Last year, writer/director/actor Woody Allen launched a $10 million suit against clothing maker and retailer American Apparel over their unauthorized use of his image on a billboard advertisement. The trial is set to go before a jury on May 18^th. However, on April 15^th it was reported that Allen brought an additional complaint to the court claiming that American Apparel’s lawyers had gone too far in their discovery requests, in particular by seeking information regarding Allen’s past sex scandals.

Lawyers for the clothing maker are expected to take a no holds barred approach and argue that Woody Allen’s past actions have damaged his reputation in North America such that the commercial value of his image is worth less than Allen claims. This is expected to include bringing up details of his well known affair with and subsequent marriage to his ex-wife’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn.

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Posted in Personality Rights
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On March 18th, MIT announced that its faculty had unanimously voted to adopt a university wide open access policy. The policy mandates that faculty must make a copy of any scholarly articles they publish available to be included in MIT’s freely accessible online repository. This follows recent similar announcements from Harvard Law School, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Science, and the Stanford University School of Education.

These announcements are part of a growing open access movement. The goal of this movement is to ensure the widest possible access to scholarship and research in recognition that greater access will lead to greater impact. Increased accessibility means that more people are able to read, expand on, scrutinize, comment on, and use the information. This has long been a goal of academia but advances in information technology are now making such wide distribution more practical.

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Posted in Technology
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Next Monday, the EU Parliament will vote on a directive that would retroactively extend copyright in performer’s performances and sound recordings (as they are called here in Canada) from 50 to 95 years. The proposal has been met with strong opposition from the European academic community, including an impressive, 100 strong, list of academics against the directive. Those opposing the extension are particularly concerned by what they see as an abrupt change in position that goes against numerous independent studies on the issue.

For example, they point to the 2005/2006 UK Government commissioned Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. Included among its 54 recommendations were both that “The European Commission should retain the length of protection on sound recordings and performers’ rights at 50 years” and that “Policy makers should adopt the principle that the term and scope of protection for IP rights should not be altered retrospectively.”

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Posted in Copyright, copyright reform
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A settlement has been reached in the U.S. trademark/web linking dispute between law firm Jones Day and real estate information site BlockShopper.com. Jones Day had sought to prevent BlockShopper from linking to Jones Day’s site because they claimed BlockShopper improperly used Jones Day’s marks and gave the impression that Jones Day somehow approved or was affiliated with BlockShopper. The settlement allows BlockShopper to continue to link to pages on Jones Day’s website but BlockShopper must only attach links to text showing the actual destination web address and not embed the links in other words.

Part of BlockShopper’s business is reporting publicly available details regarding recent personal real estate transactions. Their news section highlights personal transactions of local professionals and executives. These reports include individual buyers’ or sellers’ names, the cost of the transaction and other housing details. The reports also include some brief biographical information on the individual, their photo if available and external links to sites affiliated with that person, for example to their profile on their employer’s website.

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Posted in Links, Privacy, Trademarks
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