In 2005, Musical artist Anthony Lawrence Dash composed a track titled, “Tony Gunz Beat.”  Floyd Mayweather, Jr., arguably the greatest professional boxer of all time, used a variation of that track with lyrics added as his entrance music during two World Wresting Entertainment “WWE” events, WrestleMania XXIV in 2008 and on WWE RAW in 2009. Although Dash created Tony Gunz Beat in 2005, the track was not copyrighted until October 2009, after both of Mayweather’s […]

Jammie Thomas-Rasset was accused by various record companies of using the file sharing program KaZaA to commit copyright infringement.  During the trial Thomas-Rasset claimed she had never heard of the file-sharing program KaZaA.  The record companies, however, put on evidence that showed Thomas-Rasset replaced the hard drive in her computer after being notified of the copyright infringement claims.  A jury found Thomas-Rasset guilty of willfully infringing copyrights of twenty-four songs.  The jury awarded damages of […]

Photographer Janine Gordon (“Gordon”) filed a lawsuit against rival art photographer Ryan McGinley (“McGinley”) claiming that McGinley infringed more than 150 of her photographs.  Gordon also sued three galleries that exhibited McGinley’s works and Levi Strauss & Co., which used certain of the McGinley photographs in advertising campaigns. Gordon alleged in her complaint that McGinley’s photographs are substantially similar to hers and, in fact, represent a pattern of infringement. Side-by-side examples were dissected in detail […]

There has been quite an uproar regarding Senate Bill 968, Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011.  On the one hand, proponents of the bill claim it is necessary for the protection of US intellectual property rights by overseas infringers.  The bill’s goal is to provide a mechanism to shut down an off-shore server from distributing infringing material within the United States. Opponents of the bill, however,  […]