We’ve all probably experienced the phenomenon of cascading bad luck, wherein misfortune piles upon itself until we feel that fate has conspired against us. The alarm doesn’t go off, the car won’t start, work projects go awry —eventually we feel like kindred spirits with Job. But however bad our toughest periods might have been, we can at least take comfort in the fact that we’re not TikTok.
Continue reading “TikTok Faces Copyright Lawsuit As Woes Mount”
What happens when a product reaches a level of ubiquity so prevalent that it becomes representative of both itself and its competitors, regardless of origin or manufacturer? Take for example Coca Cola: in certain areas of the country, “a Coke” is a catch-all term for any soft drink, even though that particular beverage is but one of many available to consumers. As trademarks go, however, Coca Cola has no grounds to take any sort of action against any of its competitors, because none are selling their drinks using the Coke name; rather, it’s a term that has grown organically and is used colloquially. What happens when such terms enter both the lexicon and marketing materials?
Continue reading “Costco Wins Appeal of Trademark Case Brought By Tiffany & Co.”
IP law in the creative field is meant to protect against the commercial exploitation of someone’s work by non-rightsholders, but what happens if the infringing work in question is never meant to see the light of day but gets out anyway?
Continue reading “Nicki Minaj Offers Experimentation Defense In Copyright Lawsuit”
It’s been a long-standing matter of contention as to the right to alter a piece of artistic work. Generally speaking, if someone is to make alterations in a manner consistent with added artistic value, they have far more leeway than might be given otherwise under intellectual property law. But what if you’re just removing things from said work?
Continue reading “VidAngel Copyright Suit Settlement Ends “Filtering” Debate”
What can be said for fast food is that, for all the franchises and chains that exist, there are only but a few options on offer, and that the distinction is in the differentiation. In that way, fast food isn’t all that different from any other industry; many make similar products, and where they get the edge is in their own “special sauce” that puts them above the rest, be it process or branding or small but distinct differences. It’s that “special sauce” that needs to be defended, and the franchise that gave us “special sauce” itself is looking to maintain its hold on branding built over decades.
Continue reading “McDonald’s Takes Aim At Australian Chain’s “Big Jack” Burger”
What is perhaps underappreciated, or not understood at all, by those with only a passing knowledge of the online video economy is that many creators are reliant upon the ad dollars that come in from monetization on YouTube (Or perhaps other platforms). Thus a loss of the ability to feature ads or profit from them is akin to, if not losing a job, working at that same job for no pay. It’s admittedly a foreign idea for those over a certain age to wrap their heads around; until a few years ago, jobs were done in offices or factories or out in the workaday world, not in front of a computer. Nevertheless, it’s a viable way for many to earn a living, even if all but a few aren’t making much more than that.
Continue reading “Another Creator Hit With Copyright Takedown Over His Own Work”
In many of the intellectual property suits that make the news, it’s easy to see the penalties or consequences as something of an abstraction. Dollar figures in an article never do seem quite real; it’s not as though the stories come complete with a picture of the pile of cash to be handed over to the winning party. And in the case of massive corporations, those figures never seem that much relative to what we think or know of that company’s bottom line; what’s a $50 million judgment against annual revenue many multiples greater than that?
Continue reading “Daimler Could Face Sales Ban Over Patent Suit”
Technology, particularly that designed with an eye towards curbing reliance upon fossil fuels and/or alleviating the incipient climate crisis, is meant to be the magic bullet to save the human race. But that tech is still designed by people, and as much as the machines are meant to represent human advancement, the humans behind it are still tied to some of the baser instincts that landed us in our precarious position in the first place.
Continue reading “Tesla and Nikola Spar Over Patent Origins”
Finding a great name for your products is hard enough, so when you land upon the right one, you want to do everything you can to hold onto it. After all, good names help to sell products, and bad ones can similarly dissuade consumers, unfairly or not. Branding does matter, and it does work, else it wouldn’t continue to exist as it does. So when a trademark case forces a company to rebrand or alter a product name, the cost is in more than the dollars spend in implementing those changes but in the damage possibly done to your public perception.
Continue reading “Monster Energy Pressures Video Game Creator Into Renaming Title”
Most famous art has become, over the course of time, tied to the artist that created it. Da Vinci pained the “Mona Lisa,” van Gogh pained “Starry Night” and and on and on until you reach the end of the casual knowledge of art the average person possesses. No such relationship exists in commercial art, which, despite protestations of purists, certainly rises to the level of some kind of artistic expression, or is at least relevant enough to warrant inclusion in that conversation. Most of the iconography attached to brands or products comes from an originator anonymous to all but a few, which can make for compelling mystery when questions of ownership and origination arise.
Continue reading “Nirvana Copyright Case Gets Added Wrinkle With New Ownership Claim”