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Tag Archives: fair use

Potter Lexicon Loses Fair Use Claim

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Yesterday the court hearing Warners Brothers Entertainment, Inc., and J.K. Rowling vs. RDR Books (see prior post) ruled in favor of Warner Brothers and Rowling on their claim that the defendant’s Harry Potter Lexicon violated their copyright in the Harry Potter books.  The court rejected RDR’s argument that the Lexicon was fair use, holding that [...]

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Imagine a fair use

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Yesterday the trial court ruled against Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s sons, holders of the copyright to Lennon’s song “Imagine,” in their lawsuit against challenging use of 15 seconds of the song in Ben Stein’s film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” Ono et al did not want use of the song to appear to endorse the [...]

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Lexicon Litigation

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Timed perfectly to provide material for class discussions about Fair Use, the trial started this week in J.K. Rowling’s copyright infringement lawsuit against publisher RDR Books and author Stephen Vander Ark over The Harry Potter Lexicon, the print version of Vander Ark’s website of the same name. In her testimony Rowling characterized the Lexicon as [...]

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Students Sue TurnItIn.com

Saturday, March 31, 2007

This story about high school students suing TurnItIn.com made the rounds on Friday: McLean Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service. I’ve not analyzed it closely but their claim–that TurnItIn.com violates copyrights in their papers and essays by copying them to its database–has some legal merit, and wise-ass ironic flavor to boot. The Volokh Conspiracy blogged about it [...]

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