lanham Act provides that a trademark is infringed when it is used in commerce. 15 U.S.C. § 1125. With the rise of e-commerce and internet business, defining how something is used in commerce has become more difficult. This problem becomes even more difficult when dealing with a trademark used in a [...]

By: Risa Drexler In 2004, J.K. Rowling gave the Harry Potter Lexicon (“Lexicon”), a web site devoted to analyzing and cataloging all things Harry Potter, her annual FanSite award. “This is such a great site,” she wrote, “that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact [...]

By: Matthew Stark Fantasy sports have emerged as an immensely popular means of supplementing fans’ enjoyment of sports. As the 2008 baseball season approaches, millions of fans are preparing to draft their fantasy baseball teams. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimates that 20 million people participate in fantasy sports in North America and that the [...]

After a full day of interviews and deliberation the Volume XVIII Editorial Board was able to select next year’s board. The pool of candidates was very strong and there was a tight race for every position. Congratulations to the new Board. Check out the Volume XIX Masthead.

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a conviction for spamming charges that were brought against Jeremy Jaynes before Congress passed the CAN SPAM act. Among the failed defenses was a claimed First Amendment right to “anonymous speech.” Read more here. – Maxim Price

By: William Burke The prospect of increased federal regulation of professional sports is a growing concern in the field of sports law. Such regulation is openly invited by some and fervently opposed by others. However, all involved are debating essentially the same question: should the federal government have any say in the punishment of incidents [...]