Newsletter Archives

• Things you can do in 2025 that you couldn’t do in 2024

  Posted on March 24, 2025 at 02:44 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  Rejoice! The new year brings a new batch of things that were once protected by copyright but are now public domain.

  Let’s review my copyright primer. Under current US law, a copyright comes into existence as soon as an original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium. Originality is not a very high bar — the work needs only to be something created by the author rather than copied.

  Tangible media include electronic storage, so websites qualify.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.12.0, 2025-03-24).

  Legal Brief Copyright Expiration, Copyrights, Fair Use, Legal, Newsletters, Public Domain

• Forces shaping the future: The courts at work

  Posted on September 23, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  Three social factors shape the path of future development of technology: government rules, litigation, and consumer actions.

  In last month’s Legal Brief, we reviewed how government rules and enforcement actions are being used to attempt to influence how technology will develop.

  This time, we’ll look at how litigation — both private and governmental — is being used in attempts to influence the path of technological development.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.39.0, 2024-09-23).

  Legal Brief AI, ByteDance, Consumers, Copyright, Facebook, Fair Use, GARM, Google, Legal, Litigation, Meta, Newsletters, NFT, TikTok

• Note to Congress: Please try to keep up

  Posted on January 9, 2023 at 02:43 CST by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  That’s a big ask.

  In a previous column, I explained why law always lags technology.

  To summarize, case law is by definition reactive. Courts don’t go out and look for cases; they wait for someone to be upset enough to bring one to them. Legislatures can be proactive, but they can’t act until they realize there’s a problem to be acted upon. So it is not surprising that new issues will arise, and we will need to be patient while solutions are agreed upon.

  But …

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.02.0, 2023-01-09).

  Legal Brief Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Fair Use, Legal, Newsletters, Patents

• The problem with copyright: fair use

  Posted on April 5, 2021 at 01:04 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  All might be fair in love and war, but not in copyright

  If you think about copyrights for a moment, it might occur to you that they are unconstitutional. After all, the First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Yet there it is, in Title 17 of the U.S. Code: a law saying that Congress has given copyright owners the power to stop others from copying or publicly performing their copyrighted words.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.12.0 (2021-04-05).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Copyright, Fair Use, Legal Brief