Friday flights of fancy

There's no excuse for missing the IPKat's 'Forthcoming Events' feature, which you will find in the left-hand side-bar of this weblog's front page. This column is regularly updated so even if you haven't checked it out since last week it's still worth taking another peep.


Are you feeling charitable this weekend? The IPKat's old friend Sarah Harris, better known as the Content Commissioning Editor for the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP), is running the Cancer Research 5k Race for Life on Saturday 7 June (i.e. tomorrow). Sarah is looking for sponsors but she's far too shy to demand money, so the IPKat is making an appeal on her behalf. Please make your donations here. Discerning readers will be delighted to spot the typo on Sarah's fundraising page. The text appears to suggest that she's only seeking to raise £100. There's a missing zero: she really meant £1,000. So, if you want to curry favour with the guardian at JIPLP's gate, at whose whim and amusement articles and current intelligence features are allowed to proceed to publication, please give generously ...
(or you can buy your Running Woman CineSpinner here).


Style carries this tribute to the life of Yves St Laurent, celebrated not only for his vast creative talent but for teaching a generation of post-war English children that the French have a completely different spelling for the word "Wives". His copyrights and designs will persist for many years beyond his death but, thanks to trade mark registration, it can truly be said that his name will almost certainly never be forgotten. The IPKat notes one poignant little sentence in this write-up: "His parents wanted him to study law".


The IPKat's old friend Joff Wild (Editor, Intellectual Asset Management magazine) has emailed to remind him that the nomination process for the IP Hall of Fame 2008 closes on 20 June. To make a nomination, learn more about the IP Hall of Fame Academy and find profiles of last year's inductees, click here.


From the IPKat's friend Birgit Clark comes news from Hollywood Today that, while Prince may have succeeded in convincing YouTube administrators to remove fan videos of his rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” from their servers, footage of the performance has already been reposted by users of the popular site who dispute the “Purple Rain” singer’s right to do so. How did this little spat arise? At a festival in California a few weeks ago, Prince performed "Creep"for the audience -- but instructed his label, NPG Records, to file copyright complaints with YouTube after video clips started to appear online. Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke was not happy about this, suggesting that Prince should be told to unblock the material posted on YouTube because the song did not belong to him. Merpel says, I'm confused: I thought the song was called Prince and the singer was Creep ...


Another snippet of information arriving via Birgit is the news that the China Audio and Video Copyright Collective Management Association has finally been set up in Beijing after a gestation period of 10 years or so, to implement China's "Copyright Collective Management Rule". The association will manage audio- and video-related issues, also assuming the duty of collecting karaoke copyright fees, previously discharged by the China Audio and Video Association. The new organisation will have power to take civil, administrative and even criminal measures to eliminate [yes, that's the word used] copyright infringers.


Finally, the IPKat's learned colleague Professor Ben Challis (Music Law Updates) reports that EMI, Yoko Ono and John Lennon's sons have failed in their effort to stop an American film called 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' -- an attack on critics of creationism -- from using a snippet of John Lennon's classic song 'Imagine'. The film makers, Premise Media, said they were allowed to use the extract under the US fair use doctrine. The IPKat wonders how far the film's distributors will be able to market it internationally before they run into trouble with less generous applications of the Berne/TRIPs three-step test. The full text of the court's decision is here.
Friday flights of fancy Friday flights of fancy Reviewed by Jeremy on Friday, June 06, 2008 Rating: 5

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