Mass Law Blog
Intellectual property and business litigation, Massachusetts and nationallyWritten by humans
Lee Gesmer’s Mass Law Blog began in 2005, and contains almost 600 posts. The site initially focused on Massachusetts law, but today it follows business and intellectual property law nation-wide. The site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm represents startup and established companies in the areas of litigation, transactions (including financings, mergers and acquisitions), IP rights, taxation, employment law, standards consortia, business counseling and open source development projects and foundations. You can find a summary of the firm’s services here. To learn how Gesmer Updegrove can help you, contact: Lee Gesmer
Why Didn’t the Blurred Lines Defendants File Rule 50 Motions? (Waiver, again)
You can find plenty of commentary on whether the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled correctly when it upheld a jury verdict that "Blurred Lines" infringed the copyright in "Got To Give It Up." But another aspect of this decision has received little attention, and that is a mistake made by trial counsel for the Williams/Thicke defendants in this case. One of the things that keeps lawyers awake at night (or should) is the risk that they will unknowingly waive a client's legal rights. I wrote...
Ninth Circuit Decides “Jumpman” Copyright Case
In only three years the "Jumpman" case has become an established teaching tool in CopyrightX. I've taught it in the first class for three years running, and I know many other teaching fellows have as well. It's a great way to get people who are new to copyright law thinking about copyright issues, in this case whether a photograph by Nike infringes a photo of Michael Jordan taken by Jacobus Rentmeester in 1984. The two photos are show below: Rentmeester's original on the left, Nike's allegedly...
Is In-Line Linking Illegal Now?
It's long been widely assumed that in-line linking is not a basis for copyright infringement. Following a recent decision by a Southern District of New York federal judge, that is no longer true. Justin Goldman took a photograph of Tom Brady. Under the copyright laws, one of his exclusive rights is the right of public display. Goldman posted the photo to Snapchat. It went viral and was embedded in a tweet. A number of mainstream media publications posted the tweet by embedding the tweet into...
Blurred Lines At The Ninth Circuit
Copyright law is confusing, but music copyrights take it up a notch. Often, judges and jurors with no background in a music genre are asked to determine whether two works are "substantially similar" after being subjected to esoteric analysis by musicologists who present arguments that even a trained musician might find hard to follow. However, whether Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke's 2012 recording of "Blurred Lines" infringes Marvin Gaye's 1976 composition of “Got To Give It Up” presents...
This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. You can find a summary of our services here. To learn how GU can help you, contact:
Lee Gesmer