Source: https://indianaintellectualproperty.com/category/authors/
Timestamp: 2019-02-21 04:44:57
Document Index: 346070629

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 5', 'art 2', 'art 3', 'art 4', 'art 4', 'art 4']

Authors | Indiana Intellectual Property Blog
Horror film The Lazarus Effect accused of infringing Pro Se Plaintiff’s script
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Copyright, Indiana, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Southern District of Indiana
Copyright Infringement, Matthew P. Brookman, Pro Se, Sarah Evans Barker
Defendants, creators of a horror movie titled The Lazarus Effect (starring Olivia Wilde and Mark Duplass), are accused of infringing the pro se Plaintiff’s literary work, Lazari Taxa. The Complaint doesn’t specify which copyrightable elements from Plaintiff’s manuscript were allegedly copied by the horror film.
Fillmore v. Blum et al.
Court Case Number: 1:16-cv-01423-SEB-MPB
File Date: Thursday, June 9, 2016
Plaintiff: Christopher “Chris” Wayne Fillmore
Defendant: Jason Blum d/b/a Blumhouse Productions, Jeanette Brill, Luke Dawson, Matthew Kaplan d/b/a Chapter One Films, Robyn Marshall, Jimmy Miller d/b/a Mosaic Management, Rick Osaka d/b/a Catchlight Films, Jeremy Slater, Cody Zwieg d/b/a Supergravity Pictures, Does 1-10
Author dissatisfied with own cover art sues book publisher
Copyright Infringement, Debra McVicker Lynch, Sarah Evans Barker, Violation of Visual Artists Rights
This dispute arises between an author and his book publisher. In addition to writing a book, the author also designed his own original artwork for the cover. After two rounds of artwork proofs, the publisher allegedly went ahead and published the book without the author’s final approval (the author had actually signed the final approval form but claims to have later redacted his approval via email…the full story is laid out in the Exhibits below).
Stories from the Week that Was – 10/30-11/5/11
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Bloggers, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Privacy, Social Media, Stories from the Week that Was, Tech Developments, Trademark
BitTorrent, Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street applies for trademark
People Who Use Macs At Work Are Richer And More Productive
– WIPO IP Facts and Figures 2011
Social Media Law – Presentation Video
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Bloggers, Copyright, Defamation, Intellectual Property, Right of Publicity, Social Media, Tech Developments, Trademark
Richmond Social Media Group, Whitewater Community Television
Here’s the video from my July 8, 2011 presentation to the Richmond Social Media Group on social media law:
PCCU Presents Richmond Social July 8, 2011 from Richmond Social on Vimeo.
Thanks to PCCU and Whitewater Community Television for your help!
IU Law launches online peer-edited Intellectual Property publication
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Indiana, Intellectual Property, Social Media, Tech Developments
Indiana University Maurer School of Law's IP Program, Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Theory
Be sure to check out IP Theory, a new peer-edited intellectual property law publication hosted by Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s IP Program. It is neither law journal nor blog; it is a different sort of publication designed to occupy a niche between the two.
IP Theory is intended to serve as a forum for:
essays or opinion pieces that are more concise (and more lightly footnoted) than typical law review articles
reviews of literature – either IP scholarly literature or literature in allied fields
So who’s going to submit an article to IP Theory?
A Legal Primer for Bloggers – Privacy
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Bloggers, Indiana, Intellectual Property, Social Media
A Legal Primer for Bloggers, Part 5 – Privacy
It’s only taken a year, but I’ll finally wrap up this blog series. I will be speaking on these topics (legal issues that bloggers should be thinking about) at the upcoming Blog Indiana conference, the very conference that inspired these posts one year ago. Blog Indiana is a blogging and social media conference that aims to promote education, innovation and collaboration among Indiana’s fast-growing blogging community. This year I hope to provide some of the important legal content missing from last year’s conference.
Without further ado, this final blog post will discuss privacy issues, including what you can and cannot share about others, distinguishing between private and “newsworthy” information. Privacy law is the area of law concerned with the protection and preservation of the privacy rights of individuals, including you, me and Lindsay Lohan. Privacy law is a big deal on the internet, where private information can be spread quickly and widely with just a mouse-click.
No legal jargon here…private information is simply personal details about someone that has not been disclosed to the public. If information is publicly disclosed by a person about himself, it moves into the public domain and will no longer be considered “private.”
Can you be sued for publishing somebody else’s private information?
Some jurisdictions allow lawsuits for the publication of private information. Whether Indiana recognizes a legal claim for publication of private information is unsettled. Before 1997, Indiana’s lower courts clearly recognized such a claim. In 1997, a divided Indiana Supreme Court decision saw two Justices rule that Indiana law did not recognize a legal claim for publication of private facts, while three other Justices agreed with the result in the case but not with their reasoning. Later courts have disagreed on whether this claim still exists in Indiana.
To the extent that Indiana law still recognizes a publication of private information claim, the elements are:
a public disclosure of private information concerning the plaintiff that would be highly offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities;
to persons who have no legitimate interest in the information;
in a manner that is coercive and oppressive.
Publication on a blog will almost certainly be considered public disclosure. Be aware that you could be subject to the laws of another jurisdiction besides Indiana.
