Georgia Intellectual Property Legal Questions

I recommend you contact the owners of the copyrights for the videos and obtain permission to use the videos on your website.  You might review some of the materials on copyright at www.copyright.com which is the Copyright Clearance Center.  You may be able to obtain a license to use the videos thorugh the Copyright Clearance Center.  Good luck                    ... Read More

Profitting from someone's likeness or identity is likely going to violate that person's rights of publicity. If people are buying the shirt because of the fame of the individual and the shirt declares support/fandom for that individual, you run the risk of being sued for violating the rights of that coach.... Read More

USPTO.gov is the site for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The Trademark portion of the site has a boolean search tool for searching registered, pending, and abandoned trademarks. The tool is not the most user friendly system, but if you can ask a question on lawyers.com, you can probably make use of that search tool. That site also allows you to file a US trademark application online. If you are not comfortable doing either, you can hire a trademark attorney. We typically charge $500 for a basic search and $850 for filing the trademark application (that fee includes the government fee). You might find someone closer to you who can do the work a little cheaper, but those numbers provide a baseline for thinking about what might be reasonable to expect. Good luck, Todd... Read More

In a copyright infringement case, the loser pays the winner's legal fees.  You could litigate.   I'd also go search the term "copyright trolls", particularly looking at articles posted by Joe Mullin. The stories at least offer up one scenario under which you might be targeted without being guilty. Other than that, it is hard to give you advice without knowing what is in the letter and discussing it with you. Ultimately, you will want to see if you can get a consultation with an intellectual property attorney in Georgia who might be willing to represent you if you are sued.... Read More

It will probably cost you more to fight about it.  That said, there are folks in the news getting in trouble for shaking down Internet users with faulty claims of copyright infringement. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/another-judge-sends-prenda-porn-trolls-to-the-us-attorney/... Read More

An employer may have a right in intellectual property you developed while employed. IP rights the employer received likely are not terminated when you resign.   Specific facts about your situation would make it easier to provide a less ambiguous answer.  For example: were you hired for the purpose of creating this IP or this type of IP, did you have an employment contract, is there an employee manual that mentions IP (or patents/copyrights/trade secrets), is the IP related to the business of your previous employer, etc.... Read More

Trademark law allows companies that sell in unrelated markets to use the same trademarks. As an example, Delta Faucets are sold by a company unrelated to Delta Airlines. They both own the DELTA trademark for their markets and they do not infringe each other.  The Trademark Office will consider the relationship of the markets.  If a company tried to register an athletic apparel trademark and the Trademark Office saw that the trademark was registered for sporting goods, but not apparel, by another company, the athletic apparel mark would likely be rejected. Trademarks in sporting goods and athletic apparel tend to flow into each other's markets. I am not aware of a relationship between the pet supply market and rust prevention market. A relationship could be inferred if you marketed the product specifically for pet cages, for instance.... Read More

Before you send out cease on desist letters, you need to establish that you have some rights that have been violated. You should discuss the situation in detail with a local lawyer. For example, did you have a contract with these former employees that contained a non-compete clause? Did these employees copy any script that you created for these shows? Are the tracks original music created for you or music that is available from other sources. If the tracks were created for you, did you obtain the copyright in the music, and if so, did the former employees copy your tracks or independently reproduce them. These are only some of the questions that need to be answered before you send out a cease and desist letter to anyone, unless you want to find yourself on the wrong end of an unfair competition law suit. While it may seem unfair, it is possible that there is nothing you can do to stop these former employees if the answers to the above questions indicate that you have no enforceable rights in these shows.... Read More

Under the United States Copyright Act, the "author" of a musical work owns the rights to his creation and has the right to preclude it from being copied, or performed publicly, without his consent. This result might be varied by agreement and by certain circumstances of employment. Since you do not provide any facts to suggest that you may have been hired by the university to compose this song, nor do you indicate the terms of any agreement that you may have entered into with the university, ownership of the copyright in the work is presumptively yours. If you have not already registered the copyright in the song, your rights to obtain any kind of financial redress for past infringement, including, extremely importantly, attorneys' fees for enforcement of your past rights, will be limited. Please contact my office if we may assist you in perfecting your rights and enforcing them.... Read More

Generally speaking, the copyright owner in a musical work has the exclusive right to exhibit and reproduce it. Even though your game is not "commercial," many copyright owners object to such uses and will sue to enforce their rights. There may be exceptions or defenses to copyright infringement, but it may cost you thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars to defend yourself even if you succeed. Do the smart thing and either pick different music or obtain permission. Accepting "donations" for the use of your software is generally going to land you in the "commercial" realm, because the "donors'" sole motive in paying is to compensate you for your software, not to support a charity. Your mileage may vary but I wouldn't want to count on being able to qualify as a charitable case.... Read More

It is not possible to give a definitive answer regarding whether any proposed use is "fair." The "fairness" of the use is intensely fact-dependent. The fact that you requested permission to use the clip and were denied actually militates against you. While it is possible that you could get away with using a small portion of the clip, it is also possible that you will be sued and will be forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself.... Read More

Before talking about "blame," there are some basics about copyright that need to be determined. No one should use someone else's photograph without asking permission. However, a legal action could easily cost more than it would it return because it looks as if there are little or no money damages, and an injunction isn't necessary if the business has taken the photo down already. The photographer might be able to ask for "statutory damages" but only if he registered the copyright before the business used his photo. If he didn't register the copyright before then, all he can ask for are actual damages and they sound extremely small to non-existent. While "blame" may lie with the business that used the photo, a legal action by the photographer doesn't seem very lucrative under these facts. Of course, other facts could change this analysis. For example, if the photo included someone's likeness and the use by the business put the subject of the photo in a bad light, then there could be legal issues other than copyright implicated.  ... Read More

Almost always, there is a demand for a payment of fees in a cease and desist letter. You have no legal obligation to pay those fees because there is no judgment against you or an agreement with them under which you have to pay them. They would have to bring a lawsuit against you to get a judgment that would force you to pay them. The cost to draft and file a copyright infringement complaint would almost certainly equal or exceed $750.00, so the likelihood of them taking this action is perhaps not high. However, that is not to say they won't do that. If they were to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, they have to prove that you are liable for copyright infringement. A discussion of that issue and how it may play out in an infringement litigation is something you would need to discuss with an attorney who can see the details of what was on your website and what was complained of, and also find out whether the complaining party had registered the copyright before the material was on your website.... Read More