21 artists in Berlin are suing the Berlin council for copyright infringement and two of them are claiming intellectual property theft. The Berlin council recently started renovating the East Side Gallery, a long wall that serves as an outside public gallery. The council claimed the artists would have to repaint their pieces on the wall or they would be forged by other artists (who would be paid of course). If the artists  agreed to repaint the murals, they would be paid €3,000; the artists considered this too low and most did not agree to the amount.  A few artists agreed to repaint their murals while others disagreed. Those that reused to repaint had their murals destroyed. Two of the murals were repainted without the permission of the artists (they are the ones claiming intellectual property theft).

I find it astonishing that the council forged the murals after outright telling the artists that’s what they would do. It’s clearly theft and is infringing on the artists’ rights. I wonder what arguments the Berlin council will use to defend its decision to forge the murals. I do not see how they can use fair use to defend their actions. There is also market harm for the artists. They are being paid much lower rates than would be because the council can find other artists to forge their works.

The destruction of the piece without the artists’ permission also made me think of the public wall piece that everyone found annoying and hoped to destroy. It raises questions about rights of the government, the public, and the artists’ over pieces that are in the public domain. Did the Berlin Council have the right to renovate the wall without consulting the artists first? Did the council have the right to destroy the wall (and thereby the pieces on it) since the city of Berlin owned the wall?

An article posted on diigo seemed to be quite interesting. It appears that the court ruled against Louis Vuitton’s allegations that Nadia Plesner committed copyright infringement with her art piece “Darfurnica” (which can be seen in the article).  The piece consisted of an emancipated child holding a patterned Louis Vuitton bag. She posted the picture on her website. Louis Vuitton wanted an injunction to prevent her from posting the piece anywhere online and wanted her to pay €5,000 for each day the piece appeared on her website. The court refused to order such injunctions and claimed her right to self-expression outweighed Louis Vuitton’s property protection: ” the importance of Plesner (freedom of expression through her work) outweighs the importance of Vuitton (protection of property). Using Plesner of the design is considered functional by the court and proportionate.” The court also stated that Vuitton had to pay Plesner’s all her legal fees.

It is worth mentioning that the handbag was only a small portion of the entire work. The piece could stand alone without the pattern on the handbag. However, there is a certain message the artist wants to get across to the audience with the use of a name-brand bag, which is perhaps why the court brought up the idea of self-expression. Plesner thought the verdict in her case would encourage other artists to make references to other modern day objects and so on. Plesner is right when she stated that if she had lost the case other artists would censor their works more because they would become paranoid. They would avoid certain objects or images in their pieces that could have made their pieces stronger because they wouldn’t want to be sued (even if it would create some awareness of their pieces).

The court’s assertion that self-expression is more important than property protection. Is this true? It could be argued that if people feel that their pieces (which shows their self-expression, their ideas) are not well protected they might not created more pieces. Would there be a decrease in the production of new works? I think if this ever did occur, the decrease might be slight. I think self-expression is very important to artists and they want to use materials that will make their message more powerful.

CBS is being sued “for facilitating “massive copyright infringement” for distributing the LimeWire software.” It seems preposterous, but it’s happening. The plaintiffs, Detron Bendross, of 2 Live Crew, Trisco Smith-Pearson of The Force MDs and Eric Jackson and De’Angelo Holmes, both of the Ying Yang Twins, claim that CBS was “well-aware” of its infringing uses, but continued to distribute it for profit. CBS makes money through pay-per-download revenues that Limewire made through advertising.

The suit comes at a time when the head of Limewire is already on trial for massive infringement by facilitation. Currently, the record labels who filed suit against Limewire are asking for one billion dollars in damages. Mark Howard Gorton, the creator of Limewire, is not just some tech enthusiast working out of his bedroom. He is probably in a position to pay quite a bit of money. He is also the owner of a hedge fund and a financial consultancy firm.

In class we’ve discussed that services that have significant uses other than copyright infringement couldn’t be touched by authorities. I think the same could be said about peer-to-peer file sharing services to distribute information that may be illegal. For example, The Yes Men are being sued by The U.S. Chamber of Commerce for a stunt they pulled faking a press conference to announce the Chamber’s backing of President Obama’s environmental policies. Now they can’t include the stunt on their DVD, but they released a version with the stunt onto the Internet, knowing that it could never be taken down. The other thing is, how many degrees of Kevin Bacon do you have to be from infringement to be safe from getting sued?

