Dear Doc: It seems that over the years, patents and copyrights have been in some kind of “Freaky Friday” accident, and have switched bodies. It used to be that patent was the big dog in intellectual property, but now, even big companies like Apple that win patent law suits can’t get the courts to stop […]
All posts by: Lawrence Husick
Ask Dr. Copyright…The “Copyright Alert System”
January 23, 2014
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright
Dear Doc: I hear that soon, many Internet users will start getting warning notices if they illegally share copyrighted materials. Is this true? What happens if I get, say, 6 of these? How do they know? Signed, MovieAddict Dear Addict: The “Doc” has been watching this gathering storm for some time now. The “Copyright […]
Ask Dr. Copyright …
December 31, 2013
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright
Dear Doc: Well, 2013 has come and gone! Did anything happen in copyright law this year? Signed, Way too much time on my hands. Dear Sir: How DARE you! Have you not been reading the “Doc” every issue of this wonderful and scholarly newsletter? So much happened this year that the “Doc” has scarcely had […]
Ask Dr. Copyright …
November 27, 2013
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright
Dear Doc: While searching online, I came across thousands of books – not on Amazon.com, but on Google! I could actually read the pages of those books because the words matched what I had searched, and most of the books were scanned right from the library. That’s cool – and really useful, but I thought […]
Ask Dr. Copyright – What’s Fair Use?
July 31, 2013
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright
Dear Doc: I know you’ve explained the legal concept of “fair use” before, but I have a question about that. Does it infringe an author’s copyright in a book to paraphrase one sentence from the book in a movie, if you give credit to the author, or is it fair use? Sincerely, Absolom Absolom, Mississippi […]
New Rules, New Strategies for Innovators
July 31, 2013
Patent
The past 15 years have seen an unprecedented attack on patents and patent-owners in the United States. Orchestrated by foreign nations, multinational corporations, and a variety of other groups, largely funded by similar vested interests, this attack has reduced much of the value formerly associated with patented innovations. In past issues of our newsletter we […]
Dear Doc: I took my daughter out to dinner for her birthday at a local eatery (that’s what they call a restaurant when they want to charge more for the same old burritos) and at the end of the meal, all of the servers gathered around, slapped a sombrero on her head, and sang some […]
(Dr. Copyright is off this month – although some might say that he’s always been a bit off – so our very own Dr. Trademark has stepped to the plate to hit more of your burning legal questions out of the park.) Dear Doc.: I was given a prescription for Noroxin to treat a UTI, […]
Ask Dr. Copyright…Aero Inc.
April 30, 2013
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright
Dear Doc: I used to have “rabbit ears” on my TV. On stormy nights, I had to stand “just so” near the left ear to see channel 17, but other than that, it worked just fine. Then the electronics companies and the gub’ment told me that I needed “digital” TV or cable. Now, I like […]
Ask Dr. Copyright — A case of “standing”
March 28, 2013
Ask Dr. Copyright, Copyright, Litigation
Dear Doc: I’ve been listening to NPR, and when they talk about Supreme Court cases, they talk about someone standing around, and how much that matters to all them old folks on the Court. Then they complain that folks lack standing (I guess they never heard of those tall desks like old Tom Jefferson used.) […]