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
First Circuit: Judge Gertner, You Do Not Have the Authority to Permit Webcasting in Your Courtroom
The First Circuit's decision upholding the RIAA's challenge to Judge Gertner's decision to permit webcasting of a motion hearing in the RIAA v. Tenenbaum case was issued on April 16, 2009, very shortly after oral argument. The First Circuit, interpreting a D. Mass. Local Rule, held that U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner's interpretation of the local rule concerning photographing recording and broadcasting of courtroom proceedings was "palpably incorrect". This result is quite disappointing for...
First Circuit Affirms Preliminary Injunction in Copyright Case
Here is the First Circuit's recent decision upholding a preliminary injunction in a copyright case out of D. Puerto Rico. The sole issue on appeal was the holding on substantial similarity. The products were stuffed animals, specifically, frogs. Or, more specifically, the Puerto Rican tree frog, the Coqui. I've tried to find a picture of the defendant's stuffed animal frog with no luck. Link: Coquico, Inc. v. Rodriguez-Miranda.
John Perry Barlow, Co-Founder of EFF, Poet, Musician, Lyricist for the Dead, Retired Wyoming Cattle Rancher and Public Intellectual . . .
has filed a most unusual "expert witness report" in the Tenenbaum case. This will surely raise some novel admissibility issues under Daubert/FRE 702 standards. And that, constant readers, is the understatement of the day. More surprises to come from the Nesson/HLS defense team, I have no doubt.
Boring Lawsuit We Missed the First Time Around ….
How many residential driveways are there in the USA? I have no idea, but I would estimate tens of millions. So it figures that someone whose driveway was videotaped by Google and put on the Internet for all to view (!?) on Google Street View would sue Google for invasion of privacy and trespass. Copy of opinion here. Link to the Boring's home on Google Maps here. My theory: these people actually crave attention for their property, and what better way to get it, than this? But then, I am...
Oh, Sweet Irony, How Thou Doest Tease Me
Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner issued an order permitting the webcast of a scheduled in-court motion hearing in the RIAA/Tenenbaum copyright downloading case. The RIAA challenged the order, arguing that a federal rule prohibits the webcast. Here is yesterday's audio of the First Circuit oral argument, with Harvard Law Prof. Charles Nesson arguing for Tenenbaum.
"Copyright in the Age of YouTube"
Great article by Steven Seidenberg in the February 2009 ABA Journal on the legal tensions between user-generated content sites (UGC, in the lingo) and the content owners under the "notice and take down" regime established by the DMCA. Interesting fact from the article: On YouTube alone ten hours of video content are put online every minute of every day, more than 250,000 clips per day. Cases and sites mentioned in the article: Lenz v. Universal Music Corp Io Group, Inc. v. Veoh Networks, Inc....
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Lee Gesmer