What is “highly offensive and objectionable” to a reasonable person?
To state a claim for public disclosure of private information, a plaintiff must show that the matter made public was one that would be “highly offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities.” Exactly what qualifies, as you might imagine, changes over time, varies from location to location and from jury to jury. Caselaw can provide a good idea of how courts have treated this requirement in the past, but social mores and the jury’s “gut” will ultimately make the call.
Based on the above, the media, paparazzi and much of the blogosphere would be up a certain creek without a paddle, since they couldn’t reveal private information about anyone. However, every rule has an exception. If private information is deemed “newsworthy,” it may be legal to print it even if it might be considered “highly offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person.”
Who determines if private information is “newsworthy”?
Indiana law does not impose liability for publication of information that is of legitimate public interest (i.e., newsworthy).
Private information is newsworthy if some reasonable members of the community could entertain a legitimate interest in it. Courts generally recognize that the public has a legitimate interest in almost all recent events, even if it involves private information about participants, as well as a legitimate interest in the private lives of prominent or notorious figures (such as actors, actresses, professional athletes, public officers, noted inventors, or war heroes). Newsworthiness is not limited to reports of current events, but extends to articles for the purposes of education, amusement, or enlightenment. However, a court may look at whether the private information is pertinent to an otherwise newsworthy story.
Courts applying Indiana law have found the following things to be newsworthy:
a suspected arsonist’s loan status disclosed by a bank to an arson investigator;
debts owed by the employees of a company disclosed by a creditor to the employer; and
the details of an extramarital affair related to a sexual harassment claim against agents of the State Lottery Commission of Indiana made public by the media.
I hope bloggers have found the information in these posts to be helpful. Please leave a comment or send an email if you’d like additional information. See you at Blog Indiana 2010!
A Legal Primer for Bloggers
Part 2: Intellectual Property
Part 3: Defamation
Part 4: Anonymity
DISCLAIMER: The legal analysis of any situation depends on a variety of factors which cannot be properly represented or accounted for on a blog or web page. The information on this blog is intended as general information only, and is not intended to serve as legal advice or as a substitute for legal counsel. If you have a question about a specific factual situation, you should contact an attorney directly.
Kenan Farrell to speak at Blog Indiana – Social Media & Blogging Conference
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Bloggers, Copyright, Defamation, Indiana, Indianapolis, Intellectual Property, KLF Legal, Social Media, Tech Developments, Trademark
I’ll be speaking at Indy’s top Social Media & Blogging Conference, Blog Indiana. My session “A Legal Primer for Bloggers” will provide an overview of the key legal issues that bloggers should consider: Intellectual Property, Defamation, Anonymity and Privacy.
I’m happy to be able to provide readers of this blog a 10% discount. The code is “SPEAKTOME10” and is good starting today until all ticket sales end.
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Copyright, Federal Initiatives, Legislation
C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair (the fourth book in The Chronicles of Narnia)
H.G. Well’s The War of the Worlds
From Here to Eternity (starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, and Donna Reed)
Click here for a full discussion and additional works.
Source: Center for the Study of the Public Domain
A Legal Primer for Bloggers – Anonymity
Posted by Kenan Farrell in Authors, Bloggers, Social Media, Tech Developments
A Legal Primer for Bloggers, Part 4 – Anonymity
This post continues a series dealing specifically with the legal issues that bloggers should be thinking about. Part 4, Anonymity, is especially timely, as Indianapolis-based Butler University has recently initiated a lawsuit against an anonymous blogger for making allegedly libelous and defamatory statements about school administrators on his blog, The True BU. The story is covered in detail at Inside Higher Ed. For a nice timeline of the buildup to the Butler lawsuit, see Brad Ward’s post over at SquaredPeg.
First, it’s well established that there is a right to blog anonymously in the United States. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the First Amendment right to speak anonymously, which applies also to blogs: “author is generally free to decide whether or not to disclose his or her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one’s privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be…the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. Accordingly, an author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment” (McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)).
However, having the right to blog anonymously doesn’t ensure that you’ll be successful in doing so. As the aforementioned Butler case shows, there’s a good likelihood that your identity could be discovered. There are plenty of tips and techniques readily available online to both help you maintain your anonymity and how to peek behind the veil of an anonymous blogger. Side-by-side in the Google search results are both A Technical Guide to Anonymous Blogging and How to Unmask an Anonymous Blogger. If you try to blog anonymously through a third-party service, you may be subject to subpoenas seeking your identity from your blogging service provider. If you receive notice of a subpoena and you wish to retain your anonymity, you should contact an attorney about filing a motion to quash the subpoena. Many courts require the subpoenaing party to show a compelling need for the information that outweighs the speakers’ constitutional rights to free speech and privacy.
Here are some quick tips if you want to begin blogging anonymously (see EFF’s “How to Blog Safely” for a lengthy discussion of these tips):
Use a Pseudonym and Don’t Give Away Any Identifying Details
Use Ping Servers
Don’t Be Googleable
Register Your Domain Name Anonymously
The next (and final) post in this series will cover privacy rights. Be aware what you can and cannot say about others, distinguishing between private and public individuals.