Over the past few months, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have exploded in popularity in the worlds of visual arts, sports memorabilia, bobbleheads, and now, music. We have recently seen multiple high-profile NFT releases from artists such as the Weeknd, the White Stripes, Kings of Leon, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and Steve Aoki, kickstarting a trend as musicians reeling from over a year without touring seek new ways to engage with fans.
Earlier this month, in what many consider the copyright case of the decade, the Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision in Google v. Oracle. In it, the Court ruled that Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of declaring code from Java SE for use in Google’s Android platform, was fair use. Having recently reviewed the history of the fair use defense in copyright infringement cases, we now turn to the case itself.
Last month, the Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision in Google v. Oracle. The Court ruled that Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of declaring code from Java SE, for use in Google’s Android platform, was fair use.
While we examine the Supreme Court’s decision in another post, let’s first take a look at the history of the fair use defense in the software industry.
Just as video killed the radio star, so did the digital transformation kill (or at least convert) traditional media. While “going digital” became the bane of many traditional media companies that struggled to make the leap to an online world, NFTs may be the digital savior that some of these companies need. Imagine that you are a company with a known brand and sizeable catalog of media with potential historical and cultural significance. Yet, you’ve found it difficult to monetize these assets in a world that abhors paywalls and often takes an overly broad view of what constitutes “fair use.” If only there were a way to highlight the unique significance of these assets and tap into the latent collector in all of us. Anyone who follows us already knows that NFTs can serve this very function.
As part of our on-going coverage on the use and potential abuse of facial recognition AI, we bring you news out of Michigan, where the University of Michigan’s Law School, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Michigan have filed a lawsuit against the Detroit Police Department (DPD), the DPD Police Chief, and a DPD investigator on behalf of Robert Williams—a Michigan resident who was wrongfully arrested based on “shoddy” police work that relied upon facial recognition technology to identify a shoplifter.
We spend plenty of time on Internet & Social Media Law exploring the potential legal, regulatory, ethical and just plain common sense ramifications of new technology, but we also strive to point out practical applications of these same technologies as they gain traction in different industries. Over on our Gravel2Gavel Real Estate and Construction blog, colleagues James W. McPhillips and Rachel Newell have been doing just that in regard to the intersection of smart home technology and the commercial real estate industry. After an initial consideration of the benefits and potential concerns in “Smart Technology in Commercial Real Estate,” James and Rachel explore the crucial role evaluation plays in “Evaluating Smart Home Technology: It’s About More Than the Bottom Line.”
When the first social media hashtag was used in 2007, users had no idea how ubiquitous hashtags would become. Today, hashtags are an essential part of our lives (and a subject we’ve been writing about for years). From marketing a business to garnering support for a cause, hashtags have become an essential part of our society. This may even be an understatement. For instance, from May 26, 2020, until June 7, 2020, alone, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag was used over 47 million times on Twitter. 47 million. Talk about impact.
On April 1, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a long standing issue plaguing providers of text message services and the companies engaging in text message marketing. Lower courts have been split in defining what constitutes an “automatic telephone dialing system” or auto-dialer with the definition either limited to equipment whose capacity to generate, store and dial telephone numbers was limited to random or sequential numbers or to any device with the capacity to store and automatically dial stored numbers using, for example, a speed-dial function.
Anyone who follows the crypto space knows that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are all the rage of late. We have written on the subject previously on multiple occasions, particularly with respect to NFTs that tokenize works of digital art. (For a primer on digital art NFTs, check out prior posts here and here.)
On March 15, amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) banned companies from using “dark patterns” that confuse or delay consumers trying to opt out of the sale of their personal information.
