Author Archives: mwillee

If you’re someone who prefers to go into a movie or show cold, with no knowledge of what might happen, then you’re living in challenging times. Regardless of how you feel about the concept, we’re in the age of spoilers, inescapably and ineluctably. Avoiding knowing how the hottest show or biggest movie of the momentContinue reading “Are Copyright Filings Spoiler Material?”

It’s always risky to overgeneralize, but broadly speaking it’s far more fun to be a kid than an adult. Sure, adults have things like money and cars and the freedom to do as they please within reason, but there’s also the crushing responsibility that tends to dampen that freedom. 

In a past life I was a student of governance and politics, and while that pursuit left me with little to show for it beyond a considerable raft of student loan payments, I did learn some important truths about how laws and rules actually work. There is of course the law as it’s proposed andContinue reading “EU’s Copyright Filters Fail to Protect Users”

An important tip frequently made in guides to starting your own business is that it’s smart to land on the right name the first time, because it can be hard to change. There are of course branding questions, and concerns about losing the equity that you may have built, but there is an equally salientContinue reading “Cleveland’s MLB Team Files Trademark Challenges To Potential Names”

It’s probably not easy to be famous in the age of social media. Certainly it’s easy in the most obvious ways that have carried over for decades: money and some measure of power and certainly free stuff sent to your well-appointed home and invites to the best parties and premieres. But with Facebook and TwitterContinue reading “Model Sues Twitter Over Copyright Infringement By Algorithm”

If you’re a company as large as Disney, with as much ownership over wide swaths of TV and cinema and other media as they now possess, you’re going to have some fairly frequent IP run-ins. The most recent case making news was the lawsuit brought against the estates of comic creators seeking to prevent themContinue reading “Evel Knievel’s Estate Loses Trademark Suit Against Disney”

As has been noted before, it’s particularly hard for rightsholders to nail down exactly who to blame for copyright violations on the internet. There’s the obvious answer — the people who are actually committing the infringement — but they can be hard to actually track down and are typically just one of thousands doing similarlyContinue reading “Cloudflare Wins Summary Judgment in Copyright Case”