Intellectual Property

Amoeba's Vinyl Vault: Treasure Trove or Legal Sticky Wicket?

While the corpses of corporate music retail chains litter strip malls where outlets like Tower Records and Blockbuster Music once stood, Amoeba Music is an independent juggernaut with three California-based stores the size of supermarkets. They've been a destinations for music aficionados for more t ... More >>

'Occupy,' 'Occupy LA' Trademark Applications Filed by SoCal Entrepreneurs

Here on the Internet news circuit, the Occupy boom has more or less settled. Don't bite our heads off -- we're not saying the movement itself is over, by any means -- but it's nearing the end of its shelf life as a meme. (The young American hive mind has a severe case of ADD, and a story can only st ... More >>

Tons Of Punk Videos Yanked Off YouTube: Here's What Happened

Robert KenneyGreg Ginn, second from left​By Nicholas Pell On Wednesday morning, several punk bands awoke to find their videos had been removed from YouTube. They were understandably irritated; that's almost worse than running out of beer. In their places were notes that they'd been yanked d ... More >>

The Bill To Stop Online Piracy Would Totally Fuck Up Music Blogs

By Gabrielle Canon Over Thanksgiving weekend, 2010, a Homeland Security division wrongfully seized a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1, on allegations of copyright infringement. The site -- which got some 3,000 hits a day or so -- was run by a guy from Queens known only as Splash. As you can see on the C ... More >>

Vermont Kale Advocate Battles Chick-fil-A Over Slogan Similarities

"Eat mor chikin," beg the witless cows in Chick-fil-A advertisements, eager to avoid a grisly fate and carrying on the Atlanta-based chain's tradition of eccentric spelling in the process. As far as intellectual property goes, the slogan is pretty low-wattage, but that isn't stopping the company fr ... More >>

Here's Tasting You, Burbank

Judge Rules Run-DMC Photo, Used by L.A. Street Artist Mr. Brainwash, Protected by Copyright Law: What Will It Mean for Fair Use?

PHOTO BY GREGORY BOJORQUEZMr. Brainwash just got busted.​Forget the Shepard Fairey case. Music photographer Glen E. Friedman's lawsuit against Mr. Brainwash, the street artist profiled alongside Banksy in Oscar-nominated doc "Exit Through the Gift Shop," is the one to watch for legal fair-use ... More >>

"Freeway" Ricky Ross Slaps Fake Rick Ross with a New Lawsuit

"Freeway" Ricky Ross vs. Rapper Rick Ross: Who would you put money on? ​He thinks he's Big Meech! Larry Hoover! But Miami rapper Rick Ross might be blowing money fast in court, not in the club, soon if he keeps calling himself the moniker he adopted from "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the Los Angeles ... More >>

Obama Hope: Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters Sued by Associated Press Over Shepard Fairey-Designed T-Shirts

'Hope' t-shirt.​The battle between Associated Press and L.A. artist Shepard Fairey over his use of an AP image to create the iconic "Obama Hope" image might be over, but now the news agency is going after retailers such as Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters over their sales of Hope t-shirts. The ... More >>

[Updated, Again]: Dervaes Family Trademarks "Urban Homestead" Term: Legal Battle Follows

The cover of The Urban Homestead, written by Erik Knudsen and Kelly Coyne, which might be renamed in the next printing.​Updated, 2/22, 12:30 p.m.: The Dervaes family recently filed a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) take down notice to Google regarding content in The Urban Homestead by K ... More >>

Better Watch the Paris Hilton Sex Tape on the Internet Now, While it's Still Free

​The homemade sex tape of Paris Hilton, "1 Night in Paris," has reportedly made millions for her co-star, Rick Salomon, and presumably satisfied untold hordes of Internet voyeurs. But all that may come to an end. XPays, the company that owns the Internet rights to the movie, has filed a lawsuit ... More >>

Shepard Fairey Victorious: U.S. District Judge Shuts Down Lawsuits On Both Sides Of Obama 'Hope' Poster Case

Thanks, AP.​Update: AP announced in a statement Wednesday morning that the two sides have settled. Who gets what? After the jump. (Shepard speaks, too). In a strange sign of the times, the image that epitomized much of America's desire to put the Bush years behind us, L.A. artist Shepard Fair ... More >>

Plagiarism Kerfuffle Shutters Cooks Source

Cooks Source Facebook page​ Updated: The plagiarism kerfuffle at now shuttered Cook's Source topped Regret The Error's annual list of publishing mistakes -- right above a photo in which an actor playing a Nazi was identified AS the Nazi. Oops. Writer Monica Gaudio's initial charge of plagia ... More >>

Justin Bieber Accidentally Violates Own Copyright, and Other Insane Tales of the Ongoing Intellectual Property Crackdown

What do a Texas cheerleader, a parking lot attendant, OnSmash.com, and the founders of Pirate Bay have in common? If you guessed "alleged criminals" you are correct!

