Intellectual Property

Court shuts down resale of digital music files

Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the Southern District of New York held that owners of digital music have no right to sell that music to others. Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., 2013 WL 1286134 (S.D.N.Y. 2013). The case involved a company named ReDigi that created a software program that allowed legally-owned digital music files to be transferred by sale from one owner to a buyer in a manner that insured that the file was not retained on the original computer. The...

Read more about Court shuts down resale of digital music files

Second Circuit upholds "hot news" doctrine

A recent case replays the conflict in the famous case of INS v. AP (International News Service v. Associated Press), 248 U.S. 215 (1918), which held that a news organization could stop a rival from selling news it had gathered for a short period when the news was still hot. In effect, the doctrine created a property right against a competitor's use of the information for commercial purposes during the initial sales period. The Second Circuit reaffirmed that doctrine in the case o...

Read more about Second Circuit upholds "hot news" doctrine