Friday fantasmagoria

Remember to check out the Forthcoming Events feature in the left-hand side-bar of the IPKat's front page --and don't forget to have a lovely weekend!


Intellectual Property Planet is the latest IP weblog to come to the IPKat's attention. It is masterminded by Bulgarian IP enthusiast Ventsi Stoilov and you can visit it here -- but you'd better have your English-Bulgarian phrase book handy, plus a good command of the Cyrillic alphabet, the third official alphabet of the European Union. Always happy to see new entrants to the IP blogging community, the IPKat wishes Ventsi and his venture the best of luck.


Here's a useful set of tools for anyone toiling with European Union legislation. In the Official Journal of the European Union today you can get
* a consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union;
* a consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union;
* Protocols and Annexes;
* Declarations annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon;
* Tables of equivalences.
Don't be in a hurry to print it out, though -- from tip to toe these documents come to some 388 pages of A4.


The IPKat thanks his Beanstalk friend Miri Frankel for this item concerning Tulsa businessman Chris Ohman, who uses the phrases "Barkstrong" and "Purrstrong" on his animal charity's pet collars. Ohman is suing the Lance Armstrong Foundation, alleging that its yellow "LiveStrong" wristbands infringe Ohman's intellectual property rights because it also sells pet collars bearing the word "LiveStrong". Last year the Armstrong Foundation, founded by the eelebrated cancer-suffering cyclist, filed a similar suit against Ohman in Texas, seeking unspecified damages. The IPKat wonders what sort of damage this litigation causes to the good intentions of would-be charitable donors.


From his friend music lawyer Ben Challis the IPKat learns of a CMU Daily report Manchester trio The Get Out Clause have hit on a brilliant new way of making videos. First perform in front of 80 different CCTV cameras (Manchester is well-endowed with these). Then apply for copies of the footage under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Guitarist Tony Churnside is reported to have told Sky News: "We wanted to produce something that looked good and that wasn't too expensive to do". Ben says you can check out the video on YouTube here. Merpel says, with a name like that, I wonder if The Get Out Clause uses Mr Loophole for its legal advice.
Friday fantasmagoria Friday fantasmagoria Reviewed by Jeremy on Friday, May 09, 2008 Rating: 5

5 comments:

  1. Surely a trio is three people, IPKat?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear IP Kat,
    As you write correctly, on the 9th of May 2008,Schuman day,the day of Europe, the consolidated version of the Lisbon treaty was published in the Official Journal. In this treaty, as before, the Member States of the European Union confirmed their strong committment to freedom of expression as well as to other fundamental human rights.

    On the 9th of May 2008, Schuman day, the day of Europe, the OHIM, the European IP Agency in Alicante presided by Mr De Boer, closed down the Oami live blog where European Citizens expressed their opinions freely about different issues related to the personnel policy that Mr De Boer implements in this Agency and its impact on the personnel and the quality of their work.

    The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed under international law through numerous human-rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes preferred, since the right is not confined to verbal speech but is understood to protect any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.

    We are speechless!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear IPKat,
    A question from abroad - could Mr Loophole persuasively argue that since the Manchester Council did not engage a director or producer, no cinematographic copyright existed in the raw CCTV footage? And that the at best peripheral human involvement similarly prevents copyright subsisting in the individual images?
    Craig

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'd be surprised if Get Out Clause were using the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to obtain this information as public authorities are not that keen on handing out CCTV footage willy nilly and would probably rely on section 40(1) to claim it is exempt.
    A subject access request under the Data Protection Act 1998 would be a more fruitful option.
    TAS

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi. How do you know OAMI LIVE was closed by Mr De Boer? On which grounds was it closed? Are you the owner of the blog?

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.