Weblog


04. October 2007: Copyright Protection of Photographs

Hi, my name is Alison and I wanted to know about whether certain material is copyrighted on blogs. I work for a crime prevention center (http://www.popcenter.org) and am a student/research assistant working under several professors. One of them asked me to find an image of a soccer referee giving out a red card for a "technique" to induce guilt/shame (which is a crime prevention technique). I wanted to see if I could obtain permission to use a picture of one image I have found on
"Ref Blog" at http://www.refblog.com/pivo...

There is no contact information and I am not sure whether this is public information/non-copyrighted, since it is a blog.

Can you help me out? ...More

refadmin  Copyright and Trademark Infringement Law 

02. October 2007: Trademark Protection of Domain Names

Tim's Q: Company XYZ has requested that I transfer to them a domain that is similar to their company name (x-y-z.com) because it infringes on their "trademark". I have taken down the site to avoid any problem but they also request I transfer the domain to them (not clear who pays any transfer fees). I find no record of a registered trademark nor does their site indicate in any way that the name is a "trademark". Does a common law trademark give give them such rights to a domain name I own because it happens to be the name of their company?
...More

refadmin  Copyright and Trademark Infringement Law  No comment

11. June 2007: Copyright Protection of "Databases"

Copyright law is covered by the Copyright Act of 1976, codified at 17 USC s 101 et seq. Some pertinent sections include, Sections 101, 102 and 103. Section 101 defines "compilation" as: "A work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship". Section 102(b) provides: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." Section 103 limits the protection of a compilation to the author's original contributions and not the facts or information conveyed.

Databases are collections of facts. Facts themselves are not granted copyright protection, but if they are compiled in an original manner, the compilation is protected. A minimal degree of creativity in putting together the facts in the compilation, is required. This creativity can be represented by ...More

refadmin  Copyright and Trademark Infringement Law