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
Utah Court’s Aereo Decision: A Preview of Supreme Court Outcome?
It's difficult to believe that so many judges and lawyers could disagree over what would appear, at first blush, to be a straightforward issue of copyright law. Can a company legally copy over-the-air TV broadcasts and transmit them to subscribers over the Internet, as long as it stores and transmits a separate copy for each customer? Two companies have adopted this technology,, Aereo and FilmOn X (fka "BarryDriller.com"). Two federal courts have held that this does not violate the copyright...
Mass Law Blog Update, Week Ending February 14, 2014
"The Future of Fair Use After Google Books." Jonathan Band summarizes his debate with John Baumgarten over whether the district court's decision in Google Books was rightly decided. (link) Terry Hart on Copyhype - "Volitional Conduct: Primetime Anytime and TV Now" Future of Music Coalition's Casey Rae's post, "What's the Deal with 'Pre-'72' Copyrights?" (link) Massive, 478 page report concludes that yes, Australian copyright law should include fair use exceptions. However, it is only a...
Massachusetts Court Finds There Was No Trade Secret. Should Defendants be Awarded Attorney’s Fees?
We've been telling clients for decades that if you think you have trade secrets or confidential information, you need to protect them. Far and away the best way to ensure you've done that is to require anyone who receives access to the information to sign a non-disclosure agreement, an "NDA." In a Massachusetts state case reported on the front page of this week's Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly, the plaintiff didn't do that. In fact, it appears that the plaintiff, CRTR, Inc., did next to nothing...
My Interview on the DMCA on URBusiness Network
A couple of weeks ago I returned to the offices of the URBusiness Network to discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This was my second trip to the URBusiness Network, an online radio network with a wide range of business shows. The subject of the first show, recorded last October, was web site liability for third party postings under the Communications Decency Act (CDA). However, the CDA does not protect web sites for user postings that violate copyright law, so copyright...
Mass Law Blog Update, Week Ending January 31, 2014
House hearings on copyright reform continue. January 28, 2014 focused on the scope of fair use. Paper submissions from the five panel members are collected here. Harvard Law School professor William Fisher's 2014 CopyrightX online course has begun. If you are not one of the 500 students selected to participated in the course, you can still audit the course. First week lecture is on "The Foundations of Copyright Law." CopyrightX Prince's N. D. Cal. lawsuit against "Doe" defendants who have...
Viacom v. YouTube, Mother of All DMCA Copyright Cases (part 2 of 2-part post)
[This is part 2 of a 2-part post. To read part 1, click here] [Update: Viacom v. Youtube was settled before the Second Circuit rendered its decision on the appeal discussed in this post] After the events described in part 1, Kevin Kickstarter, founder of YouPostVid, meets with his lawyer, Mr. Jagger, to discuss whether YouPostVid needs to change its approach to managing copyrighted videos posted by users of the site. In preparation for this meeting Kevin has read the decisions in Viacom v....
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