Reasonable Balance
Intellectual property issues as they relate to art and music, legal news of all kinds, and takes on popular music.
Author: Nancy Prager is a solo attorney based in Washington, D.C.
Blawg Related Categories: Entertainment & Sports Law • Intellectual Property Law • Copyright Law • Solo / Small Firm
Recent Posts from Reasonable Balance
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Second time not the charm for Jammie Thomas, nor the RIAA
“Illegal, but common” were the words in the judge’s decision to grant a new trial in Capitol Records v. Thomas that made me end my run as a blogger. As a copyright attorney who works…
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Conjuring a Ghost: Copyright and Rowling prevail in the Harry Potter Encyclopedia Case
Fair use, like obscenity, is something that judges in America seem to know when they see it. With the rise of the Internet, fair use seems to be becoming a more popular defense, and even…
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Creative Commons, contracts and copyright…
How many of you use a Creative Commons branded document to license your songs, text, art or photograph? <Nancy scans the crowd, sees many hands go up.> How many of you read anything other than…
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A supplement to the New York Times article on YouTube and its VideoID initiative
In “Some Media Companies Choose to Profit from Pirated YouTube Clips” the New York Times reports that content companies from Universal Music to Lionsgate Film have opted to participate in a program that allows user…
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Oh, Mamma Mia, Sex and the City: a little bit about derivative works
The right to make a derivative work is one of the most valuable of the exclusive rights granted to the owner of a copyright. In the United States, reformulating preexisting copyright protected works for a…
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Some practical advice for rock stars in the Digital Age
Last week I co-sponsored the “Distributing and Marketing your Music on the Internet” panel at Artomatic with the Future of Music Coalition and the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts. In lieu of a policy…
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Fundamentals of Copyright and the Problem with Lost Owners: unintended consequences (Part Two)
As discussed in The Fundamentals of Copyright and the Problem with Lost Owners (Part One) the exclusive rights of copyright attach automatically to a work, whether a photograph or a poem, once it has been…
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Fundamentals of Copyright and the Problem with Lost Owners (Part One)
Many people find the comparison of real property to intellectual property disconcerting or inappropriate. The arguments I have heard include “one is tangible, the other is intangible” or ” a finite number of people can…
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Uh oh, here we go again…
In what may be a historic decision, Judge William Conner of the Southern District Court of New York (”SDNY) has set a rate for the blanket licenses of the songs in the American Society of…
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Billy Bragg rocks and royalties
Peter Jenner, rabble rouser extraordinaire, and I had a meeting a few years ago at SXSW where we discussed many things related to copyright, music and the Digital Age. One of the main points during…