CyberLaw Issued a Copyright?

This week's guest columnist is Anthony M. Verna, Esq. from the Law Firm of Anthony Verna.

Posted By Anthony Verna to Trademark, Copyright, and Entertainment Law Forum.

The College Board is suing a company called Karen Dillard's College Prep that has its own review courses for the SAT and PSAT, claiming that some of the questions in the review course are active questions on the SAT and PSAT. Those claims would mean that KDCP is infringing the College Board's copyright on those questions.

This reminded me of PMBR (now partnered with Kaplan), one of the companies that has a review course for the bar exam. PMBR's specialty is aiding in getting a better score on the Multistate Bar Exam, the multiple choice test that is a part of most states' bar exams. PMBR finally lost a case in 2006 in which copyright infringement was alleged by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, who writes the Multistate Bar Exam. PMBR was fined almost $12 million. Wow.

The standardized-review-test industry is in a difficult position. If a company exists, it has to have a mix of its own questions (which may or may not be good enough) and questions that have been used on exams (they're good enough because they were on exams). If I remember correctly - and I can find no outside source to confirm this - one of the founders of PMBR claimed to have a photographic memory (do any lawyers who took this course remember those claims) and that PMBR had been sued before for copyright infringement (but no success were in those suits). It's a tough balance, having to rely upon a template in an industry that comes from another.

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An attorney is trying to register a trademark. That's not unusual. His mark? "Cyberlaw." Seriously.

I find this to be rather egregious. After all, I took a class in law school called Cyberlaw that was a mix of law and technology. It's easy to find a Wikipedia page on the topic. Even though the word was registered as a trademark in 1995, it expired in 2000 and today it must be considered a generic term that's not right for a trademark registration in legal services.


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I look forward to reading more about the case a man filed in Maryland, claiming that the Baltimore Ravens used the logo he created. The Ravens have claimed that they never saw the logo and then changed their logo when they were made aware of the possibly infringing logo.

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Labels: attorney, copyright, cyber law, trademark

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Viral Marketing

The planned topic for this week’s Bulletin, sidewalk (snow/ice) rules and regulations, has instead resulted in an unintended and appreciative nod to Al Gore’s awareness campaign regarding global warming.

Given the editorial opening and our association with our good friend, we introduce our first guest writer ever: Anthony M. Verna, III, Esq. and his concise and insightful explanation of viral marketing. (Our readers may have noticed articles in the past regarding BNI’s marketing tips for the trial law community. Mr. Verna is our expert in patent, copyright, trademark and entertainment law.)


From www.tmcentlawforum.com:

What is a Viral Marketing campaign? Simple, it is a campaign where someone's work is allowed to spread as much as possible (like a virus) so that people become interested in the work and then follow the work to the source. It is, basically, a free sample. It can be listening to 30 seconds of a song and telling friends to go hear the song. It can be one video being passed along so that people then go to the source of the video (a website that hosts that video and others or, for example, a TV show).

In a Viral Marketing campaign, the owner of the copyright in the work(s) has allowed some rights in the copyright(s) to be let go. Generally, it is allowing copies of the work to exist elsewhere and allowing others to distribute the work. All of this is done for no compensation, only to hope that compensation comes down the road in another form.

We all have blogs. Isn't the next step to own your own channel? Done. We recommend the great guys over at magnify.net. Broadcast at will.

Stay safe,

Lina

Labels: broadcast, copyright, entertainment law, marketing, patent, trademark, viral marketing

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