Recently, in the first tattoo copyright infringement trial against a videogame company, a jury returned a verdict in favor of the tattoo artist. This marks a change in how copyright infringement in the videogame industry will be treated, as prior suits have failed to make it past the summary judgment stage and were in favor …
This week, the Supreme Court will review a novel matter that could dramatically change the landscape of contemporary art law. The controversy surrounds the applicability of the “transformative use” standard in copyright law, a category of the fair use defense to copyright infringement. If the transformative use standard is overturned by this decision, artists’ freedom of …
In August 2014, Taylor Swift released her hit song “Shake It Off,” which has now been viewed on YouTube more than three billion times. However, although this song would go on to break records and garner critical acclaim, it also subjected Swift to a potential trial. In 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed …
Copyrights are broad forms of intellectual property that are given legal protection once the author transforms the work into a “tangible form of expression.” Hence, books, photos, songs, movies, artwork, and other types of expression are subject to copyright protection. With the existence of platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, it is increasingly easy for …
In November of 2021 Taylor Swift released Red (Taylor’s Version), a rerecorded version of her hit 2012 studio album. Red is the second of six albums that Swift plans to rerecord due to a dispute with her former record label, Big Machine, over ownership of the master recordings of those works. The bad blood between …
Since Olivia Rodrigo’s smash-hit debut album Sour was released in May, she has repeatedly faced plagiarism accusations. In response, she retroactively granted songwriting credits to the songwriters whom she allegedly plagiarized. This has happened not once, not twice, but a shocking three times so far. First, she granted songwriting credits to Taylor Swift and Jack …
