The U.S. Supreme Court Holds That Lanham Act Does Not Require Attribution For Works Embodying Public Domain Materials (2003)

In June this year, the Supreme Court held that section 43(a) of the Lanham Act does not bar the uncredited copying of a work whose copyright has expired. The producer of “copies” is considered the “origin” of those “goods” within the meaning of the statute, and the producer of those goods neither falsely designates its
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Eldred v. Ashcroft: The U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Copyright Term Extension (2003)

At the beginning of this year, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (the “CTEA” or “Act”), which extends the existing term of copyright protection for an additional 20-year period. The district court had earlier held that the 20-year extension, though longer than the term in the
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Tasini: The Supreme Court’s Opinion (2001)

The Supreme Court last week affirmed the decision of the Second Circuit that, absent a written transfer of electronic rights from freelance writers, print publishers and aggregators (named parties included Lexis-Nexis [LN] and University Microfilm International [UMI]) are liable for copyright infringement for reproducing and distributing articles out of the context of the original collective
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Tasini: the Perils of Using Independent Contractor Content (2000)

A recent decision of the Second Circuit underscores just how important careful contract drafting is when dealing with rights transfers in non-employee contexts. In Tasini v. New York Times, the appeals court held that publishers and owners of electronic databases do not, without a specific transfer of rights, have the authority to reuse electronically individual articles
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