My final paper is on the international copyright interests in China. One of the main issues I address is the cultural and historical reasons the Chinese wouldn’t have any interest in respecting some other country’s intellectual property. I thought it was cool in a stick-it-to-the-man kind of way. Then I read this article saying that Serbia not only doesn’t care about protecting other countries’ copyright, they don’t even have one of their own, and they are doing just fine without it.

It seems that the Serbian government has adopted international standards similar to WIPO, but restriction and enforcement don’t often grow together in IP. What this means is that Serbia can act as an IP Petri dish. The most important part will be whether they develop a rich culture of production or if, like China, they will just be a cultural pirate culture.

It’s hard to imagine a place where creative commons would be a step backwards for consumer’s rights. I think there are few people who would embrace such an extreme revolution in copyright, but do you theoretically could work? Would it be more detrimental to the artists or the corporations, and would it be bad for the culture?

LimeWire is one of the largest and most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing programs. While LimeWire was launches in 2000, it really gained popularity after Napster was shut down. LimeWire was known for the fact that it was incredibly user friendly. Two versions of the software existed, the basic free version and the Pro version, which required a subscription-based fee in order to access it.  In the last few years, the record industry has been hard as a result of digital piracy. Many founders of peer-to-peer programs were sued as a result of this, and LimeWire was no acceptation.

In 2010, Lime Wire LLC and its founder, Mark Gorton, were hit with a lawsuit it could not ignore. A judge found the company guilty of copyright infringement, creating unfair competition, and encouraging the copyright infringement of countless others. This ruling was the result of a case against them by the RIAA.  As part of the lawsuit, the company was forced to shut the program down.  RIAA announced that they plan to bring a second lawsuit against the company and founder in an attempt to receive the $75 trillion in damages RIAA claims they deserve.

Lime wire LCC has decided to fight back.  The company has moved forward with what they feel is a solid defense. The major labels claim that LimeWire and similar services are the reason for 52% decrease in music sales over the past decade. This is not so claims LimeWire. Consumers are the ones to blame here. They figured out how to acquire music for free, and there is no turning back now.  As explained in this article, http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/05/05/limewire-quotes-label-execs-defense-copyright-charges , the company even went so far as to quote record label employees in their defense.

“We inadvertently went to war with consumers … [and] consumers won,” Warner Music head Edgar Bronfman, Jr., wrote in an internal memo produced in court.

Is Lime Wire a product of the current music industry? Or a program that encourages copyright and must be stopped?

The article and issue is a bit old (January of this year) but after seeing some  balloon dogs at the Strawberry festival, I thought it was worth bringing up. Jeff Koons, the one who created balloon dogs, decided Park Life, a small gallery/store, and Imm-Living, a manufacturing company were violating his intellectual property rights. Park Life was selling bookends of the balloon dogs that Imm-Living manufactured to them. Koon’s lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to both Park Life and Imm-Living to which Park Life claimed they did not know Koons had the IP rights over the balloon dogs. Moreover, a co-founder of Park Life claimed the bookends were  different (albeit slightly) because they were less bulbous and came in matte colors. Park Life did not heed the cease-and-desit letters and continued to sell the balloon dog bookends ($30 each).

While bloggers mocked Koons claiming he wanted to own all balloon dogs, some experts thought it would be difficult for him to argue the bookends violated copyright. Also, there is not much of a market harm because his min-sculpture dogs sold from $7,250-$12,500.  Robert Clarida, an IP lawyer, claimed that the decision would have to be based on specifics of what made Koons’ s balloon dogs special and whether the book ends copied those traits. Clarida thought Koons had a better argument with trademark infringement.

A month after Park Life received the cease and desist letters, Koons dropped the case. It seemed like both parties were able to gain something at the end: more acknowledge from the public. However, I am curious whether Koons would have won or not if he had continued with the case. Also, does he have a better argument with trademark violation rather than IP infringement?