Within the confines of the legal system, copyright cases can seem rather banal compared to the more salacious proceedings on offer within the criminal courts. Copyright cases make the news, sure, but they’re not likely to make the front page, save for the possibility of a day when a copyright case threatens to unravel a career or a media empire. There’s not going to be a Law & Order iteration that’s focused on IP cases, unless they’re running really short on ideas. No, copyright cases are usually taking place in the background, everyday occurrences that can be taken for granted, and in that way they’re perhaps more reflective of out lives as they actually are.
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It’s hard enough for most of us to conceive of being famous for any reason, and harder still to imagine somehow being both famous and anonymous, which would seem to most to be a middle ground that few would want to occupy. Those who want fame would want all the trappings that come with it, while those fervently avoiding the spotlight likely wouldn’t want the hassles that come with maintaining that fame. There are a few to have pulled off the trick over the years — the guys from Daft Punk, pretty much any superhero (though Batman is famous in both of his lives)— but no one has pulled it off quite like the street artist Banksy, and now that remove from direct fame is causing some trouble for his trademarks.
By way of an introduction to her Business of Delivering Legal Services course for Suffolk Law’s online Legal Innovation & Technology Certificate program, our own Mary Juetten gave a webinar with the fine folks of Suffolk Law to discuss what the course has to offer for attorneys and others adjacent to the legal industry, as well as a brief overview of the principles and ideas that the course imparts in hopes of bringing change a few attorneys at a time to an industry slow to adapt. Here are a few of the key points of the session, which you can watch 
For all of the machinery and marketing behind the big franchise movies we see on weekends, it’s easy to forget how much of this is owed to writers who come up with these ideas in the first place, and who often don’t get due credit and compensation for what they’re ultimately making possible. There’s a new case and a newly-resurfacing law that might chance our estimation and the power of writers in Hollywood, however.
The tech world is no stranger to pressure, legal or otherwise, but this moment in time feels a bit different from years past. Suddenly Big Tech finds itself under scrutiny from lawmakers and opinion-makers alike, as they grow so large and so powerful that the biggest among them recognize that the constraints on their power can hardly be said to exist at all, particularly given how their technology underlays the world we now live in. It’s probably not surprising given those circumstances that these same companies might try to push against what laws do constrain them, but at least for the moment the law still seems to be working, at least as far as IP goes.
It’s true of most new things that it takes a while for the problems and kinks to get worked out. It tends to be particularly true when something has exploded overnight, as is wont to happen from time to time with new technologies and platforms. The benefits, the appeal are evident to everyone involved, but there’s not as much thought given to what the potential drawbacks might be, or what the worst-case scenarios are in respect to users who are going to violate bounds great or small.
A common theme in this space, and many others like it, is the law as a weapon as much as a shield. Laws exist in theory to protect us, sure, but we’re all eventually indoctrinated into the idea that laws also exist to protect the more powerful against challenge or consequence. There’s a reason that we see companies like Facebook and others unencumbered by any fear of repercussion or reprisal when they do as they wish in the face of the greater good, and that’s because there’s rarely much chance that they’ll face any measure of accountability. When you become so big that you can impose your will and face little pushback from even the bodies meant to keep you in check, we’re reminded that justice and access to it are real and serious problems for many.
To what extent can creators be held responsible for the ways in which their creations are used, particularly if those uses fall outside of what is legal or ethical? It’s a worthwhile question to consider these days. We’ve more technology in our hands —quite literally in the case of smartphones— than could have been dreamt of by technologists of yore, and yet all of that tech and all of those tools being readily available to so many means that there are those who would use them for less than legitimate means. You can think of identity theft and the dark web and any number of other nefarious enterprises and wonder how much blame is apportioned to those who helped to create the internet, a consideration that’s probably unfair given how unlikely it was for anyone to imagine what the internet would become.
If there’s one thing that I hope regular readers have noted, it’s that I enjoy a story about the unintended consequences of decisions and actions. Perhaps enjoy is too strong; I highlight them to hopefully serve as an example of the perils of not fully thinking through one’s choices, perhaps as a way to justify my own ponderous nature, if you were to take the thought to its logical end. Regardless, this is a space where you can see many an individual or business go astray because they simply thought about the good that might come of their choices without considering the bad that might accompany it.
For observers of such things, there’s nothing quite so confusing or maddening as the minds that make up the minds of the U.S. federal court system on matters of intellectual property law. (Though that feeling undoubtedly spreads to other areas, depending on your interests.) Although it’s the nature of the beast that not every decision be one that you agree with, one would hope that the logic used to arrive at those decisions would at least hold up to scrutiny. Even as rulings might fall against your desired outcome, you want to at least think that the most basic precepts of law still apply, even as they are interpreted in a manner less to your liking.