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Category: court cases

Photographic illustration combining image of facade of court, text of Constitution and Copyright Office 150th anniversary graphics

Historic Court Cases That Helped Shape Scope of Copyright Protections

Posted by: Anandashankar Mazumdar

As the Copyright Office celebrates its 150th birthday, we can look back more than 240 years through the history of copyright protections in the United States to see how the law has changed in response to changing technologies and economics. The authors of the U.S. Constitution believed that copyright was important enough to explicitly grant …

U.S. Supreme Court

The Fourth Estate Decision and Copyright Registration

Posted by: George Thuronyi

The following is a guest post by Regan A. Smith, General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights. Last week, the Supreme Court issued an important opinion regarding copyright registration. This blog discusses the decision, and some of the current (and future) options available for rights owners looking to register their copyright claims. What is the …

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Copyright Law and New Technologies: A Long and Complex Relationship

Posted by: George Thuronyi

The following is a guest post by Brad Greenberg, counsel in the U.S. Copyright Office, Office of Policy and International Affairs. Copyright law and new technologies have a long history, arguably dating back to the Gutenberg Press in the 15th century—more than 200 years before passage of the matriarch of copyright statutes, Britain’s Statute of …

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U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies Separability Analysis in its Ruling on Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.

Posted by: George Thuronyi

The following is a guest post by Rachel E. Fertig, a 2015–2017 Barbara A. Ringer Copyright Honors Fellow, serving as an attorney-advisor in the Office of General Counsel and Office of Policy & International Affairs. The Supreme Court’s March 22 opinion in Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc. answered a question that has perplexed …