South Park, the long running television show, is no-stranger to parodies, spoofing everything from High School Musical to The Passion of The Christ. But their humor was not appreciated by Brownmark Films, LLC, (“Brownmark”), who sued the comedy show for copyright infringement when it made fun of its dance video What What (In the Butt)

A filmmaker’s rights under the First Amendment to use well-known trademarks for artistic and expressive purposes will be protected against a challenge from the trademark holder so long as the use has genuine relevance to the film’s storyline. On June 15, 2012 the District Court for the Southern District of New York, on a motion

An artist’s right to incorporate trademarks in expressive works pits the artist’s fundamental right of freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, against the desire of a trademark owner to aggressively control the licensing of merchandise based on its trademarks. And when the artwork involves a much-loved college sports team, the tension runs deep.

Google Cleared of Java Copyright Infringement: In First Ruling on Copyrightability of APIs, CA Court Finds That Functional Java API Code Is a “Method of Operation” Not Protected By Copyright Law

By Daniel J. Klein Google’s AdWords program is no stranger to legal controversy, having been the subject of several trademark infringement lawsuits in the past.

The recent case of Urbont v. Sony Music Entertainment, 11 Civ. 4516 (S.D.N.Y. March 27, 2012), highlights the disagreement among some federal courts as to when the three-year statute of limitations for copyright infringement claims begins its countdown. Directly at issue is whether the clock starts ticking when the infringement starts (the “injury rule”), or

By Eleanor M. Lackman & Jennette Wiser The newest trend in social media, with over 10 million members and drawing 11.7 million viewers each month according to comScore, is the virtual scrapbooking site Pinterest. Pinterest allows members to upload their favorite images from the Internet or their computers and share them immediately with other members.

On February 23, 2012, the White House released Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy (the “Framework”). The Framework is meant to improve consumers’ privacy protections without stifling the sort of innovation and economic growth that companies seek via the digital space.

In a new turn in the Google Books case we have been following, Google filed its responses on February 17, 2012 to the American Society of Media Photographers’ (ASMP) and the Authors Guild’s oppositions to Google’s motions to dismiss ASMP and the Authors Guild for lack of standing. Google took issue with the Plaintiffs’ assertions.