Google Sued By Pasadena Techies For Copycatting Their Version Of Street View

Google MapsBeautiful Pasadena, in stolen street view​Google wasn't the first to play god on street-level. At least, according to Pasadena company Veredi LLC, who is suing the Internet giant for infringing on five of its patents, which created a system for "creating, storing and utilizing image ... More >>

Drug Paraphernalia May Not Be the Most Illegal Thing Wavves Are Selling Through Their Website

Wavves: they like weed. and cats. and cartoons. and the public domain...​So, recent LA Weekly feature subject Nathan Williams, aka "King Skinny Shitster," of buzzband extraordinaire Wavves picked up some blogosphere love from Pitchfork (and people who link back to Pitchfork) when he tweeted ab ... More >>

Brand-Name Bud? Gold Rush To Patent Marijuana Strains Gets Snuffed By U.S. Patent Office

Brand-name bud?​A gold rush to obtain federal patents on strains of marijuana such as Acapulco Gold, Maui Wowie and even straight-up "Chronic" was snuffed out last week by the federal patent office, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal. The move came following inquiries by th ... More >>

Hershey Sues William-Sonoma Over Brownie Pan: Rectangular Is Not Funny

There is a hilarious moment in the Coen Brothers film Raising Arizona, in which an old-timer gas station attendant considers the humor of balloon shapes. They are not particularly humorous, he points out, unless round is funny. Rectangular isn't really funny either, especially if you're Williams-Son ... More >>

Flights Between LAX And London Cancelled

Craig Murphy.​Nine flights to and from London were canceled Thursday morning as a result of volcanic ash above the U.K. that could damage jet engines, LAX officials report. Four flights from London to LAX were nixed while five from LAX to London were a no-go as an Icelandic eruption sent a pl ... More >>

In NYT Op-Ed, Bono Worries on the Destruction of Creativity (Never Mind That Whole Negativland Thing)

Bono penned an Op-Ed for the New York Times yesterday morning listing his "Ten for the Next Ten," and one of his ten predictions concerns the future of creativity. Specifically, in a section called "Intellectual Property Developers," Bono warned of the catastrophe facing the TV and movie business ... More >>

Man Admits To Uploading Crap Movie; All He Gets Is Probation

​An Irvine man has agreed to plead guilty to uploading a screener of The Love Guru before its release. In exchange for his cooperation the U.S. Attorney's Office has agreed to recommend three years of probation instead of the possible maximum sentence of three years in federal prison. We say ... More >>

Itching For Snitches: $1,000 Offered To Keep Counterfeit DVDs Out Of Downtown

Would you pay $14.99 for this movie?​Start snitching: The Los Angeles Police Department is pairing up with the downtown Fashion District and the Motion Picture Association of America to offer a cool grand for information leading to the closure of DVD production operations in the area. (And no ... More >>

Advertising -- Coming To A Tweet Near You?

A few weeks ahead of its conference in Los Angeles, Twitter amended its terms of use to allow for advertising. The move means that the micro-blogging service might finally go for the brass ring by monetizing its huge base of 45 million users. "... We leave the door open for advertising," blogs CEO ... More >>

AP to Shepard Fairey: Where's Our Money?

Sooner or later it had to happen, we suppose. Echo Park graphic artist Shepard Fairey, whose haunting poster illustration of Barack Obama became the defining image of Obama's successful presidential campaign, is being accused of copyright infringement and asked to pay royalties for the source image. ... More >>

Google's New Killer App? Why Are Music Bloggers' Posts Disappearing, and Who Is Deleting Them?

Confessions of a Promo-CD Junkie: Who Will Stop the Music Industry Gravy Train?

With so much music available at the click of a mouse, do tastemakers really need hard copies anymore? Is it worth the waste?

L.A. Music Publisher's Suit Against Lil Wayne Threatens to Rewrite Rules on Mixtapes

Karma policed

The Anime Collective: Baka Deshi Productions

Where the otaku world and music geekdom collide

Who's Biting J Dilla's Beats?

Hip-hop producer's legend ascends posthumously; estate struggles to maintain control

4Hero

patents

patents

You Cum Like a Girl

The feds say a comic’s phrase is too vulgar to trademark, but “cum-furt” is A-OK

Freedom of Information

Copyright and its discontents

Grokster Bites the Dust! Ho-hum

At least Modest Mouse got name-dropped in a Supreme Court case

Music Industry Puts Troops in the Streets

Quasi-legal squads raid street vendors

Welcome to the Concrete Jungle

John Powers in the land of no culture, surreal Cancún

CitySweep

Voices in Disharmony

The Big Dirt Napster

A digital new era finds the labels asleep

Power to the Peer

you can lead consumers to music, but can you make them pay?

Hackers Unite

Geeks rally for jailed Russian programmer. But it’s hard to explain why it really does matter.

Green Eggs and Lawsuits

Artists, contracts and money

Thieves Like Us

MP3: Recontextualization is your best entertainment value

Rifling Victoria’s Secrets

The Smoking Gun’s posting of leaked employee guide sparks copyright battle

Napster, Round 2

Genie 1, Bottle 0

Patently Absurd

My Favorite Pirate

Record biz romances some tech sites, clobbers others. What gives?

Cracking DVD Code

MPAA’s dragooning of Norwegian teen raises hackers’ hackles

Letters

Shooting Off Sparks